A BELLE OF THE FIFTIES: MEMOIRS OF MRS. CLAY OF ALABAMA
Part 4 of 7 Parts

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Kelly Mullins (kellyj@snowcrest.net)
May 17, 2000


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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 4

Page 163

pandemonium. The ceremony was as strange and blood-curdling as
any rite that might be imagined in the interior of the Dark
Continent.

        Once, upon the occasion of a visit of two New York
friends, one candidate for baptism, a black man, a veritable
Goliath, broke loose from those who tried to hold him and ran up
the hill in his ecstasy, bellowing like a wounded buffalo. The
sounds were enough to excite unmixed horror in the unaccustomed
listener, but the appearance of the enthusiast to me was more
comical than terrifying; for, being in his stockings, and these
conspicuous by reason of their enormous holes, his heels,
revealed at every step, appeared as they flashed up the acclivity
like the spots on a bull-bat's wings. When this sable son of Anak
took the field, the spectators scattering right and left, my
friends turned toward me as if panic-stricken. They paused but a
brief moment, then, "standing not upon the order of their going,"
they, too, fled from the possible charge of the half-crazed
enthusiast. It was no uncommon thing at such baptisms for the
candidates to suffer from an attack of "Jerks," a kind of spasm
which resulted from their excited imaginations. I have seen the
strength of four stout men tested to its utmost to hold down one
seemingly delicate negress, who, fired by the "glory in her
soul," was now become its victim, jerking and screaming in a
manner altogether horrible to witness.

        Above the spring and about the picturesque Square and
Court House, in the spring and early summer of '61 the gay-
hearted youth of Madison County, thronging to the county seat,
met in companies to drill and prepare themselves for service in
the war now upon us. Already, by the early part of June, Alabama
had "contributed to the Confederacy about 20,000 muskets and
rifles," though she retained of these, "for her own immediate
protection and defense, only four thousand! I hope,"

Page 164

wrote Governor A. B. Moore, in sending this information to Mr.
Clay, "that volunteer companies throughout the State will put the
rifles and double-barrelled shot-guns in order, and drill them
until called into actual service."

        The youths and men of Madison County needed small urging.
They were heart and soul for the conflict that at last must be
waged to preserve the homes of their fathers, the heritages that
were to be theirs, and their right to independent government.
These were the incentives of our soldiers, allied to each other,
regiment by regiment, by blood and long association. There was no
need for alien hirelings to swell our ranks. The questions at
issue were vital, and every Southern man who could bear arms
sprang eagerly to assume them.

        Upon our arrival in Huntsville we found the city alive
with preparations for defense, our mail heavy with reports from
every quarter of the South, of friends and kinsmen who had
entered the army, and many exhilarated by the battles already
won. An idea may be gathered of the confluent interests that
bound together our Southern army, by a mention, as an example, by
no means unique, of the ramifications of the two families
represented by Senator Clay and myself. My husband's uncle,
General Withers, was already in command at Mobile; his brother,
Hugh Lawson Clay, was in Lynchburg, recruiting; his cousin, Eli
S. Shorter, was enrolled as Colonel in the C. S. A., besides whom
there were enlisted numerous cousins of the Withers, Comer, and
Clayton families. Thirty-nine cousins of my own, bearing the name
of Williams, were in the field at one time, and innumerable
Arlingtons, Drakes and Boddies, Hilliards, Tunstalls and Battles
served the beloved cause in various capacities in civil and
military life.

        These conditions knit neighbourhoods as well as regiments
very closely together, and largely go to furnish an explanation
of our long struggle against the numerically

Page 165

superior armies of our invaders. Our victories in those early
days were great, though the blood spilled to gain them was
precious; but the sound of mourning was stilled before the
greater need for encouragement to the living. "Beauregard and
Johnston have given the fanatics something to meditate upon,"
wrote a cousin in July of '61. "A despatch says that our loss was
three thousand, theirs seven thousand. Steady Beauregard and 
brave Johnston! We owe them our gratitude!"

        Yes! we owed them gratitude and we gave it to them and to
every man in the ranks. The women at home knitted and sewed,
sacrificed and prayed, and wept, too, especially the aged, as
they packed away the socks and underwear and such comforts for
the young men in the field as might be pressed into a soldier's
knapsack. "I met Mr. Lamar's mother," wrote my sister from Macon,
late in May, "and spoke to her of her son's having gone to
Montgomery. She had not heard of it before and burst into tears!
This is her fourth and last son gone to the war!"

        From Huntsville had gone out the gallant E. D. Tracy,
who, now at Harper's Ferry, wrote back most thrilling accounts of
military proceedings in that important section of our Confederate
States:

        "I continue entirely well," began a letter dated from
Camp, near Harper's Ferry, June 8, 1861: "And, while I perfectly
agree with, since conversing with, General Smith, in regard to
our situation, am in good spirits. I trust I am ready to die when
my hour comes, as becomes a Christian soldier and gentleman;
until that hour, I am proof against shell and shot. If the enemy
attacks us 'we'll memorise another Golgotha' and achieve a
victory, or martyrdom. Our men believe the post to be impregnable
and are anxious for fight; if they were better informed, I have
no idea that their courage would be in the least abated.

Page 166

        "From the arrival of troops during the last few days, I
conclude that it is the purpose of Government to hold Harper's
Ferry. At one time I think that point was undecided, and am glad
to believe that it is now settled as stated. The moral effect of
an evacuation of a place believed to be a Gibraltar would be
terribly disastrous to our cause; it would encourage our enemies,
depress our troops, and disappoint the expectation of the world.
Better that we perish in making a gallant defense than that such
consequences should be risked."

        My sister, Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, who had joined her
husband in Lynchburg, wrote buoyantly, yet gravely, from that
troubled centre: "I wrote you a long, long letter last Saturday,"
begins one epistle from her, "but Mr. Clay would not let me send
it, because, he said, I told too much. He was afraid it might be
read by other eyes than yours. ... I look hourly to hear the
result of an awful battle. I cannot but fear, for we cannot hope
to gain such victories often as the one at Bethel Church. ...
Here we hear everything, for there are persons passing all the
time to and from Winchester and Manassas Junction. So many men
from this place are stationed there that mothers and sisters
manage to hear every day. Mr. Tracy wrote in his last that he
fully expected to be in a big battle. His men were eager for the
fight, and he would be sure to write as to the result, if it did
not result in a termination of his life's candle!"

        As the time drew near for the opening of Congress in
Richmond, Mr. Clay's health, spurred to a better state by an
eager patriotism, eager to express itself in the forum if
debarred from the field, became appreciably restored, and
preparations were begun for an absence of a few months from
Huntsville. Anxious as everyone was throughout the South, and
feeling the strain even of victory, now flowing toward us and
again ebbing to our

Page 167

enemies, my husband and I had few misgivings concerning the
safety of the home we were leaving. A hundred greater dangers
surrounded Richmond (as it was thought), that lay so near to the
Federal lines and was the prize above all others which we looked
to see grappled for. Yet our field lay there, and, in
anticipation, it seemed a pleasant and an active one, for already
it was peopled with throngs of our former friends.

        "I almost imagined myself in Washington," wrote Mrs.
Philip Phillips, now returning from the Federal capital, where
for months she had been a prisoner. "There ate so many dear, old
friends [in Richmond] - Mrs. Mallory, Mrs. Joe Johnston, and
others - awaited us at the Spottswood Hotel. I spent an evening
with Mrs. Davis, who received me with great feeling. ... We
have a terrible struggle before us. The resources of Lincoln's
army are great, and a defensive war will prove our greatest
safeguard, but, it is presumption in speaking thus; only, having
come so recently from the seat of war, my ideas, founded upon
practical knowledge of what is going on at the North, may derive
some value. I brought on from Washington, sewed in my corsets, a
programme of the war sent to me by a Federal officer, many of
whom are disaffected. The capitalists of the North demand a
decisive blow, else they will not back the Government."

Page 168

CHAPTER XII
RICHMOND AS A NATIONAL CAPITAL

        RICHMOND, as seen from the hill, with the James River
flowing by, its broad, level streets, full foliaged trees, and
spacious homes, is a beautiful city. Rich in historic
association, never did it appear more attractive to Southern eyes
than when, arriving in the late autumn of '61, we found our
Confederate Government established there, and the air full of
activity. To accommodate the influx of Congressional and military
folk, the houses of the patriotic residents were thrown open,
until the capacity of every residence, hotel and lodging-house
was tested to the fullest. By the time Senator Clay and I
arrived, there was scarcely an extra bed to be had in the city,
and though everywhere it was apparent that an unsettled feeling
existed, there was nothing either indeterminate or volatile in
the zeal with which the dense community was fired. As the new-
comers, for the greater part, represented families which a season
before had been conspicuous in Washington, society was in the
most buoyant of spirits. Our courage was high, for our army had
won glorious battles against remarkable odds, and, though gallant
men had fallen, as occasion demanded them, new heroes sprang to
meet it.

        For a few months we revelled in canvas-backs and green-
backs, undisturbed by forewarnings of coming draw-backs. To
furnish the tables of Richmond nearly all the ducks in Chesapeake
Bay fell victims. We feasted on oysters and terrapin of the
finest, and unmeasured hospitality was the order of the day on
every

Page 169

side. Never had I looked upon so great an activity, whether
military, political, or social. I had demurred when, as we were
about to start for the capital, my maid packed an evening dress
or two.

        "We are going to war, Emily," I said; "we shall have no
need for velvet or jewels. We are going to nurse the sick; not to
dress and dance." But Emily's ardour on my behalf led her to
rebel.

        "There's bound to be somethin' goin' on, Miss 'Ginie,'"
she declared, "an' I ain't goin' to let my Mistis be outshined by
Mis'- an' dem other ladies!" And, despite my protests, the gowns
were duly packed. There were many occasions afterward when I
blessed the thoughtfulness of my little gingerbread-tinted maid;
for there were heroes to dine and to cheer in Richmond, both
civil and military, and sombre garments are a sorry garb in which
to greet or brighten the thoughts of men tired with the strain of
building or fighting for a government.

        A sororal spirit actuated our women, and while our
greatest entertainment missed some of the mere display which had
marked the social events in the Federal City, they were happier
gatherings, for we were a people united in interest and in heart.
Some of the brightest memories I carry of that first session are
of informal evenings where neighbours gathered sans cérémonie. I
recall one such spent at the home of the Mallorys, the occasion
being a dinner given to Brigadier General John H. Morgan, who did
the Confederacy such gallant service, and was rewarded while in
Richmond by the hand of one of its prettiest daughters, Miss
Reedy, who had been a favourite in Washington society. A daughter
of Mr. Reedy, M.C., from Tennessee, she was the first girl of her
day in Washington to wear a curl upon her forehead, which
coquettish item of coiffure was soon imitated by a hundred
others.

Page 170

        The family of Mr. Mallory was a model one, every member
seeming to have his or her share in rounding out the general
attractiveness. An informal meal taken with that family was an
experience long to be remembered, for the little children took
each his turn in asking the blessing, which was never omitted,
and which was especially impressive in those days, in which the
shadows of growing privations soon grew to be recognised if not
openly discussed or admitted. Our Secretary of the Navy, Mr.
Mallory, was the merriest of hosts, with a wit as sudden and as
brilliant as sheet-lightning, and a power of summing up, when he
chose to exert it, both events and people, in the most amusing
manner. A picture remains clearly in my mind of the evening
devoted to General Morgan. Ruby Mallory, then about thirteen
years of age, recited for us Holmes's "The Punch-bowl," while our
host, in hearty enjoyment of the verses,

              "Stirred the posses with his ladle,"

to the rhythm of his little daughter's speech.

        During our first winter in Richmond my husband and I made
our home with Mrs. Du Val, near to the Exchange Hotel, a
terrifically over-crowded hostelry at all Confederate times, and
within a short walk of the Seddon home, now the Executive
Mansion. It was a commodious and stately structure, in which our
President, now domiciled, lived with an admirable disdain of
display. Statesmen passing through the halls on their way to the
discussion of weighty things were likely to hear the ringing
laughter of the care-free and happy Davis children issuing from
somewhere above stairs or the gardens. The circle at Mrs. Du
Val's, our headquarters, as it came and went for three eventful
years, comprised some of our former Washington mess-mates, and
others newly called into public service. Among the favourites was
General J. E. B. Stuart, a rollicking fellow, who loved music,
and

Page 171

himself could sing a most pleasing ballad. He was wont to dash up
to the gate on his horse, his plumes waving, and he appearing to
our hopeful eyes a veritable Murat. He was a gallant soldier,
what might be termed delightful company, and one of the most
daring cavalry officers our service boasted. Twice, with
comparatively but a handful of men, he circled McClellan's big,
unwieldly force as it lay massed, for months at a time,
contemplating the possibility of closing in upon our capital. It
may be said that upon his return to Richmond after his first
brilliant feat, General Stuart was the idol of the hour. When the
exigencies of the service brought him again and again to the
capital, he entered heartily into its social relaxations. Two
years passed. He was conspicuous one night in charades, and the
next they brought him in, dying from a ghastly wound received
upon the battle-field.

        I have said we were in gay spirits during that first
session of the Confederate Congress; but this condition was
resolved upon rather than the spontaneous expression of our real
mood, though hope was strong and we were armed with a conviction
of right upon our side, and with the assurance of the courage of
our soldiers, which filled us with a fine feminine scorn of the
mere might of our assailants. Our editors, filled with patriotism
and alert, kept us informed of the stirring events of the field
and of the great victories which, until the loss of Fort Donelson
and the fall of Nashville, so often stood to our credit. Scarcely
a triumph, nevertheless, in which was not borne down some friend
who was dear to us, so that all news of victory gained might be
matched with the story of fearful loss. However, such was our
loyalty to the cause, that the stimulus of our victories overbore
the sorrow for our losses, sustaining our courage on every side.
Before that first session of Congress adjourned, we had buried an
army of brave men, among them Generals

Page 172

Zollicoffer and Albert Sidney Johnston. Our coast was closed by
the blockading fleets of the Federal Government. We had lost New
Orleans, and the Tennessee Valley was slipping from us.
Huntsville, which lay directly in the path of the invading army,
itself threatened, was now become a hospital for the wounded from
abandoned Nashville. By the early spring the news from our family
was ominous of deeper disaster to our beloved town.

        "The public stores have been sent on from Nashville,"
wrote mother, early in March of '62 from Huntsville, "and from
four to ten thousand men are said to be here or expected....
Yesterday the excitement was greater than I have known. Men were
seen walking or riding quickly, and martial music told the tale
of danger. ... There are said to be a thousand sick and wounded
here. They have no bedding but a blanket, and are placed in
houses through which the wind blows. Rain spurts over the sick
men's couches, cooling their fever and making their blood
congeal, so that death interposes for their relief! It is
rumoured that the President will be here to-night. People were up
(last night) till two o'clock, waiting to see him ....

        General Pillow is at the hotel, but told Dr. Slaughter he
would not bring Mrs. Pillow here, as General Buell intends to
make this place his headquarters! ... I have no time to
speculate on the future, but try to encourage others to have
courage and faith, and not to discourage our soldiers by
permitting their fears to be known; but to stimulate them by
letting them see the firmness and calm trustfulness with which we
commit more than our lives to their keeping!"

        The news of Huntsville's danger was our private anxiety
in Richmond, where each Senator and Congressman carried the
burden of apprehension for his own kin

Page 173

and family possessions well concealed; for at the capital the
nation's losses and gains loomed large and obscured the lesser
ones of individuals. Moreover, always before us was the stimulus
of the presence of fearless men and the unceasing energy of our
President.

        I remember on one occasion seeing President Davis passing
down the street, beside him, on the left, General Buckner; on the
right, General Breckenridge - three stalwart and gallant men as
ever walked abreast; and as I watched them the thought came
involuntarily, "Can a cause fail with such men at the head?"

        Throughout the life of Richmond as a capital, the streets
were peopled with soldiers on their way to or from the several
headquarters. There was an unintermitting beating of drums, too
often muffled, and the singing of merry bugles. With the
knowledge that we were in the city which, more than any other,
invited and defied the attacks of the enemy, a sense of danger
spurred our spirits. Though the boom of guns was often not a
distant sound, and the solemn carrying in of our wounded became
increasingly frequent, few gave way to apprehensions or doubts;
for, as I have said, there were heroes in Richmond to cheer, and
our women, putting away from their minds the remembrance of the
wounds they had dressed in the morning visit to the hospitals,
smiled and devised entertainments well calculated to lift the
burden of responsibility, at least for the time being, from the
minds and hearts of our leaders, legislative and military. Among
the most active hostesses were Mrs. Randolph, wife of one of the
members of President Davis's Cabinet, and Mrs. Ives, who put on
some charming private theatricals in their parlours; there were
the Lees and Harrimans; the Ritchies and Pegrams and Welfords;
the Masons and Warwicks, MacFarlanes, Seldens, Leighs (near
relatives, these, of Patrick Henry); besides the

Page 174

Branders, West Robinsons, Walkers, Scotts, Coxes, Cabells,
Semmes, Ives, and other hostesses of renown and long pedigree,
whose homes dispensed the friendliest hospitality.

        "Do you not remember?" wrote Mrs. Semmes, of New Orleans,
to whom I put some queries concerning an episode of that life in
Richmond, "do you not remember Mrs. Stannard, who had such a
charming house and gave such delicious teas, alluring such men as
Soulé, Commodore Barrow, Henry Marshall, of Louisiana, Butler
King, and last, though not least, our dear old Vice-President
Stephens? She boasted that she never read a book, and yet all
these distinguished gentlemen gathered around her board and ate
those hot muffins and broiled chicken with gusto!"

        These, and unnumbered other faces, rise before me as I
recall the great amateur performance of "The Rivals," which made
that first winter in Richmond memorable and our hostess, Mrs.
Ives, famous. In that performance Constance Cary, a beauty of the
Fairfax family, captured all hearts as the languishing Lydia,
among them that of our President's Secretary, Colonel Burton
Harrison, whose wife she afterward became.

        Recalling that interesting evening, Mrs. Harrison wrote
very recently, "It seems an aeon since that time, but I have a
very vivid recollection of the fun we had and of how prettily
Mrs. Ives did everything, spite of grim-visaged war! How I wish I
could do anything now with the same zest and rapture with which I
put on Lydia's paduasoy and patches! Brother Clarence, then a
very youthful midshipman, was the Fag, and my hero, Captain
Absolute, was Mr. Lee Tucker, who has vanished, for me, into the
mists of time! I have not heard his name in years!"

        The fame of that entertainment, the excitement which the
preparation for it caused, spread far beyond the picket

Page 175

lines, and we heard afterward that a daring officer of
McClellan's army had planned to don the Confederate uniform and
cross the lines to take a peep at the much-talked-of performance.
"There was a galaxy of talent and beauty in that fairest city of
the South," writes my friend, Mrs. Ives, recalling, in 1903,
those scenes of the early sixties, "from which I was able to
select a strong cast which pre-assured us a brilliant
performance. Miss Cary was bewitching, her fair beauty
accentuated by the rich costumes she donned for the occasion and
which had been worn by her distinguished ancestors in the days of
the Old Dominion's glory! Your sister-in-law, Mrs. H. L. Clay,
was so fascinating as Lucy that she captivated her husband anew,
as he afterward told me; and then, besides, there was pretty Miss
Herndon, who tortured her Falkland into jealousy." *

        As that historic evening's pleasures crown all other
recollections of social life in the Confederate capital, so soon
to be in the eclipse of sorrow and undreamed-of privations, I
cannot refrain from recording some incidents of it. Those who
took part in the performance (or their descendants) are now
scattered in every State of the Union, and it is only by the
coöperation of some who remember, among them Mrs. Cora Semmes
Ives, of Alexandria, Va., Mrs. Myra Knox Semmes, of New Orleans,
and Mrs. Burton Harrison, of New York, that I am enabled to
gather together again the names of the cast which charmed
Richmond's three hundred during the first session of the C. S. A.
Congress. They were:

* Of Mrs. Clay herself, renowned for her histrionic talent, Mrs.
Ives wrote: "It was the hope of having you take the part of Mrs.
Malaprop that encouraged me to undertake the amateur production
of Sheridan's play. I felt sure that if all others failed, your
acting would redeem all deficiencies. You carried the audience by
storm. ... I can see you yet, in imagination, in your rich
brocaded gown, antique laces and jewels, high puffed and curled
hair, with nodding plumes which seemed to add expression to your
amusing utterances!" A. S.

Page 176

Sir Anthony Absolute ..... Mr. Randolph, of Richmond
Captain Absolute     ..... Mr. Lee Tucker
Sir Lucius O'Trigger (and he had an unapproachable brogue) Robert
W. Brown, N. Carolina
Fag                  ..... Midshipman Clarence Cary
David                ..... Mr. Robinson, of Richmond
Lydia Languish       ..... Miss Constance Cary, Virginia
Julia                ..... Miss Herndon, Virginia
Lucy, maid to Lydia  ..... Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, Alabama
Mrs. Malaprop        ..... Mrs. Clement C. Clay, Alabama
Harpist, Mrs. Semmes Fitzgerald
Pianist, Miss Robinson.

        For this great occasion no efforts were spared in the
rehearsing of our cast, nor in the preparation of our wardrobe.
Mrs. Drew, being at that time engaged in playing a precarious
engagement at the local theatre (the price of seats not exceeding
seventy- five cents, as befitted the times), was invited to a
private consultation and criticism of the parts, and it gives me
some pleasure, even at this day, to remember her approval of my
interpretation of the difficult role I had had the hardihood to
assume. Our Sir Lucius acquired for the occasion a brogue so rich
that almost as much time (and trouble) were necessary to
eradicate it from his speech in the weeks that followed as had
been spent in attaining it.

        The defection of one of the cast for the after-piece
(Bombastes Furioso) caused our hostess to display a genuine
ability for stage management. Unacquainted with the part she was
herself compelled to assume, Mrs. Ives resolved to bring her
audience to a state of leniency for any possible shortcomings by
dazzling them with the beauty of her apparel. A picture hat from
Paris had just run the blockade and arrived safely to the hands
of little Miss Ruby Mallory, for whom it had been destined. It
was a Leghorn, trimmed with azure velvet and plumes of the same
shade. It was an especially appropriate headgear for a character
given to dreaming "that all the pots

Page 177

and pans had turned to gold," and an appeal made to the owner
brought it swiftly into the possession of Mrs. Ives. Her success
was instantaneous. "I declare," she said when the play was over,
"nothing but that Paris hat saved me from an attack of stage
fright!"

        The home of Lieutenant Ives on this occasion was crowded
to its utmost capacity, the guests comprising President and Mrs.
Davis, the Cabinet and Congressional members, together with
prominent generals, numbering in all three hundred. The stage,
erected under the supervision of our host, an expert engineer,
was a wonderful demonstration of his ingenuity. Placed at one end
of the long Colonial parlours, it commanded the eye of every
visitor. The performance gave the utmost delight to our audience,
and Secretary Mallory, who had seen "The Rivals" (so he told me)
in every large city of the United States, and on the boards at
Drury Lane, declared it had never been given by a cast at once so
brilliant and so able! Be that as it may, the remembrance of that
performance for forty years has remained as the most ambitious
social event in the Confederate States' capital.

Page 178

CHAPTER XIII
GLIMPSES OF OUR BELEAGUERED SOUTH LAND

        WHILE few, I think, perceived it clearly at that early
day, yet in the spring of '62 the fortunes of the Confederacy
were declining. Many of our wisest men were already doubtful of
the issue even where belief in the justice of our cause never
wavered. Looking back upon the prophecies of ultimate defeat that
were uttered in those days, by men accustomed to sound the
security of governments, I am thrilled at the flood of patriotic
feeling on which our men and women were borne to continue in arms
against such overwhelming forces and conditions as were brought
against them. For months before that first Congress adjourned,
from every part of our federated States, eager petitioning,
complaints and ominous news reached us. Gold, that universal
talisman, was scarce, and Confederate currency began to be looked
upon with a doubtful eye. So far-seeing a man as Judge John A.
Campbell, writing to Mrs. Campbell from New Orleans early in
April, 1862, said: "In the event of the restoration of Northern
rule, Confederate money may be worthless. I proceed on that
assumption. It will certainly depreciate more and more. Hence,
your expenditures should be Confederate money, and, in any event,
the bank-notes of Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana are preferable
to Confederate bills. If the war should last another year, the
embarrassments of everyone will be increased tenfold!"

        Within a few months the face of our capital had changed.
McClellan's ever-swelling army in the peninsula became more and
more menacing. The shadow of

Page 179

coming battles fell over the city, and timid ones hastened away
to points that promised more security. Some went to the mountain
resorts "to escape the hot term" in Richmond, but many of the
wives and daughters of non-householders, even among those known
to possess a cool courage, moved on to the Carolinas or returned
to their native States. As the close of the Congressional session
drew near, there was a continual round of good-byes and hand-
shakings, and even an attempt now and then at a gaiety which no
one actually felt.

        Our markets grew suddenly poor, and following quickly
upon the heels of a seeming prosperity, a stringency in every
department of life in the city was felt. The cost of living was
doubled, and if, indeed, any epicures remained, they were glad to
put aside their fastidiousness. Within a year our vermicelli,
when we had it at all, would have warranted an anglicising of its
first two syllables, and our rice, beans, and peas, as well as
our store of grains and meal, began to discover a lively interest
in their wartime surroundings. We heard tales of a sudden demand
for green persimmons, since a soldier, feeding upon one of these,
could feel his stomach draw up and at once forget that he was
"hawngry." I remember hearing the story of a certain superficial
lady who spoke disdainfully, in the hearing of Mrs. Roger A.
Pryor, of a barrel of sorghum which some friend had sent her from
a distance. Full of contempt, she ordered the offending gift to
be taken away. "Horrid stuff!" she said.

        "Horrid?" asked Mrs. Pryor, gently. "Why! in these days,
with our country in peril, I am grateful when I am able to get a
pitcher of sorghum, and I teach my children to thank God for it!"

        Our mail, from many quarters, was now become a Pandora's
box, from which escaped, as we opened it, myriad apprehensions,
dissatisfactions or distresses. "Pray," wrote a friend from New
Orleans, "when you see

Page 180

the President, beg him to give some attention to the disloyal
element in the cities, and particularly in this city, which is
filled with strangers who appear and disappear in the most
mysterious manner, go to private boardinghouses, examine the
defenses, etc., etc."

        "I am thus far on my way home," wrote William L. Yancey,
from the same city, in a letter dated March 14, 1862, "having
left Havana on the 26th ultimo on a small schooner, and arrived
at Sabine Pass on the 6th. Two of Lincoln's vessels had been
anchored in the channel of that harbour for a week and only left
twenty-four hours before my arrival. ... This city is almost in
a state of revolution," he added. "Fifteen hundred of its
weathiest and most respectable citizens and good Southerners have
organised an association and resolved to assume executive and
judicial functions to arrest, try, imprison, banish or hang! . .
. .There is undoubtedly a deep-seated feeling of wrong done them
and of anxiety for the city's safety at the bottom of all this,
and this association should not be treated as a mere lawless mob.
Their success, however, would be the knell of our cause in
England, and perhaps on the Continent. I am doing all I can to
throw oil on the troubled waters, and I hope with some effect."

        Shortly after his arrival in Richmond, Mr. Yancey, whom
my husband greatly admired, spent a morning in our chamber -
space was too costly at this time to admit of our having a
private parlour - in conference with Mr. Clay, and a more
hopeless and unhappy statesman I never saw. The people in
England, he declared, were for, but Parliament opposed to us, and
his mission, therefore, had been fruitless. Every action and each
word he uttered demonstrated that he knew and felt the ultimate
downfall of the Confederacy.

        By a singular coincidence, almost under the same
circumstances but some months later, a similar conference

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took place in our rooms, but Mr. Lamar was now the returned
diplomat. But recently home from an unfinished mission to Russia,
our long-time friend talked, as had Mr. Yancey, with a conviction
that our cause was hopeless. Mr. Lamar had proceeded only so far
as London and Paris, when, observing the drift of public feeling
abroad, he took ship again, arriving, as did many of our returned
foreign emissaries, on the top of a friendly wave. The sea was
peculiarly inimical to the cause of the Confederate States,
sinking many of the merchant ships we succeeded in sending
through the blockading fleets that beset our coast, and wrecking
our ambassadors wherever it could grapple them, even on our very
shores.

        By the time Congress closed in the spring of '62 the news
from the Tennessee Valley was distracting. The enemy had
succeeded in reaching our home, and Huntsville was now become the
headquarters of General O. M. Mitchell. If that gentleman had
taken delight in anything besides the vigorous exercise of an
unwelcome authority, he might have found there an ideal spot for 
the prosecution of his astronomical researches. The span that
rests upon the opposite apices of Monte Sano and Lookout Mountain
is one of gorgeous beauty. Upon a clear night the planets glow
benignly upon the valley, the little stars laugh and leap and go
shooting down great distances in a manner unparalleled in more
northerly latitudes. Though generally loyal to the cause of the
Confederacy, the people of Huntsville were not indisposed to look
upon the author-soldier with considerate eyes, had that General
adopted a humane course toward them. Unfortunately, his career in
our valley from beginning to end was that of a martinet bent upon
the subjugation of the old and helpless and the very young, our
youths and strong men being away in the field.

        The accounts that reached us by letter and by eye-
witnesses of the scenes in the Clay home were alarming.

Page 182

Everything belonging to the Clays, it was rumoured, was to be
confiscated. "Judge Scruggs told Stanley," wrote mother, "that
the Clays are to be stript of all." Father's negroes, and most of
our own, were conducting themselves in an insolent manner, taking
to the mountains when there was work to be done, or wandering in
the train of straggling Union soldiers, but returning when hungry
to feed upon their master's rapidly diminishing stores. In some
instances, relying upon the protection of the soldiers, the
negroes of the town would take possession of the home of an
absent master, revelling in an opportunity to sleep in his bed or
to eat from the family silver and china.

        A dozen times a day, and at unreasonable hours, if the
invading soldiery saw fit, they entered the houses of the
citizens in what was often merely a pretended search for some
concealed Confederate, or to demand food or drink or horses. They
were constantly on the lookout for the possible visits, to their
families, of the distinguished citizens in temporary banishment
from Huntsville. The presence of General Pope Walker being
suspected (though no longer Secretary of War, he would have been
a desirable prize to take, since he had issued orders for the
firing of the first gun at Fort Sumter), for months the home of
our friend ex-Governor Chapman, in which the family of General
Walker had taken refuge, was searched daily, the vigilante being
so scrupulous in their investigations that even the leaves of a
dictionary were parted, lest the wily late Secretary should
spirit himself away between its covers. *

        "The enemy came demanding food or horses," wrote

* I asked Mrs. Milton Humes, daughter of ex-Governor Chapman
concerning these war-time search-parties. "I remember
distinctly," she answered, "seeing them look into preserve jars
and cut glass decanters, until my mother's risibles no longer
could be repressed. 'You don't expect to find General Walker in
that brandy bottle, do you?' she asked." A. S.

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mother, "taking all they could of breadstuffs, meat stock, and
all the able-bodied negroes, whether willing or not. Our men hid,
but they took the horses and mules, and promised to return in a
week and take everything!"

        Alas, poor little mother! Those were but the beginning of
bitterer days and yet sterner deprivations! For months the only
hope of our beleagured neighbours in Huntsville lay in the
prayed-for advance of General Bragg, though their prayers, too,
were interdicted when made in the church; and, upon the
investment of the town, our pastor, Doctor Bannister, * was
quickly instructed as to the limited petitions with which he
might address his God on behalf of his people.

        In the meanwhile, the courage of our citizens was kept
alive by General Roddy, who lay over the crest of Monte Sano. The
forays of his men were a perpetual worry to the Federals in the
valley. So audacious, indeed, did they become that the Federal
general razed the houses on "The Hill" and threw up breastworks,
behind which he built a stout fort, the better to resist the
possible attacks from the mountain side by brave General Roddy
and his merry men.

        During General Mitchell's investment of Huntsville he was
accompanied by his daughters, who, in the ransacking of our home,
fell heiresses to certain coveted and "confiscated" articles of
my own, but the possession of which could scarcely have been an
unmixed pleasure. I heard of my losses first through a letter
written late in August. "Mr. Hammond," began the epistle, "says
in Atlanta he saw a lady just from Nashville who told him that
Miss Mitchell rode out in your green habit on your mare! This
part of the story," continued my witty sister, "may be true, but
there is another: that the other Miss Mitchell

* Dr. J. M. Bannister, at the ripe age of eighty-six, still
continues in active pastoral charge of the Church of the Nativity
in Huntsville. A. S.

Page 184

rode in my habit on my mare! I'm glad I had no mare, and am sorry
for poor 'Jenny Lind'!"

        Months afterward I heard (and any who asks may still hear
the story in the town, for it has become one of Huntsville's war-
time annals) an account of Miss Mitchell's outings in my now
celebrated green habit. Her path, it seems, as she trotted my
pretty mare about the streets, was not strewn with roses; for,
though absent from our beloved little city, I was not forgotten.
One day the horsewoman, passing proudly on her way, saw, looking
over the garden gate of a pretty cottage, the laughing face of
sweet Alice Spence, a right loyal admirer of my undeserving self.
Alice looked up at the passing apparition, and, full of daring,
half mischievously, half indignantly, cried out after it, "Hey!
Git off 'Ginie Clay's mare! Git - off - 'Ginie Clay's ma - are!"

        At the sound of these words Miss Mitchell galloped away
in great anger. While Alice was still regaling her mother with a
jubilant account of her championship of my property, a proof
reached her of General Mitchell's implacability. That afternoon
her brother was ordered into arrest, and for months thereafter
was kept in custody as a guarantee for his sister's good
behaviour!

        When, later, Mr. Clay and I were enabled to visit
Huntsville (the Federals having been beaten back for a time), I
heard of an amusing encounter which took place at the home of the
Spences between Mrs. Spence and John A. Logan. A swarthy
stripling in appearance, the young officer stood carelessly
about, whilst several soldiers of his command were engaged in a
search of the premises. As Mrs. Spence entered the room in which
the officer stood, she eyed him with genuine curiosity.

        "Whose boy are you?" she asked at last. Her daughter, who
was beside her, caught her mother's arm in alarm.

        "Why, ma!" she gasped. "That's General Logan!"

Page 185

        "General Logan!" repeated her mother, contemptuously. "I
tell you he's nothing of the kind! He's black!"

        It was already early summer when we left the troubled
capital, where everyone was keyed to a high pitch of excitement
by the manoeuvrings of the enemy, now so near that the
reverberating sound of distant cannon was plainly audible. Our
way was southward. Though withdrawing, as I supposed, for a
change of scene during the Congressional recess only, in reality
my refugee days had now begun; for, notwithstanding I made
several later stays of varying duration at Richmond, the greater
part of the two succeeding years was spent at the homes of
hospitable kin far away from that centre of anxiety and
deprivation. Upon leaving Richmond, in May of '62, Senator Clay
and I, stopping en route at the home of my uncle, Buxton
Williams, in Warrenton, North Carolina, proceeded by easy stages
to Augusta, Macon and Columbus, where many of our kinfolks and
friends resided, and to which cities I often returned, when, from
time to time, the exigencies of the war compelled my husband and
me to separate. Georgia, save when Sherman's men marched through
it, two years later, was the safest and most affluent State in
the Confederacy; but in the summer of '62 there were few
localities which did not retain, here and there at least, an
affluent estate or two. Until almost the end of hostilities the
home of my uncle Williams in Warrenton continued to be with us in
Richmond the synonym for plenty. When I had starved in the
capital, I dropped down to "Buxton Place," whence I was sure to
return laden with hampers of sweets and meats and bread made of
the finest "Number One" flour, which proved a fine relief to the
"seconds" to which the bread-eaters of the Confederate capital
were now reduced. In the course of a year molasses and "seconds"
(brown flour with the bran still in it) came to be regarded as
luxuries by many

Page 186

who but a short time ago had feasted capriciously upon the
dainties of a limitless market.

        My uncle Williams was an astute man, and when he was
assured that war had become a settled fact, instead of hoarding
his means for the benefit of invading soldiers, he retired to his
country home, bought out the contents of a local store, which he
transferred to his own cupboards and pantry, and made "Buxton
Place" to "kith and kin" the most generous and hospitable of
asylums. It was a peaceful, happy place, set among ample grounds,
with noble trees rising about, in which birds carolled as they
coquetted among the foliage and squirrels gambolled at their will
through the long, lazy days. No chicory and sugar, adopting the
alias of coffee, found place on that sumptuous board in those
first years, but only the bona fide stuff! We had sugar in
abundance, and pyramids of the richest butter, bowls of thick
cream, and a marvellous plenitude of incomparable "clabber."

        Once, during our wandering that autumn, we slipped over
to "Millbrook," the home of my cousins the Hilliards, and thence
to Shocco Springs, long a famous North Carolina resort, where, to
the music of a negro band, the feet of a merry little company
went flying over the polished floor as if the world were still a
happy place, despite its wars and wounds and graves and weeping
women.

        Life at dear old "Millbrook," rich with a thousand
associations of my childhood and family, still ran serenely on.
The loudest sound one heard was the hum of the bee on the wing as
it rushed to riot in the amber honey sacs of the flowers. But
whether at "Millbrook" or "Buxton Place," whether we outwardly
smiled or joined in the mirth about us, inwardly my husband and I
were tortured with fears born of an intimate knowledge of our
national situation. We watched eagerly for our despatches, and,
when they came, trembled as we opened

Page 187

them. Some of our communications rang with triumph, others with
an overwhelming sadness.

        A thrilling letter from Richmond reached us after the
terrible "Battle of Seven Pines." A mere mention of that deadly
conflict for years was enough to start the tears in Southern
eyes, and sons and daughters, as they grew up, were taken back to
look upon the bloody field as to a sacred mausoleum. The letter
was written by Robert Brown, our erstwhile Sir Lucius, of Mrs.
Ives's famous performance, and now serving as aide-de-camp to
General Winder.

        "I have been beholding scenes of carnage," he wrote on
the 10th of June. "On the afternoon of the 31st ult. Winder and
myself rode down to the battle-field. The reports of the cannon
were distinctly heard here, and as we approached the field, the
firing became terrific! We met wounded and dying men, borne upon
litters and supported by solicitous friends. The scene was
revolting to me, but, singular to say, in a very short time I
became accustomed to this sight of horror, and the nearer we
approached the line of battle, the nearer we wished to get; but
we were quite satisfied to get so near the line (proper) as the
headquarters of General Longstreet, which was under a fine old
oak tree on a slight elevation. The General was there, sitting
most complacently upon a fine horse, surrounded by his staff, who
were riding away at intervals bearing his orders to the line and
returning. We were about a quarter of a mile from the engagement,
and we could distinctly hear the shouts of victory of our gallant
troops, literally driving the enemy before them. Entrenchment and
battery after battery were wrested from the Yankees by our
splendid troops, old North Carolina leading them!

        "Imagine the powder burnt! I tell you, the firing was
awful, but glorious! Near the headquarters of Longstreet were
regiments of splendid, eager troops drawn up

Page 188

in line as a reserve. Amid the heavy firing, the glorious
cheering of our troops, squad after squad of Yankee prisoners
were brought up to Longstreet under guards buoyant with victory;
and, as each reached headquarters, I tell you that the reserve
force would send up a yell of delight that split the air and made
old earth tremble! One little brave band of fifty-five South
Carolinians brought in one hundred and sixty-six live Yankees and
a Captain whom they had taken! The excitement was intense! The
firing ceased at seven o'clock. I remained in the field until the
last gun was fired. Our troops occupied the enemy's camp that
night and all the next day; and Monday our military talent
thought it prudent and best to fall back and give the enemy the
vantage ground we had gained!

        "General Johnston was wounded, but not seriously, it is
said. Smith's horse was shot in two places, on the shoulder and
just back of the saddle; the General's coat-tail, they say, was
seriously injured. Lieutenant-Colonel Sydenham Moore was wounded;
the ball struck his watch, literally shattering it! General
Pettigrew was not killed, but seriously wounded, and fell into
the hands of the enemy. They, thank God, lost two brigadier
generals and one seriously wounded. Our total loss, killed and
wounded, was thirty-five hundred. The enemy acknowledge eight
hundred killed and four thousand wounded. It was a fearful fight!

        "We have good news every day from Jackson! To-day brings
us the news of his having 'completely routed the enemy, taking
six pieces of artillery!' Old Stonewall is certainly the Hero of
the War, and unless our Generals Beauregard and Johnston look
sharp, he will entirely take the wind out of their sails and
leave them in the Lee-ward!"

        "The city is filled with the wounded and dead," echoed
our cousin John Withers. "It is fortunate you are away

Page 189

and saved the necessity of beholding the horrible sights which
are now so common here! Great numbers of Alabamians are killed
and wounded ... ." And he added in a letter, written in an
interval of the awful Seven Days Battles: "For four days I have
been awaiting some decisive move on the part of our forces, but
nothing has been done yet to settle affairs. McClellan has not
been routed, but his army is, no doubt, demoralised to such an
extent as to render any other demonstration against Richmond out
of the question for many weeks ... .The President has come up
from the battle-field, and I hear that a courier from the French
and British Consuls is to leave here for Washington to-night or
in the morning. We will secure between thirty and forty thousand
small arms by our late operations; many of them much injured by
being bent. The enemy have a position now which we cannot well
assail successfully. They are under their gunboats and have
gotten reinforcements. ... There is a report to-night that
Magruder has captured eight hundred Yankees to-day, but I place
no reliance upon any rumour until it is confirmed as truth.
General Beauregard has made a most successful retreat to Baldwin,
thirty-five miles south of Corinth, on the Mobile and Ohio
Railroad. The move was necessary, and I have no doubt will be a
great blow to the enemy. He carried all his heavy guns, tents,
and so on. General Lee is in command of the army hereabouts, and
I am sure we will whip McClellan's army when the grand contest
shall take place. The rain of last night will forbid any movement
for two or three days. When the fight opens again, we will have
thousands upon thousands of wounded here!"

        Such were the accruing records of woe and of personal and
national loss which followed Senator Clay and me throughout those
autumn months of '62. The inroad made upon the gallant regiments 
of our own State were

Page 190

frightful. The ranks of the splendid Fourth Alabama Regiment,
picked men of our finest blood, the flower of our hopes, as
handsome a body as a State might muster, were terribly thinned.
Wherever a call came our Alabamians were found in the front, the
envy and admiration of the army, quickening the courage and
firing the imaginations of every company that beheld them. But
oh! our men had need of a mighty courage, for soon the very seed
corn of our race became a sacrifice. The picture rises before me
of a youthful cousin * who fell at Malvern Hill, shot down as he
bore aloft the banner which he fondly hoped would lead to
victory. His blood-stained cap, marked by a bullet hole, was all
that returned of our fair young soldier boy. Another youth, ** on
whom the love and hope of a dear circle was settled, fell with
his heart pierced, and so swift was the passing of his soul that
he felt no pain nor sorrow. They say an eager smile was on his
face when they found him. For years his loved ones, gazing upon
it with weeping eyes, treasured the blood-stained, bullet-torn
handkerchief that had lain over the wounded heart of the boy!

        The tears start afresh when, looking into my memory,
there passes before me that army of the dead and gone. Oh! the
sorrow that overcame all who knew him (and the circle was wide as
half the South itself) when the news came of the death of Colonel
Sydenham Moore, who fell at Seven Pines; and even the enemy spoke
solemnly at the passing of our beloved General Tracy, who died so
courageously fighting in the battle of Port Gibson, within three-
quarters of a year! "I have little active service at this post,"
he complained from Vicksburg, in March of '63, "and the very fact
incapacitates me for the discharge of duties of other kinds. In
fact, I am ennuied past description!" So, chafing impatiently to

* Harry, son of Buxton Williams.

** James Camp Turner, of Alabama, died at Manassas.

Page 191

write his name in brave deeds across some page of the Confederate
States' history, he sprang to meet the call when it came, and
fell, crowned with immortal glory in the hearts of a loving
people.

        General Tracy's young wife was awaiting him, an infant at
her bosom, when we returned late in November of '62 for a brief
stay at Huntsville, from which, for a time, the Union soldiers
had been beaten back. By this time our valley seemed so safe that
families from other threatened districts came to take refuge in
it. Colonel Basil Duke, among others, brought his wife to
Huntsville. Numerous absentee householders came back; and
interest in local enterprises was resumed. When, in December, my
husband returned to his duties in the Senate, there was small
reason to apprehend an early reappearance, in Huntsville, of the
Federals. "North Alabama," General Bragg assured my husband, "is
as secure now as it was when I held Murfreesboro!" And on this
assurance our spirits rose and we departed again, promising
ourselves and our parents we would return within a few months at
most.

        Mr. Clay proceeded at once to Richmond, beset now with
deadly enemies within as well as without. Smallpox and scarlet
fever raged there, as in many of our larger cities, and I pleaded
in vain to be allowed to accompany him. I turned my way,
therefore, in company with others of our kin, toward Macon, where
was sojourning our sweet sister, Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, at the
home of Major Anderson Comer, her father. Thence it was proposed
I should proceed with her later to Richmond under the escort of
Colonel Clay.

        That winter the weather was peculiarly cold, so much so
that on the plantations where wheat had been sown, a fear was
general lest the grain be killed in the ground. The journey to
Macon, therefore, was anything but comfortable, but it had

Page 192

its amusing sides nevertheless. We were a party of women.

        "We arrived safely (self, Kate, Alice and servants)," I
wrote in a kaleidoscopic account which I gave my husband of the
indications of the times as seen en route. "We rode from
Stevenson to Chattanooga on the freight train, the baggage- cars
on the passenger-train being unable to receive a single trunk.
Arriving at Chattanooga, we would have been forced to go to the
small-pox hotel or remain in the streets but for the gallantry of
an acquaintance of ours, an army officer of Washington memory,
who gave up his room to us, and furnished some wagons to have our
baggage hauled to the depot. At Atlanta there was a scatteration
of our forces.... When night came" (being fearful of robbery,
for hotels were unsafe) "I stuffed in one stocking all my money,
and in the other, mine and Alice's watches, chains, pins, and
charms. I felt not unlike Miss Kilmansegg, of the precious Leg.
We fumigated the room, had a bed brought in for Emily, and
retired. At breakfast Colonel Garner told me that Uncle Jones
[Withers] was in the house, and in a few minutes he presented
himself. He got in at three that morning, en route for Mobile
with thirty days' leave; looked worn, and was sad, I thought.
Colonel George Johnson, of Marion, also called, and we had them
all and Dr. W., of Macon, to accompany us to the cars. The guard
at the gate said 'Passport, Madam,' but I replied, 'Look at my
squad; General Withers, Colonel Garner of Bragg's staff, and a
Colonel and Lieutenant in the Confederate service. I think I'll
pass!'" And I passed!

Page 193

CHAPTER XIV
REFUGEE DAYS IN GEORGIA

        OUR stay in Macon, where it had been my intention to
remain but a few weeks, lengthened into months; for, upon his
arrival in Richmond, Senator Clay found the conditions such as to
render my joining him, if not impracticable, at least
inadvisable. The evils of a year agone had multiplied tenfold.
Food was growing scarcer; the city's capacity was tested to the
uttermost, and lodgings difficult to obtain. The price of board
for my husband alone now amounted to more than his income.
Feeling in legislative circles was tense, the times engendering a
troublesome discontent and strife among eager and anxious
politicians. Complaints from the army poured in. Our soldiers
were suffering the harshest deprivations. Wearing apparel was
scarce. Many of our men marched in ragged and weather- stained
garments and tattered shoes, and even these were luxuries that
threatened soon to be unattainable. Our treasury was terribly
depleted, and our food supply for the army was diminishing at a
lamentable rate.

        "You will be surprised to know," wrote General Tracy from
Vicksburg, in March, 1863, "that in this garrisoned town, upon
which the hopes of a whole people are set, and which is liable at
any time to be cut off from its interior lines of communication,
there is not now subsistence for one week. The meat ration has
already been virtually discontinued, the quality being such that
the men utterly refuse to eat it, though the contract

Page 194

continues to be worth between one thousand and fifteen hundred
dollars per diem."

        "A general gloom prevails here because of the scarcity
and high price of food," ran a letter from my husband, written in
the same month from Richmond. "Our soldiers are on half rations
of meat, one-quarter pound of salt, and one-half pound of fresh
meat, without vegetables, or fruit, or coffee or sugar! Don't
mention this, as it will do harm to let it get abroad. Really
there is serious apprehension of having to disband part of the
army for want of food. In this city the poor clerks and subaltern
military officers are threatened with starvation, as they cannot
get board on their pay. God only knows what is to become of us,
if we do not soon drive the enemy from Tennessee and Kentucky and
get food from their granaries. ... I dined with the President
yesterday at six P. M., en famille, on beef soup, beef stew, meat
pie, potatoes, coffee and bread. I approved his simple fare and
expressed the wish that the army in the field had more to eat and
that out of the field less!"

        The receipt of this news stirred me to the core. Spring
was in its freshest beauty in Macon. Its gardens glowed with
brilliant blossoms. A thousand fragrant odours mingled in the
air; the voices of myriad birds sang about the foliaged avenues.
I thought Aunt Comer's home a terrestrial Paradise. The contrast
between the comfort in this pretty city of lower Georgia, a city
of beautiful homes and plentiful tables, and our poverty-stricken
capital and meagre starving camps, was terrible to picture. I
wrote impulsively (and, alas! impotently) in reply to my
husband's letter:

        "Why does not the President or some proper authority
order on from here and other wealthy towns, and immediately at
that, the thousands of provisions that fill the land? Monopolists
and misers hold enough meat and grain in their clutches to feed
our army and Lincoln's!

Page 195

Put down the screws and make them release it! Talk of disbanding
an army at a time like this? No! empty the coffers and graneries
and meat houses of every civilian in the land first!"

        Many an eager and impatient hour my sister and I spent in
those months of waiting for the call from our husbands to join
them in the capital. Her sprightly wit and unfailing courage made
her a most enjoyable companion, and a great favourite with all
who knew her. "Give my love to your sunbeam of a sister,"
Secretary Mallory wrote me during those dark days. "If not one of
the lost Pleiads, at least she is a heavenly body!" And when I
quoted this to dear "Lushe" Lamar, he answered from the fulness
of his heart: "Mallory's compliments grow languid in their
impotence to do justice to that beautiful embodiment of bright
thoughts and ideal graces, your sister, Celeste." I found her all
this and more in that spring we spent together in Macon, as we
daily sat and planned and compared our news of the battle-fields,
or discussed the movements of the army. We did a prodigious
amount of sewing and knitting for our absent husbands, to whom we
sent packages of home-made wearing apparel by whomsoever we could
find to carry them. I remember one such which gave us
considerable anxiety; for, proving too large to impose upon
General Alf. Colquitt, who had undertaken to deliver another to
Senator Clay, we sent the bundle by express. The robe which
General Colquitt carried was soon in the hands of its future
wearer, but not so the express package, which contained a pair of
much-needed boots for Colonel Clay. It lingered provokingly along
the road until we were filled with apprehension for its safety.

        "Won't it break us if all those things are stolen?" I
wrote my husband. "A thousand dollars would not buy them now!"
And I said truly, for the prices of the commonest materials were
enormous. "Men's boots

Page 196

here are from sixty to eighty dollars," wrote Mr. Clay from
Richmond; and in Macon all goods were a hundred per cent. higher
than they had been in Huntsville. Ordinary fifteen-cent muslin
now sold in Georgia at two and a half dollars per yard, and "sold
like hot-cakes" at that. My sister and I bought what we could and
made our husband's shirts - knitting the heavier ones - and
hemmed their handkerchiefs; and we rose to such a proficiency
with the needle that we did not hesitate to undertake the
manufacture of vests and trousers of washable stuffs. I made a
pair of the last-named for my husband's god-son, Joe Davis, and
sent them to Richmond by Colonel Lamar; but I think the dear
child did not live to don them. He died tragically at the
Executive home within a year, the waves of the war quickly
obscuring from the world about the remembrance of the sweet baby
face.

        April had arrived when, journeying from Macon to
Richmond, I had my first real experience of war-time travel. By
this time people were hurrying from place to place in every
direction, some to seek refuge, and some to find or bring back
their dead. The country beyond the Georgia boundary was alert,
apprehending the approach of the steadily advancing Federals.
Throughout the spring the feeling had been rife that a crucial
period was approaching. My husband wrote cautioning me to prepare
to meet it. "During the months of April and May," he said in a
letter dated March 22d, "the result of the war will be decided by
at least four of the greatest battles the world has ever
witnessed, near Charleston or Savannah, Fredericksburg,
Murfreesboro, and Vicksburg or Port Hudson. If they triumph on
the Mississippi, the war will continue for years; if they fail
there, I cannot think it will last longer than Lincon's
administration, or till March of 1865. * I

* It ended in April, 1865.

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regard events there as the most important, because the Northwest
will not aid the war much longer if the Mississippi is not opened
to their trade. The result of the grand battle to come off at the
first opportunity between Bragg and Rosencrans will determine our
movements during the recess of Congress, and, it may be, our
destiny for life. If we whip the enemy, our home will again be
open to us; if he whips us, it will fall under his dominion for
many months to come, and nothing will be left to us that he can
use or destroy." Almost as Mr. Clay wrote, Huntsville was again
invested by Federal soldiery, and we could not, if we had wished,
have returned to it.

        When my sister and I departed from Georgia, passenger-
cars generally were impressed for the use of soldiers, sick or
wounded, or for those who were hurrying to the front. I heard
instances in which travellers, unable to find room in the regular
cars, and eager to get to some given point, begged for the
privilege of squeezing into the car in which express packages
were carried.

        Having held ourselves for some months in readiness for
the journey, we had kept informed as to the presence of possible
escorts in Macon. Once we planned to travel under the protection
of Captain Harry Flash, a poet who had won some distinction for
his affecting lines on the death of General Zollicoffer, and his
stirring verses on the Confederate Flag. It fell to our lot,
however, to travel with two poets, who in days to come were to be
known to a wider world. They were Sidney and Clifford Lanier,
young soldiers, then, on their way to Virginia. Sidney's
sweetheart lived in the town, and the brothers had stopped at
Macon to make their adieux. Upon learning of the objective
destination of the young men, my sister and I held out the bribe
to them, if they would undertake to escort us, of a fine luncheon
en route; "broiled partridges, sho' nuf' sugar and sho' nuf'
butter, and spring chickens, 'quality size,'" to which
allurements,

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I am glad to say, the youthful poets succumbed with grace and
gallantry, and we began our journey.

        The aisles of the cars were crowded. At many stations, as
we came through North Carolina, women entered the car with
baskets of "big blues," the luscious native huckleberries, with
full, deep bloom upon them; these and other tempting edibles were
brought aboard at almost every station along the way. When our
pleasant party separated at Lynchburg, and the youths sat alone
in their tents, they recalled in pages truly characteristic the
memories of that long journey, in which, like tired children,
they had sometimes fallen asleep, Clifford's head upon my
sister's shoulder, and Sid's upon mine.

        "I will wait no longer," wrote Clifford, * from the camp
near Suffolk (Virginia), on April 17th, "but at once, and without
cérémonie, write the little love letter I have promised,
disarming (if men, as some one says of flowers, 'be jealous
things') the jealousy of your Lieges, by addressing it to my Two
Dear Friends and quondam fellow-travellers. What a transition is
this - from the spring and peace of Macon, to this muddy and war-
distracted country! Going to sleep in the moonlight and soft air
of Italy, I seem to have waked imbedded in Lapland snow. Yet, as
I would not be an Antony, with a genius bold, and confident in
Egypt, but a trembler and white-livered, in presence of Octavius
at Rome, I summon all my heroism, doff that which became me when
environed by flowers, poetry, music and blooming maidens, and don
shield and mail (that's figurative for Kersey), prepared to
resist ruder shocks than those of love's arrows. Par parenthese,
how the Yankees would suffer, if we could do our devoirs as
bravely and as heartily in the heat and dust and smoke of battle,
as in the charmed air of ladies!

* Then in the Mounted Signal Service, Milligan's Battalion, from
Georgia, and on the staff of General S. D. French, now of
Florida. A.S.

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        "Enough about us. I wonder what this will find our
friends doing? My dear Mrs. Celeste? Embroidering the Senatorial
laticlave or musing on sweet Macon, sweeter Huntsville? Mrs.
Virginia? In whatever mood or occupation, it is agreed you have
this advantage of us: you carry your sunshine with you; we men,
being but opaque and lunatic bodies, can give light only by
reflection. Imagine, then, in what 'Cimmerian darkness' we
revolve here. If you would throw a ray through this darkness,
show us one glimpse of the blue sky through all this battle-
smoke, write to us, directing care General French, Franklin,
Virginia. I shall regard, most affectionately, the carrier who
brings such intelligence from that office to these headquarters.
The huge shell that has just shrieked across the intervening
distance from the enemy's trenches to our pickets, and exploding,
is not yet done reverberating, reminds me that I might tell you a
little of our situation here.

        "The reticence of our General forbids all knowledge of
his plans and ultimate designs. I can only say that our army,
embracing three divisions, closely invests Suffolk on three
sides, its water and railroad communications into Norfolk being
still complete, except that General French, having possession of
one bank of the river, is working hard to get into position guns
of sufficient calibre to destroy their gun-boats. That, in the
meantime, large foraging parties and immense wagon-trains have
been sent out for provisions. So that this of forage may be the
grand design after all, and instead of living that we may fight,
are fighting that we may live, the latter being a very desperate
situation, but the more laudable endeavour of the two, perilling
our lives, not only for the vitality of our principles as
patriots, but for the very sustenance of our lives as men,
seeking corn and bacon as well as the 'bubble reputation at the
cannon's mouth.' But I began a love-letter; I fear I am

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ending most unetherially. Starting to wing a flight across the
sea, Icarus-like, my wings have proved to be of wax, melting with
a too near approach to the sun, and I find myself floundering,
and clearing my nose and eyes and mouth of the enveloping salt
water. Being not even a swimmer, I escape drowning by ending
(Icarus found nereids and yellow-haired nymphs to assist him),
with much love to your husbands, and an infinite quantity to
yourselves,

Yours,
"CLIFF LANIER."

        "God bless you both. Write to us!" said Sid., our dear
Orpheus of the South. "Have you ever, my Two Good Friends,
wandered, in an all-night's dream, through exquisite flowery
mosses, through labyrinthine grottoes, 'full of all sparkling and
sparry loveliness,' over mountains of unknown height, by abysses
of unfathomable depth, all beneath skies of an infinite
brightness caused by no sun; strangest of all, wandered about in
wonder, as if you had lived an eternity in the familiar
contemplation of such things?

        "And when, at morning, you have waked from such a dream
and gone about your commonplace round of life, have you never
stopped suddenly to gaze at the sun and exclaimed to yourself,
'what a singular thing it is up there; and these houses, bless
me, what funny institutions, not at all like my grottoes and
bowers, in which I have lived for all eternity, and those men and
women walking about there, uttering strange gibberish, and
cramming horrid messes of stuff in their mouths, what dear, odd
creatures! What does it all mean, anyhow, and who did it, and how
is one to act, under the circumstances?'...

        "If you have dreamed, thought and felt so, you can
realise the imbecile stare with which I gaze on all this life
that goes on around me here. Macon was my two-weeks'

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dream. I wake from that into Petersburg, an indefinitely long,
real life...

"SID LANIER."

        Of the after months of '63, the story of my life is one
of continuous change. I migrated between Richmond and our kin at
Petersburg, paying an occasional visit to Warrenton, North
Carolina, so long as the roads were open, or sometimes visiting
our friends, the McDaniels, at Danville; sometimes, accompanied
by our sister, I made a visit to the near-by camps, or to the
multiplying colonies of the sick and wounded. He was a fortunate
soldier in those terrible days, who fell into the hands of
private nurses. Patients in the hospitals suffered, even for
necessary medicines. Sugar was sold at fifty Confederate dollars
a pound. Vegetables and small fruits were exceedingly scarce. My
visits to the hospital wards were by no means so constant as
those of many of my friends, yet I remember one poor little
Arkansas boy in whom I became interested, and went frequently to
see, wending my way to his cot through endless wards, where an
army of sick men lay, minus an arm, or leg, or with bandaged
heads that told of fearful encounters. The drip-drip of the water
upon their wounds to prevent the development of a greater evil is
one of the most horrible remembrances I carry of those days. I
went through the aisles of the sick one morning, to see my little
patient, a lad of seventeen, not more. Above the pillow his hat
was hung, and a sheet was drawn over the cot - and the tale was
told.

        In Richmond, Miss Emily Mason (sister of John Y. and
James M. Mason), and Mrs. General Lee were indefatigable in their
hospital work; and Mrs. Phoebe Pember, sister of Mrs. Philip
Phillips, was a prominent member of a regularly organised
Hospital Committee, who, afterward, recorded her experiences in
an interesting volume, reflecting

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the gay as well as the grave scenes through which she had passed;
for, happily, in the experiences of these self-sacrificing nurses
there was often a mingling of the comical with the serious which
had its part in relieving the nerve-tension of our noble women.
On every side the inevitable was plainly creeping toward us. The
turmoil in the governmental body augmented constantly. The more
patriotic recognised that only in increased taxation lay the
prolonging of our national life; but, at the mention of such
measure, protests poured in from many sides. Our poor, wearied
citizens could ill sustain a further drain upon them. To the
credit of my sex, however, we never complained. No Roman matron,
no Spartan mother, ever thrilled more to the task of supporting
her warriors, than did we women of the South land! To the end we
held it to be a proud privilege to sacrifice where by so doing we
might hold up the hands of our heroes in field or forum.

        "I pity those who have no country to love or to fight
for!" wrote Mrs. Yulee, the "Madonna of the Wickliffe sisters,"
from her home in Florida. "It is this very country of yours and
mine that induces me to write this letter. I want you to use your
influence (you have much) to induce those law-makers to come up
to our necessities. Tax! tax! tax our people to half we have, if
necessary, but let the world know we are paying! Ten victories
will not give the Yankees such a blow as this fact. Now, Mrs.
Clay, God has given you many friends. Stir them up to their duty!
 ...Bragg's defeat fills us all with gloom, yet we are not
discouraged. I have never felt a doubt of my country, but dark
and painful trials are yet before us, perhaps!"

        Alas! Alas!

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CHAPTER XV
C. C. CLAY, JR., DEPARTS FOR CANADA

        I WAS in Richmond at my husband's side when Dahlgren's
raid was made. Early one morning the cry of danger came. We were
still at breakfast, when Senator Henry, of Tennessee, hurried in.
"No Senate to-day, Clay!" he cried. "A big force of the enemy is
at Lyons's, and every man in the city is needed! Arm yourself,
and come on!" and he hastened on his way to warn others. Members
of Congress shouldered guns, where they could get them, and
mounted guard around the capital. They were an untrained mass,
but they came back victors and deliverers of the city.

        The armies having gone into winter quarters, as the close
of Mr. Clay's Senatorial career in Richmond drew near, he
seriously contemplated a period of needed rest from public
duties. Bent upon this, he declined a judgeship in the Military
Court, which had been pressed upon him by Mr. Davis. We dallied
with enticing invitations that reached us from Florida, and
planned what was to be a veritable vacation at last, together.

        "Mr. Yulee is delighted with the hope of seeing you!"
wrote the lovely chatelaine of "Homosassa." "He will fish with
Mr. Clay, and we will do the same! Just think how good oysters
will be in these sad times! Do come, dear Mr. and Mrs. Clay, just
as soon as Congress adjourns! My dear sister, Mrs. Holt, had a
tender and sincere affection for you. . ."

        The prospect of a visit to that lovely retreat, built
upon an island, deep in the green glades of Florida and

Page 204

far away from the political and martial strife of the intervening
States, was very tempting to my wearied husband, a true lover of
woods and trees and the sweet solitudes of a bucolic life; but we
were destined not to enjoy it. Early in the spring of '64, Mr.
Clay felt it his duty to accept the high responsibility of a
diplomatic mission to Canada, with a view to arousing in the
public mind of this near-by British territory a sympathy for our
cause and country that should induce a suspension of hostilities.
Despite the failure of our representatives in European countries
to rouse apathetic kings and dilly-dallying emperors to come to
our aid, it was hard for us to believe that our courage would not
be rewarded at length by some powerful succour, or yielding.

        "I send you my speech," wrote dear Lamar to me from his
sick-bed in Oxford, Georgia, so late as June, '64. "The views
presented in reference to Louis Napoleon may strike you as at
variance with some of the acts, in which his Imperial Highness
has done some very uncivil things in a very civil way. But his
sympathy is with us. It is his policy to frighten the Yankees
into acquiescence in his Mexican enterprise, and he no doubt
would be glad to give French neutrality in American affairs for
Yankee neutrality in Mexican affairs. In this he will fail, and
he will sooner or later find his policy and inclinations jump
together. After all, the British people are more friendly to us
than all the world besides, outside of the [question of] Southern
Confederacy. This friendship, like most national friendships, is
mixed up with a large part of alloy, fear of the Yankees forming
the base. But respect for the South and admiration of her
position is the pure metal, and there is enough of it to make
their good-will valuable to us."

        So thought many of our noblest statesmen, when, early in
the Spring, Mr. Clay started on his way through our blockaded
coast for Canada. "I earnestly desire that

Page 205

his services may prove effectual in securing a permanent peace to
our bleeding country; that his efforts may be recorded as one of
the brightest pages in its history," wrote one; and from every
quarter Mr. Clay and his companions were followed by the prayers
of a people wrung from hearts agonised by our long, exhausting
strife. When the parting came, the shadow of impending evil fell
so blackly upon my soul, I hastened away from disturbed
Petersburg, accompanied by my faithful maid, Emily, and her
child, determined to act upon Mr. Clay's suggestion and seek my
kin in Georgia. Petersburg was in the greatest confusion, guns
resounding in every direction. Our dear Aunt Dollie Walker, the
saint, whose faith (her Bishop said) had kept Episcopalianism
alive in Virginia through those troublous times, told us in after
days of having been literally chased up the streets by cannon
balls. It was one of the best cities in the Confederacy at that
period to get away from.

        I began my journey southward, pausing a day or two at
Danville; but, fearing each moment to hear news of the appearance
of impeding armies, blocking my way through the Carolinas, I
hastened on. The news from the capital which reached us while in
Petersburg had been of the worst.

        "You have no idea of the intense excitement," wrote my
sister. "I am so nervous I know not what to write! No one goes to
bed here at night. For several nights past no one could have
slept for the confusion and noise. The city has been in a perfect
uproar for a week. We have heard firing in two directions all the
morning, on the Brook Turnpike and at Drewry's Bluff. The wounded
are being brought into the city in great numbers. General Walker
is wounded! Poor General Stafford's death cast a gloom over the
city. I went with Mr. Davis to his funeral, and carried flowers!
 ... General Benning is wounded, and Colonel Lamar, our dear L.
Q. C.'s

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brother, also. ... At the wedding" [of Miss Lyons] "you never
saw such disorder in God's house before in your life. Mrs. Davis
and Mrs. Mallory and Mrs. Most-everybody-else, stood up in the
pews, and you could not hear one word of the service for the
noise. Mr. Davis was there - Mrs. Chestnut sat with me. She is
going home very soon, so the Colonel told me. He said it was
impossible for her to remain in Richmond with nothing to eat!"

        To my sister's panorama of horrors, our brother, who was
stationed in Richmond, added a masculine picture.

        "The enemy press us sorely with powerful forces of
cavalry and infantry," he wrote. "The former cut off our
communications everywhere, hoping to reduce Lee to starvation,
and the presence of the latter keeps from him reinforcements that
otherwise would be promptly sent. We have lost severely around
the city. General Stuart was shot by a Yankee soldier who fired
upon him at ten paces as he galloped past him. He died last
night, about twenty-eight hours after he received the wound.
Brigadier General Gordon, also of the cavalry, had his arm
shattered yesterday above the elbow, and 'tis said will probably 
have to suffer amputation. Mr. Randolph, the 'Sir Anthony
Absolute' of your play, was wounded yesterday in the shoulder and
thigh, and will lose the limb to-day. All the clerks of the
office are in the intrenchments and no work goes on!"

        Upon learning of my determination to push on to Georgia,
our sister put away her anxiety and grew facetious at my expense.
"I am inclined to think you are a great coward," she wrote. "Why
did you run from Petersburg? ... I am almost ashamed of you!
You never catch me running from Yankees! Georgia is certainly a
safe place.... When we have killed all the Yankees and the
city is perfectly quiet, I invite you to come on and see us ....
I am weary from walking (not running) to see the wounded!"

Page 207

        A month or so later and my sweet sister, speeding to
overtake me, joined me at Macon, in time to accompany me to the
home of our friend, Mrs. Winter, in Columbus. Here, to compensate
for the tribulations of the past months, we were promised the
most care-free of summers. Refugees were flocking to that land of
safety and plenty just then, and whether in Macon or Columbus,
our time was spent in welcoming late-comers, in visiting and
exchanging news or comment of the times, or making little
excursions to near-by towns. Once we formed a party and visited
the "White Farm" of Augusta Evans, then unmarried. It was a
unique place and celebrated for the unsullied whiteness of every
bird and beast on the place.

        Upon our arrival at our friend's home in Columbus, we
found a very active field awaiting us. It was now mid-summer of
'64, somewhat after the bloody battle of Atlanta. In anticipation
of our coming, Mrs. Winter had prepared her largest and coolest
rooms for us. All was ready and we about due to arrive, when an
unforeseen incident frustrated our hostess's plans in regard of
our intended pleasuring, and put us all to more serious work. It
was in the late afternoon when our friend, driving in her calash
along the boundaries of the town, came upon a pitiful sight. Near
a group of tents a sick man, a soldier, lay writhing upon the
ground in a delirium, while near by and watching him stood his
alarmed and helpless coloured servant. Mrs. Winter, aroused to
pity by the sight, immediately gave orders that the sufferer be
carried to her home, where he was placed in the room that had
been prepared for me.

        When my sister and I arrived, a few hours afterward, our
sympathies, too, were at once enlisted for the unfortunate man.
He proved to be Captain Octave Vallette, a Creole, who, previous
to his enlistment, with his brother, had been a ship-builder at
Algiers, Louisiana.

Page 208

        A physician was already in attendance when my sister and
I arrived, and an examination of the invalid's wounds was making.

        A week had elapsed since the first hasty dressing of the
wound, and the blackened flesh now suggested the approach of the
dreaded gangrene.

        The cleansing of the dreadful wound was a terrible
ordeal. For days the patient raved, and to us, just from the
camps and hospitals of Virginia, his frenzied words conveyed most
vivid pictures of the experiences our men were meeting in the
deadly fray.

        "God! What a hole for soldiers to be in!" he would cry;
and then would mumble on incoherently until, in an accession of
fevered strength, he would burst out, "Give them hell, boys!"
while his negro man stood by, blinded by tears.

        Finally, however, our care was rewarded, and our invalid
began slowly to recover. The first day he was able to endure it,
we took the Captain to drive in Mrs. Winter's calash. He was
still weak, and very melancholy; the injured arm was stiff and
all but a useless member. We tried to cheer him by merry talk.
"Surely," we said at last, as we drove by a new-made cemetery,
with its bare little whitewashed head-boards, "weak as you are,
isn't this a great deal better than lying out there with a board
at your head marked 'O. V.'?" At this he smiled, but grimly.

        The ensuing months to me were a time of indecision. My
sister departed to rejoin her husband in Richmond, and I, feeling
quite cut off from those nearest to me, formed numerous plans for
leaving the Confederate States. I wished to go to Mr. Clay in
Canada, or to England, where so many dear friends were already
installed; and so earnestly did this desire fix itself in my mind
that wheels were set in motion for the securing of a passport. My
friends in Richmond and in Georgia

Page 209

urged me to reconsider. Mr. Clay might even then be on his way
home; would I not come to the capital and wait? But I declined,
and kind Secretary Mallory acceded to my wishes, though
cautioning me against our enemies on the seas. "I only wish I
could send you abroad in a public vessel," he wrote, as he
inclosed Mr. Seddon's passport, "but I have not a blockade runner
under my control.

        "You will, of course, avoid Bermuda and Nassau. The
yellow-fever still rages and embraces new-comers at the very
beach; and knowing that nothing on earth would ever fail to
embrace you that had the power of doing so, and having a painful
experience of his warm and glowing nature, I am anxious that you
shall keep out of his way. ... Angela and Ruby send their love.
They regret, with me, that your promised visit to us is not to be
paid."

        Yet, after all these preparations I remained; for, as the
weeks passed, it seemed clear Mr. Clay was likely to arrive at
any time. His associate, Professor Holcombe, had already
returned, though wrecked off the coast of Wilmington. Whole ship-
loads of cotton, which had succeeded in running the blockade and
which we fondly hoped would replenish our pocket-books, had gone
to the bottom. On the whole, travel by sea grew less and less
attractive. I concluded to remain on terra firma, but to go on
toward Augusta and Beech Island, South Carolina, that I might be
nearer the coast when Mr. Clay should arrive. Ere I left Columbus
I had a ludicrous adventure. Upon coming downstairs one morning,
I saw, approaching the outer, wide-open door, a large, portly
figure clad in Macon Mills muslin. Beyond him, in the street, a
wagon stood, or was passing. It was loaded with watermelons. As I
noted them and the figure approaching, I connected the two at
once, and called back to my hostess, with all the

Page 210

enthusiasm for which I was ever famous at the near prospect of a
"million," "Cousin Victoria! Don't you want some melons? Here's a
watermelon man!" To my surprise, as I neared the door a hearty
laugh rang out; a cordial hand was extended to me, and I
recognised before me genial, jovial General Howell Cobb, who had
left his military duties for the moment, in order to welcome me
to Georgia. His long beard, which he declared he never would
shave until our cause was won, together with the copperas and
unbleached suit of muslin, had quite disguised him for the
moment.

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CHAPTER XVI
THE DEPARTED GLORIES OF THE SOUTH LAND

        MY memories would be incomplete were I to fail to include
in them a description of plantation life that may be taken as a
type of the beautiful homes of the South in that long ago before
the Civil War. From Maryland to Louisiana there had reigned,
since colonial times, an undisturbed, peaceful, prosperous
democracy, based upon an institution beneficial alike to master
and servant. It was implanted in the South by the English
settlers, approved by the English rulers, and fostered by thrifty
merchants of New England, glad to traffic in black men so long as
there were black men upon the African coasts who might be had in
exchange for a barrel of rum. Generations living under these
conditions had evolved a domestic discipline in Southern homes
which was of an ideal order. Nothing resembling it had existed in
modern times. To paraphrase the nursery rhyme, the planter was in
his counting-house counting out his money; his wife was in the
parlour eating bread and honey; the man servant was by his
master's side, the maid with her mistress, the meat-cook at his
spit and the bread-cook at the marble block where the delicious
beaten biscuit were made in plenty. The laundress was in the
laundry (Chinamen then in China), and in the nursery lived, ever
at her post, the sable sentinel of cribs and cradles, the skilful
manufacturer of possets and potions. None but a Southerner to the
manner born can appreciate or imagine the tie that bound us of
that old-time South to our dear black mammy, in whose

Page 212

capacious lap the little ones confided to her care cuddled in
innocent slumber.

        Fruitful vineyards and gardens furnished our luxuries,
and talent and faithful public service were the criterion of
social standing. Of those bygone days, Mr. E. Spann Hammond *
recently wrote, "To me it seems as if I had been in two worlds,
and two existences, the old and the new, and to those knowing
only the latter, the old will appear almost like mythology and
romance, so thorough has been the upheaval and obliteration of
the methods and surroundings of the past."

        Yes! the old glories have passed away, but even those who
destroyed them, looking back to that time and that Southern
civilisation, recognise to-day how enviable were our solidarity
as a people, our prosperity and the moral qualities that are
characteristic of the South. "I have learned not only to respect,
but to love the great qualities which belong to my fellow
citizens of the Southern States," said Senator Hoar, recently.
"Their love of home, their chivalrous respect for women, their
courage, their delicate sense of honour, their constancy, which
can abide by an appearance or a purpose or an interest for their
States through adversity, and through prosperity, through years
and through generations, are things by which the more mercurial
people of the North may take a lesson. And there is another
thing," he added, "the low temptation of money has not found any
place in our Southern politics."

        It was my good fortune during the late autumn and winter
of 1864 to be invited to take refuge in a spacious and
representative plantation home in South Carolina, where the
conditions that obtained were so typically those of the Southern
home that I could choose no better example for description, were
I to scan here the numberless instances of a similar character,
known to

* Son of Senator Hammond, of South Carolina.

Page 213

me before those unquiet days. "Redcliffe," the home of Senator
Hammond, is still a point of interest to travellers, and a
beautiful feature of the landscape which it is set. It is built
upon a high knoll on Beech Island, South Carolina, and is visible
to the naked eye at a distance of thirty-five miles. It lies
within view of Sand Hill, where the famous Madame Le Vert spent
her declining years, and is pointed out to the visitor by the
residents of Augusta, Georgia, and the smaller towns about, as an
object of local admiration and pride. In the decades preceding
the war it was owned by Governor, afterward Senator, James H.
Hammond, a wealthy man in his own right, whose possessions were
greatly increased by his marriage to Miss Catherine Fitzsimmons.
Miss Fitzsimmons was a daughter of one of South Carolina's
richest citizens, and brought to Governor Hammond a splendid
dowry. Her sister became the wife of Colonel Wade Hampton, who
had been on General Jackson's staff at the battle of New Orleans,
and whose son, General and Senator Wade Hampton, served in the
same Congress with Senator Hammond. While in Washington, the
latter, distinguished alike for his reserve and scholarliness,
became known as the "Napoleon of the Senate." He was no lover of
public life, however, and the senatorial office was literally
thrust upon him. Especially as the strenuousness in Congress
increased, his desire deepened to remain among his people and to
develop what was, in fact, one of the most productive plantations
in South Carolina. The estate of "Redcliffe" was stocked with the
finest of Southdowns, with sleek, blooded kine, and horses, and a
full flock of Angora goats. The prolific "Redcliffe" vineyards
yielded unusual varieties of grapes, planted and cared for by
white labourers. Four hundred slaves or more were owned by
Senator Hammond, but these were set to less skill-demanding
duties. For the planting of this vineyard, forty acres of land,
sub-soiled

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to a depth of three feet, were set apart, and the clear, straw-
coloured wine for which the Senator's cellar was famous came from
his own wine-presses.

        On the plantation was a large grist-mill, from which
every human creature in that vast family was fed. It was a big,
heavy timbered building, grey even then with age, and run by
water. Here the corn was crushed between the upper and the nether
mill-stones, and so skilful was the miller that each could have
his hominy ground as coarse or as fine as his fancy dictated, and
all the sweetness of the corn left in it besides. The miller
could neither read nor write, but he needed no aid to his memory.
For years he had known whose mealbag it was that had the red
patch in the corner. He knew each different knot as well as he
knew the negros' faces, and if any of the bags presented had
holes in it the miller would surely make its owner wait till the
last.

        Lower down on the same water-course was the sawmill,
which had turned out all the lumber used in the building of
"Redcliffe." On one occasion it happened that this mill, needing
some repairs, a great difficulty was encountered in the
adjustment of the mud-sills, upon which the solidity of the whole
superstructure depended. The obstacles to be removed were great,
and it cost much time and money to overcome them. While Mr.
Hammond was Senator, and in the official chamber was grappling
with the problem of labour and capital, his experience with the
mud-sills was opportunely recalled, and his application of that
name to certain of the labouring classes at once added to his
reputation for ready wit.

        On the "Redcliffe" plantation the blacksmith was to be
found at his forge, the wheelwright in his shop, and the stock-
minder guarding the welfare of his charges. Measured by the
standard that a man has not lived in vain who makes two blades of
grass to grow where but 

Page 215

one grew before, Senator Hammond might have been crowned King of
agricultural enterprise, for his highest producing corn-lands
before he rescued them had been impassible swamp-lands. Drained
and put under cultivation, their yield was enormous, no less than
eighty bushels of corn being the average quantity to the acre.
There was scarcely a corner of the old "stake-and-rider fences"
in which Mr. Hammond did not cause to be planted a peach or apple
or other fruit tree.

        Our cousin Miss Comer, who late in the fifties married
the son of Senator Hammond, and made her home at "Redcliffe,"
though accustomed to affluent plantation life, was at once
impressed by the splendid system that directed the colony of
slaves at Beech Island. Each marriage and birth and death that
took place among them was registered with great exactness. The
Senator's business ability was remarkable. He knew his every
possession to the most minute particular. The Hammond slaves
formed an exclusive colony, which was conducted with all the
strictness of a little republic. They were a happy, orderly,
cleanly, and carefree lot, and Mr. Hammond was wont to say that
if the doctrine of transmigration of souls was true, he would
like to have his soul come back and inhabit one of his "darkies."

        I have said they were an exclusive colony. My pretty
little cousin realised this upon her arrival at "Glen Loula," a
charming residence named for her, and set apart for the young
couple by the owner of "Redcliffe."

        "The Hammond negro, as I have found him," she wrote, "has
a decided personal vanity, and nothing will offend him more than
to have you forget his name. For a long time after coming I felt
I was not exactly admitted by the different servants as 'one ob
de fambly.' In fact, it was plain I was on trial, being 'weighed
in the balance!' How I wished I knew all about diplomacy!

Page 216

I never saw a more august appearance than Daddy 'Henry,' an old
African, who remembers the slave ship on which he was brought
over, his foreign name, and, perhaps, many things which he never
tells about. He cleans the silver, polishes the floors and
windows and the brasses in the fireplaces, and, besides this,
claims the boys' guns as his by some divine right.

        "In order to hasten an expression of their good-will, I
thought one day of making a Sterling exchange with the aid of
some Washington finery; and, with a black silk dress to one
servant and a morning-robe to another, I have pulled through
famously, even with Marm Jane, the cook, who is supreme in her
kitchen. I have heard her turn my husband out. But the silk dress
brought me a carte blanche. 'Come on, Missy, jes w'en you feels
like it!' is the way she greets me now.

        "I cannot help seeing the wise arrangement of every part
of this extensive plantation, especially for the negroes. The
house of the overseer is in the midst of a grove of live oaks,
and in each street are a certain number of cabins, each in the
midst of a little garden with space in which to raise chickens.
The hospital is well arranged, and there is a separate house
where the children, especially the babies, are left to be fed and
cared for while their mothers are at work.

        "My poor memory for faces would be my undoing but for
Paul, who always tells me as we come upon any of the negroes,
'Now this is Jethro! Be sure to call him distinctly.' I fall in
with this righteous deception and it works like a charm. They
admire what they think wit, and especially love to memorise some
easy little rhyme. Every one makes the same atrocious wish to me:

          'God blass you, ma Missie. I wishes you joy
           An' every year a gal or a boy.'

        "I thought I would die when I heard it first, but I've

Page 217

gotten over it now. Senator Hammond gives a barbecue to the
slaves every Fourth of July and Christmas, and the dances of the
negroes are very amusing. There is a tall black man, called
Robin, on this plantation, who has originated a dance which he
calls the turkey-buzzard dance. He holds his hands under his
coat-tails, which he flirts out as he jumps, first to one side,
and then to the other, and looks exactly like the ugly bird he
imitates."

        In the uncertain days of the war, Huntsville being
unapproachable, and we having no fixed abode in the intervals
between Congressional sessions at Richmond, Senator Clay and I
made several enjoyable visits to the sheltered home of Mr.
Hammond, even while battles raged and every heart was burdened
with apprehension. The hospitality of the owner of "Redcliffe"
was well known. It was his custom in those uncertain days,
whether guests were known to be coming or not, to send his
carriage daily to Augusta to meet the afternoon train, and the
unexpected or chance arrival who might be seeking a conference or
a refuge at "Redcliffe"; and once a year, like a great feudal
landlord, he gave a fête or grand dinner to all the country
people about, at which he always contrived to have some
distinguished guest present. Senator Clay and I had the good
fortune to be visiting Mr. Hammond on such an occasion, when
every neighbour, poor or rich, for miles about was present. They
made a memorable picture; for the majority were stiff and prim
and of the quaint, simple, religious class often to he found in
back districts. They seemed ill at ease, if not consciously out
of place, in Senator Hammond's parlours, filled as those great
rooms were with evidences of a cosmopolitan culture, with
paintings and statuary, bronze and marble groups. *

* Many of these possessions are still retained by Messrs. Spann
and Harry Hammond.

Page 218

        In their efforts to entertain their guests, our host and
hostess's ingenuity had been tested to its utmost, when suddenly
Senator Hammond's eye twinkled, and he turned to Senator Clay.

        "I remember once seeing you dance at our home in
Washington, Mr. Clay," he began, and then proceeded to recall an
amusing evening, where, strictly en famille, Senator Butler, of
South Carolina, together with Secretary and Mrs. Cobb, Senator
Clay and myself, had dined, finishing up the hours together by
singing our favourite ballads. Upon my playing a merry tune,
Secretary Cobb, rotund and jolly, suddenly seized my husband,
slender and sedate, and together they whirled madly about the
room to the music of the piano, and the great amusement of dear
old Senator Butler, who laughed until the tears rolled down his
cheeks.

        When Mr. Hammond at "Redcliffe" proposed that Mr. Clay
repeat his terpsichorean success for the pleasure of the Beach
Islanders there gathered, my husband at first (emulating the
distinguished artist wherever he is encountered) demurred. He
"could not dance without music," he said.

        "Well," said our host, "Mrs. Clay can play!"

        "But I need a partner!" my husband persisted. At last,
however, he yielded to Senator Hammond's persuasion and danced an
impromptu Highland fling, abandoning himself completely to the
fun of the moment. As the music went on and his spirit of frolic
rose, the faces of some of the spectators around us grew longer
and longer, and, I am sure, those good people felt themselves to
be a little nearer to the burning pit than they had ever been
before. Their prim glances at my husband's capers increased the
natural sedateness of our hostess, who, seeing the expressions of
alarm, plainly was relieved when at last the terrible
Bacchanalian outburst was over! I felt sure it would be a
difficult task to try to convince my husband's

Page 219

audience that his own religious feelings and convictions were of
the deepest and most spiritual quality.

        For his black dependents, Senator Hammond had built
several churches; the favourite one, called St. Catherine's
(named for Mrs. Hammond), being nearest the "Redcliffe" residence
and most frequently visited by the family. Once a month a white
preacher came, and all the slaves gathered to listen to the
monthly sermon. Senator Hammond's views for the civilising of the
negroes led him to forbid the presence of exciting negro
preachers, for the religion of the black man, left to himself, is
generally a mixture of hysteria and superstition. The conversion
of the negroes under their own spiritual guides was a blood-
curdling process in those days, for they screamed to Heaven as if
the Indians with their tomahawks were after them, or danced,
twisting their bodies in most remarkable manner. * As their
emotion increased, as they "got feelin'," and the moment of
conversion approached, as a rule they fell all in a heap, though
in thus "coming through" the wenches were altogether likely to
fall into the arms of the best-looking young brother who happened
to be near. By reason of Senator Hammond's wise discipline, such
religious excesses were impossible at "Redcliffe," and I can
recall no church service at once more thrilling and reverential
than that I attended, with Senator Clay, at quaint St.
Catherine's on the "Redcliffe" plantation shortly before my
husband's departure for Canada.

        The negroes, clean, thrifty, strong, all dressed in their
best, vied with each other in their deference to Mars'

* To overcome these conditions, the Right-Reverend William
Capers, distinguished in the Methodist Church, organised a wide
system of missionary work among the plantation negroes, whereby
preaching and catechising by white ministers took place once a
month. Many of the great planters assisted in this good work,
Senator R. Barnwell Rhett, Sr. being prominently associated with
Bishop Capers. Senator Rhett built a large church, which was
attended by the negroes from five plantations, and regularly by
his own family. A. S.

Page 220

Paul's guests, as we entered the church. They listened quietly to
the sermon as the service proceeded.

        It was a solemn and impressive scene. There was the
little company of white people, the flower of centuries of
civilisation, among hundreds of blacks, but yesterday in the age
of the world, wandering in savagery, now peaceful, contented,
respectful and comprehending the worship of God. Within a day's
ride, cannon roared, and a hunter, laying his ear to the ground,
might have heard the tread of armies, bent upon the blotting out
of just such scenes as these. Only God might record our thoughts
that morning, as the preacher alluded in prayer and sermon to the
issues of the times. At the close of the morning, the hymn "There
is rest for the weary" was given out, and when the slaves about
us had wailed out the lines

           "On the other side of Jordan
            ...........
            Where the tree of life is blooming
            There is rest for you!"

        my husband, at the signal for prayer, fell upon his
knees, relieving his pent-up feelings in tears which he could not
restrain. My own commingling emotions were indescribably strange
and sad. Would abolitionists, I thought, could they look upon
that scene, fail to admit the blessings American "slavery" had
brought to the savage black men, thus, within a few generations
at most, become at home in a condition of civilisation.

        There were many fine voices on the plantation at
"Redcliffe," and as they followed their leader down the row
"chopping out" cotton, or, when later they worked in gangs at
picking it, it was their custom, seeming to act from instinct in
the matter, to sing. One voice usually began the song, then
another would join him, and then another, until dozens of voices
blended in weird and melodious harmonies that floated from the
distant cotton

Page 221

fields to the house of the master, and the music of the unseen
choristers, a natural and rhythmic song, was of a kind we shall
not hear again in these later practical times. Sometimes, one by
one, all would drop out of the song, until only the leader's high
voice was heard; then, gradually, they would join in again, and
often, when all seemed finished, a challenge would come from some
distant gang, and a fuller and freer antiphonal song would be
heard, answering from field to field.

        When I remember that throng of well-fed, plump and happy
coloured people, and compare it with the ragged and destitute
communities common among the freedmen of to-day, the contrast is
a sad one. "What's de reason?" asked an old darky of me during
Reconstruction days, "dat de Yankees caint make linsey-wolsey
like ole Mistis did in de ole time? 'N dose days one par breeches
las me mos a year! I could cut trees, roll logs, burn bresh-heaps
an' cut briers an' I couldn't wear dem breeches out! Now when I
buys dis shoddy stuff de Yankees done bro't an' sets down on de
lawg ter eat ma grub, bress Gawd! when I gits up, I leaves de
seat o' my breeches on de lawg! I done got down on my knees an'
prayed for God ter send me linsey-wolsey clothes so I won't have
rheumatiz an' aint none come. Where's dat mule an' forty acres?
When is dey a comin', dat's what I wants ter know!"

Page 222

CHAPTER XVII
CONDITIONS IN 1863-'64

        BY the autumn of 1864 the Southern States found
themselves ravaged of everything either edible or wearable. Food
was enormously high in cities and in locations which proved
tempting to foragers. Delicately bred women were grateful when
they were able to secure a pair of rough brogan shoes at one
hundred dollars a pair, and coarse cotton cloth from the Macon
Mills served to make our gowns. For nearly three years the
blockade of our ports and frontier had made the purchase of
anything really needful, impracticable. Nor could we utilise the
stores in Southern cities once these had fallen into the enemies'
clutches. A correspondent, Mrs. Captain du Barry, * who in
December, 1863, was permitted to visit Memphis, now in the
enemy's possession, wrote, "I deeply regretted not being able to
fill your commissions. I put them on my list that I sent in to
General Hurlburt, when I requested a passport, but they were
refused. All the principal stores were closed and their contents
confiscated. There is a perfect reign of terror in Memphis. Not
even a spool of cotton can be purchased without registering your
name and address, and "swearing it is for personal or family use,
and no number of articles can be taken from the store without,
after selection, going with a list of them in your hand, to the
"Board of Trade," accompanied by the clerk of the store, and
there swearing on the Bible that the articles mentioned are for
family use and not to be taken out of the United States. So many
necessary

* Mother of the unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick.

Page 223

articles are pronounced contraband by the United States
authorities, that one is in momentary chance of being arrested,
by ignorantly inquiring for them. The place is swarming with
detectives who make a trade of arresting unfortunate people. They
are paid by the United States Government two hundred and fifty
dollars for detecting and arresting a person, and that person
pays the Provost Marshal fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars
to get off, that being the way matters are conducted in Memphis!"

        All over the South old spinning wheels and handlooms were
brought out from dusty corners, and the whirr of the wheel became
a very real song to us. Every scrap of old leather from
furniture, trunk, belt or saddle was saved for the manufacture of
rough shoes, often made by the mother who had been fortunate
enough to have hoarded them, for herself and children. I, myself,
saw my aunt, Eloisa, wife of General Jones M. Withers, putting
soles on the tops of once cast-off shoes of her children's, and
she, who had known so well the luxuries of life, was compelled to
perform her task by the meagre light of a precious tallow candle.
Complaints, however, were few, from our Spartan-spirited women.
Writing to my husband, in November, 1864, I said, "A lady told me
yesterday that she fattened daily on Confederate fare - for,
since she could obtain no useless luxuries, her health,
heretofore poor, has become perfect."

        The country was stripped not alone of the simpler
refinements of life, but of even so necessary a commodity as
salt. Scarcely a smoke-house in the South having an earthen
floor, which had received the drippings from the hams or bacon
sides of earlier days, but underwent a scraping and sifting in an
effort to secure the precious grains deposited there. It happened
that my host at "Redcliffe," just previous to the breaking out of
hostilities, had ordered a boat-load of salt, to use upon certain
unsatisfactory land,

Page 224

and realising that a blockaded coat would result in a salt
famine, he hoarded his supply until the time of need should come.
When it became known that Senator Hammond's salt supply was
available, every one from far and near came asking for it. It was
like going down into Egypt for corn, and the precious crystals
were distributed to all who came, according to the number in each
family.

        Compared with those of many of my friends in other parts
of the South, our surroundings and fare at Beech Island were
sumptuous. Save at my Uncle William's home, I had nowhere seen
such an abundance of good things as "Redcliffe" yielded. Meats
and vegetables were plenty; the river nearby was full of shad
which were caught readily in seines; and canvas-backs and teal,
English ducks and game birds, especially partridges, abounded.
"Indian summer is here in all its glory," I wrote to my husband
late in '64. "The hues of the forests are gorgeous, the roses
wonderful! Millions of violets scent the air, and everything is
so peaceful and lovely on this island it is hard to realise War
is in the land. Splendid crops prevail, and the spirit of the
people is undaunted!"

End of Part 4