Part 2

Many and many a time, long, long years after, when John Hay was secretary of state in the cabinet of the second Theodore Roosevelt, he used to refer to that stormy autumn afternoon when a delicate boy of eleven, at the instigation of his father, shook hands with him and looked gravely up into his face, wondering perhaps how John Hay was going to make his name known throughout the United States. How little did Mr. Hay think then that one day he would be the secretary of state when that same little delicate boy was President of the United States.

My father’s intimacy with John Hay had come about through the fact of contact in the Civil War, when they both worked so hard in Washington together.

My father stands out as the most dominant figure in our early childhood. Not that my mother was not equally individual, but her delicate health prevented her from entering into our sports and unruly doings as our father did; but I have always thought that she, in an almost equal degree with my father, influenced my brother’s nature, both by her French Huguenot and Scotch blood and her Southern ancestry.

The story of her meeting with my father has a romantic flavor to it. My grandmother, Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, lived in an old plantation above Atlanta, on the sand-hills of Georgia. There, in the old white-columned house overlooking a beautiful valley, my grandmother led a patriarchal life, the head of a large family, for she had been as a young girl the second wife of Senator John Elliott, and she not only brought up the children of that marriage but the children and stepchild of her second marriage as well. My own mother was the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, but she never knew the difference between her Elliott half brother and sisters, her Bulloch half-brother and her own brother and sister.

In the roomy old home with its simple white columns there was led an ideal life, and the devotion of her children to my beautiful grandmother, as the many letters in my possession prove, was one of the inspiring factors in their lives, and became the same to our own childhood, for many were the loving stories told us by my mother and aunt of the wonderful character of their mother, who ran her Southern plantation (Mr. Bulloch died comparatively young) with all the practical ability and kindly supervision over her slaves characteristic of the Southern men and women of her time.

The aforesaid slaves were treated as friends of the family, and they became to us, her little Northern grandchildren, figures of great interest. We were never tired of hearing the stories of “Daddy Luke” and “Mom Charlotte.”

The first of these two, a magnificent Nubian, with thick black lips and very curly hair, was the coachman and trusted comrade of my grandmother’s children, while his wife, “Mom Charlotte,” was a very fastidious mulatto, slender and handsome, who, for some illogical reason, considered her mixed blood superior to his pure dark strain. She loved him, but with a certain amount of disdain, and though on week-days she treated him more or less as an equal, on Sundays, when dressed in her very best bandanna and her most elegant prayer-book in hand, she utterly refused to have him walk beside her on the path to church, and obliged him ignominiously to bring up the rear with shamefaced inferiority. Mom Charlotte on Sundays, when in her superior mood, would look at her spouse with contempt, and say, “B’ Luke, he nothin’ but a black nigger; he mout’ stan’ out to de spring,” referring to Daddy Luke’s thick Nubian lips, and pointing at the well about one hundred yards distant from the porch.

There was also a certain “little black Sarah,” who was the foster-sister of my uncle, Irvine Bulloch, my mother’s younger brother. In the old Southern days on such plantations there was almost always a colored “pickaninny” to match each white child, and they were actually considered as foster brother or sister. Little Irvine was afraid of the darkness _inside_ the house, and little Sarah was afraid of the darkness _outside_ the house, and so the little white boy and the little black girl were inseparable companions, each guarding the other from the imaginary dangers of house or grounds, and each sympathetically rounding out the care-free life of the other.

My mother’s brilliant half-brother, Stewart Elliott, whose love of art and literature and music took him far afield, spent much of his time abroad, and when he came back to Roswell (the name of the plantation) he was always much amused at the quaint slave customs. One perfect moonlight night he took his guitar into the grove near the house to sing to the group of girls on the porch, but shortly afterward returned much disgusted and described the conversation which he had overheard between little white Irvine and little black Sarah on the back porch. It ran as follows, both children gazing up into the sky: _Sarah_: “Sonny, do you see de Moon?” “Yes, S_a_rah, it do crawl like a worrum.” The moon at the moment was performing the feat which Shelley poetically described as gliding, “glimmering o’er its fleecelike floor.” The young musician could not stand the proximity of such masters of simile as were Irvine and Sarah, and demanded that they should be forbidden the back porch on moonlight nights from that time forth!

There was also another young slave who went by the name of “Black Bess,” and was the devoted companion of her two young mistresses, Martha, my mother, and her sister, Anna Bulloch. She slept on a mat at the foot of their beds and rendered the devoted services that only the slave of the old plantation days ever gave to his or her mistress. My mother used to accompany her mother on her visits to all the outlying little huts in which the various negroes lived, and she often told us the story of a visit one day to “Mom Lucy’s” little home, where a baby had just been born.

Mom Lucy had had several children, none of whom had lived but a few hours, and when my grandmother and her little daughter visited the new baby, now about a week old, the mother, still lying on her couch, looked up at my grandmother and said: “Ole Miss, I jus’ done name her.” “And what have you named her, Lucy?” asked my grandmother; “she is a fine baby and I am so glad you are going to have the comfort of her all your life.” “Oh!” said the colored woman sadly, “I don’t ’spec’ her to live, dey ain’t none of ’em done live, and so I jus’ call her Cumsy.” “Cumsy?” said my grandmother, “and what may that mean, Lucy?” “Why, ole Miss, don’t you understan’? Dey all done go to deir heavenly home, and so I jus’ call dis one ‘Come-see-de-world-and-go,’ and my ole man and me we is goin’ to call her ‘Cumsy’ for short.”

My grandmother tried to argue Lucy out of this mortuary cognomen, but with no effect, and years afterward when my mother revisited Roswell as Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the first negroes to greet her was “Come-see-the-world-and-go!”

All these stories of the old plantation were fascinating to the children of the nursery in 20th Street, and we loved to hear how the brothers and sisters in that old house played and worked, for they all did their share in the work of the household. There the beautiful half-sister of my mother, Susan Elliott, brought her Northern lover, Hilborne West, of Philadelphia, whose sister, Mary West, had shortly before married Weir Roosevelt, of New York, the older brother of my father, Theodore Roosevelt. This same Hilborne West, a young physician of brilliant promise, adored the informal, fascinating plantation life, and loved the companionship of the two dainty, pretty girls of fourteen and sixteen, Martha and Anna Bulloch, his fiancée’s young half-sisters.

Many were the private theatricals and riding-parties, and during that first gay visit Doctor West constantly spoke of his young connection by marriage, Theodore Roosevelt, who he felt would love Roswell as he did.

A year afterward, inspired by the stories of Doctor West, my father, a young man of nineteen, asked if he might pay a visit at the old plantation, and there began the love-affair with a black-haired girl of fifteen which later was to develop into so deep a devotion that when the young Roosevelt, two years later, returned from a trip abroad and found this same young girl visiting her sister in Philadelphia, he succumbed at once to the fascination from which he had never fully recovered, and later travelled once more to the old pillared house on the sand-hills of Georgia, to carry Martha Bulloch away from her Southern home forever.

I cannot help quoting from letters from Martha Bulloch written in July, 1853, shortly after her engagement, and again from Martha Roosevelt a little more than a year later, when she revisits her old home. She had been hard to win, but when her lover leaves Roswell at the end of his first visit, immediately following their engagement, she yields herself fully and writes:

Roswell, July 26, 1853.

THEE, DEAREST THEE:

I promised to tell you if I cried when you left me. I had determined not to do so if possible, but when the dreadful feeling came over me that you were, indeed, gone, I could not help my tears from springing and had to rush away and be alone with myself. Everything now seems associated with you. Even when I run up the stairs going to my own room, I feel as if you were near, and turn involuntarily to kiss my hand to you. I feel, dear Thee,--as though you were part of my existence, and that I only live in your being, for now I am confident of my own deep love. When I went in to lunch today I felt very sad, for there was no one now to whom to make the request to move “just a quarter of an inch farther away”--but how foolish I am,--you will be tired of this “rhapsody....”

Tom King has just been here to persuade us to join the Brush Mountain picnic tomorrow. We had refused but we are reconsidering.

July 27th, ----

We have just returned after having had a most delightful time. It was almost impossible for our horses to keep a foothold, the Mountain was so steep, but we were fully repaid by the beautiful extended view from the top, and when we descended, at the bottom, the gentlemen had had planks spread and carriage cushions arranged for us to rest, and about four o’clock we had our dinner. Such appetites! Sandwiches, chicken wings, bread and cheese disappeared miraculously.

Tom had a fire built and we had nice hot tea and about six o’clock we commenced our return. I had promised to ride back with Henry Stiles, so I did so, and you cannot imagine what a picturesque effect our riding party had,--not having any Habit, I fixed a bright red shawl as a skirt and a long red scarf on my head, turban fashion with long ends streaming. Lizzie Smith and Anna dressed in the same way, and we were all perfectly wild with spirits and created quite an excitement in Roswell by our gay cavalcade--But all the same I was joked all day by everybody, who said that they could see that my eyes were swollen and that I had been crying.

All this in a very delicate Italian hand, and leaving her lover, I imagine, a little jealous of “Henry Stiles,” in spite of the “rhapsody” at the beginning of the letter!

My father’s answer to that very letter is so full of deep joy at the “rhapsody,” in which his beautiful and occasionally capricious Southern sweetheart indulged, that I do not think he even remembered “Henry Stiles,” for he replies to her as follows:

New York, August 3rd.

How can I express to you the pleasure which I received in reading your letter! I felt as you recalled so vividly to my mind the last morning of our parting, the blood rush to my temples; and I had, as I was in the office, to lay the letter down, for a few minutes to regain command of myself. I had been hoping against hope to receive a letter from you, but _such_ a letter! O, Mittie, how deeply, how devotedly I love you! Do continue to return my love as ardently as you do now, or if possible love me more. I know my love for you merits such return, and do, dear little Mittie, continue to write, (when you feel moved to!) just such “rhapsodies.”

On December 3, 1853, very shortly before her wedding, Martha Bulloch writes another letter, and in spite of her original “rhapsody,” and her true devotion to her lover, one can see that she has many girlish qualms, for she writes him: “I do dread the time before our wedding, darling--and I wish that it was all up and that I had died game!”

A year and a half later, May 2, 1855, Martha Roosevelt is again at the home of her childhood, this time with her little baby, my older sister, Anna, and her husband has to leave her, and she writes again:

“I long to hear you say once again that you love me. I know you do but still I would like to have a fresh avowal. You have proved that you love me dear, in a thousand ways and still I long to hear it again and again. It will be a joyful day when we meet again. I feel as though I would never wish to leave your side again. You know how much I enjoy being with mother and Anna, but all the same I am only waiting until ‘Thee’ comes, for you can hardly imagine what a _wanting_ feeling I have when you are gone.

“Mother is out in the entry talking to one of the ‘Crackers.’ While I was dressing mother brought in a sweet rose and I have it in my breast pin. I have picked one of the leaves off just this moment and send it to you--for Thee--the roses are out in beautiful profusion and I wish you could see them....”

A year and a half in the cold North had not dimmed the ardor of affection between the young couple.

We children of the nursery in 28 East 20th Street loved nothing better than to make my mother and aunt tell us the story of the gay wedding at the old home near Atlanta. I remember still the thrill of excitement with which I used to listen to the details of that wonderful week before the wedding when all the bridesmaids and ushers gathered at the homestead, and every imaginable festivity took place.

One of my mother’s half-brothers had just returned from Europe, and fell in love at first sight with one of her beautiful bridesmaids, already, alas! engaged to another and much older man, not a member of the wedding-party. My child’s heart suffered unwarranted pangs at the story of the intense attraction of these two young people for each other, and I always felt that I could see the lovely bridesmaid riding back with the man to whom she had unwittingly given her heart, under the Southern trees dripping with hanging moss. The romantic story ended tragically in an unwilling marriage, a duel, and much that was unfortunate.

But my mother and my father had no such complications in their own lives, and the Southern girl who went away with her Northern lover never regretted that step, although much that was difficult and troublous came into their early married life because of the years of war from 1861 to 1865, when Martha Bulloch’s brothers fought for the South and Theodore Roosevelt did splendid and unselfish work in upholding the principles for which the North was giving its blood and brawn.

The fighting blood of James Dunwoody and Irvine Bulloch was the same blood infused through their sister into the veins of their young kinsman, the second Theodore Roosevelt, and showed in him the same glowing attributes. The gallant attitude of their mother, Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, also had its share in the making of her famous grandson.

Her son Irvine was only a lad of sixteen, while her stepson, James, was much older and was already a famous naval blockade-runner when she parted from them. Turning to her daughter Anna she prayed that she might never live to know if Irvine were killed or Richmond taken by the Northern army. I cannot but rejoice that her life passed away before such news could come to her. It must have been bitter, indeed, for her under these circumstances to face the necessity of accepting the bread of her Northern son-in-law, and it speaks volumes for the characters of both that during the whole war there was never a moment of estrangement between them or between my father and his lovely sister-in-law, Anna Bulloch, who became, because of the fact that she lived with us during those early years of our lives, one of the most potent influences of our childhood.

I, myself, remember nothing of the strain of those troubled days; but my aunt has often told me of the bedtime hour in the nursery when a certain fair-haired, delicate little boy, hardly four years old, would kneel at her side to say his evening prayer, and feeling that she would not dare interrupt his petition to the Almighty, would call down in baby tones and with bent head the wrath of the Almighty upon the rebel troops. She said that she could never forget the fury in the childish voice when he would plead with Divine Providence to “grind the Southern troops to powder.”

This same lovely aunt taught us our letters at her knee, in that same nursery, having begged, in return for my father’s hospitality, that she should be accepted as our first instructress, and not only did she teach us the three R’s, but many and many a delightful hour was passed in listening to her wonderful renderings of the “Br’er Rabbit” stories.

Both my aunt and my mother had but little opportunity for consecutive education, but they were what it seems to me Southern women ever are--natural women of the world, and yet they combined with a perfect readiness to meet all situations an exquisite simplicity and sensitive sympathy, rarely found in the women of the North. This sensitiveness was not only evidenced in their human relationships but in all pertaining to art and literature. I have often said that they were natural connoisseurs.

I remember that my father would never buy any wine until my mother had tasted it, and experts of various kinds came to her in the same way for expressions of her opinion. She was very beautiful, with black, fine hair--not the dusky brunette’s coarse black hair, but fine of texture and with a glow that sometimes seemed to have a slightly russet shade, what her French hair-dresser called “noir doré,” and her skin was the purest and most delicate white, more moonlight-white than cream-white, and in the cheeks there was a coral, rather than a rose, tint. She was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of the New York of her day, a reputation only shared by Mrs. Gardiner Howland, and to us, her children, and to her devoted husband she seemed like an exquisite “objet d’art,” to be carefully and lovingly cherished. Her wit, as well as that of my aunt, was known by all her friends and yet it was never used unkindly, for she had the most loving heart imaginable, and in spite of this rare beauty and her wit and charm, she never seemed to know that she was unusual in any degree, and cared but little for anything but her own home and her own children. Owing to delicate health she was not able to enter into the active life of her husband and children, and therefore our earliest memories, where our activities were concerned, turn to my father and my aunt, but always my mother’s gracious loveliness and deep devotion wrapped us round as with a mantle.

And so these were the three Deities of the Nursery in which Theodore Roosevelt spent his first years, and even at that early time they realized that in that simple room in the house which the patriotic women of America are about to restore as a mecca for the American people there dwelt a unique little personality whose mentality grasped things beyond the ken of other boys of his age, and whose gallant spirit surmounted the physical difficulties engendered by his puny and fragile body.

* * * * *

The nursery at 28 East 20th Street in the early years of the Civil War missed its chief deity, my father. From the letters exchanged by my mother and father, preserved by each of them, I have formed a clear realization of what it meant to that nursery to lose for almost two years the gay and vigorous personality who always dominated _his_ environment as did later his son.

Mr. William E. Dodge, in a very beautiful letter written for the memorial meeting of the Union League Club in February, 1878, just after my father’s death, gave the following interesting account of my father’s special work in the Civil War. This letter was read after an eloquent speech delivered by Mr. Joseph H. Choate. The part of the letter to which I especially refer ran as follows:

“When the shadows of the coming war began to grow into a reality he (Theodore Roosevelt) threw himself with all his heart and soul into work for the country.

“From peculiar circumstances he was unable to volunteer for military service, as was his wish, but he began at once to develop practical plans of usefulness to help those who had gone to the front.

“He became an active worker on the Advisory Board of the Woman’s Central Association of Relief, that wonderful and far-reaching organization of patriotic women out of which grew the Sanitary Commission.

“He worked with the ‘Loyal Publication Society,’ which, as many of our members know, was a most active and useful educating power in the days when there was great ignorance as to the large issues of the conflict.

“He joined enthusiastically in the organization of the Union League Club, was for years a most valued member of its executive committees and aided in the raising and equipment of the first colored troops.

“His great practical good sense led him to see needs which escaped most other minds. He felt that the withdrawal from the homes of so many enlisted men would leave great want in many sections of the country. He saw the soldiers were more than amply clothed and fed, and their large pay wasted mostly among the sutlers, and for purposes which injured their health and efficiency. So with two others he drafted a bill for the appointment of Allotment Commissioners, who without pay should act for the War Department and arrange to send home to needy families, without risk or cost, the money not needed in the camps. For three months they worked in Washington to secure the passage of this act--delayed by the utter inability of Congressmen to understand why anyone should urge a bill from which no one could selfishly secure an advantage.

“When this was passed he was appointed by President Lincoln one of the three Commissioners from this State. For long, weary months, in the depth of a hard winter, he went from camp to camp, urging the men to take advantage of this plan.

“On the saddle often six to eight hours a day, standing in the cold and mud as long, addressing the men and entering their names.

“This resulted in sending many millions of dollars to homes where it was greatly needed, kept the memory of wives and children fresh in the minds of the soldiers, and greatly improved their morale. Other States followed, and the economical results were very great.

“Towards the close of the war, finding the crippled soldiers and the families of those who had fallen were suffering for back pay due and for pensions, and that a race of greedy and wicked men were taking advantage of their needs to plunder them, he joined in organizing the Protective War-Claim Association, which without charge collected these dues. This saved to the soldiers’ families more than $1,000,000 of fees.