Part 10

"Grand victory at Five Forks! Pickett killed and his whole division captured."

It seemed very strange to me that in the streets of Richmond, his old home, the Capital of the Confederacy, the death of Pickett and the capture of his whole division should be heralded as a "grand victory." How great a change had come in so short a time! Even the newsboys had apparently gone over to the enemy.

"'Tisn't so, sister, 'tisn't so! Don't you believe him!" said my little brother, catching my dress and shaking it. Then running to the window in his excitement, he called out:

"Hush, sir; hush! hush this minute, hallooing your big stories out loud and scaring everybody to death. I'd like to stick those five forks through your old black gizzard, for you haven't got any heart, I know. Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing old scalawag, you! There ain't a word of truth in brother George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I'll go down and smash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister, 'deed I would; but it isn't so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn't get killed."

"No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! he will come back! He said he would, and he will."

Thus I spoke and believed, for my Soldier had never broken a promise. The days came and the days went and the sun rose each morning with an auroral glow of hope in its golden heart. When twilight drifted out from the forest shadows, the sun went down in a sea of crimson fire that burned out my dream of happiness. Then night fell and the world and my heart were wrapped in darkness.

XXI

"WHOA, LUCY"

One morning I had mechanically dressed baby George and had taken him to the window to hear the spring sounds and breathe the spring balm and catch the sunshine's dripping gold wreathing the top of the quivering blossoms of the magnolia and tulip-trees.

It was the time when the orchestra of the year is in perfect accord, when all the world is vocal, when the birds sing of love, the buds and blossoms of joy, the grains and grasses of hope and faith, and when each rustle of wind makes a chime of vital resonance.

Through the quiver and curl of leaves and perfume of flowers and soft undertone of dawn-winds came the words, "Whoa, Lucy; whoa, little girl!"

Oh, those tones, those words, that voice thrilled my heart so that I wonder it did not burst from very gladness! Such joy, such gratitude as flooded my soul only the Giver of all good can know! All the privation and starvation and blood-stains of the past four years, all the woes and trials, griefs and fears, of those last dreadful days were swept away by those blessed, precious-words, "Whoa, Lucy!" spoken in my husband's tender tones to his horse.

I could not wait to go down stairs in the regular way; it was too slow. So I slid down the bannisters with my baby in my arms and ran out upon the porch just as my Soldier came around the rosebushes that Mr. Lincoln had described, and which had just budded out. Baby and I were both in my Soldier's arms almost before Lucy had been given into the hands of the hostler. I do not know how to describe the peace, the bliss of that moment--it is too deep and too sacred to be translated into words. I think that it is akin to the feeling that will come to me in the hereafter, when I have gone through all these dark days of privation and of starvation of heart and soul here, victorious, and at last am safe within the golden gates and, waiting, and listening, shall hear again the voice that said, "Whoa, Lucy!" here, bidding me welcome there as I welcomed him after the perilous waiting.

All through the war Lucy had brought my Soldier to me. Spirited and beautiful, she had many times carried him twenty miles in an evening to see me, sometimes through dangers greater than battle. Lucy was not his war-horse. She was the little thoroughbred chestnut mare my Soldier always rode when he came to see me. His "peace-saddle," his "love-pony," he called her. Bob, the General's valet, would say, "Dat hoss Lucy she Marse George's co'tin' filly; and you dares'nt projick wid dat hoss, needer, kase Marse George is mos' as 'especkful to her as ef she was sho' 'miff real lady folks." The horse my Soldier used in battle he called "Old Black," a steady, sure-footed, strong, fearless animal that, though obedient to his slightest touch or command, allowed no one else, on peril of death, to mount her.

We had no plans for the future. Our home on the James had been burned at the command of Butler, so we decided to go to my father's plantation on the Chuckatuck, in Nansemond County, Virginia, a difficult thing to do, for the railroads had been torn up and no boats were running. The little town of Chuckatuck was about thirty miles from Norfolk, diagonally opposite Newport News, and after the evacuation of Norfolk by the Southern Army all that part of the country was neutral ground, being occupied one day by Federal troops and another by Confederate. Lying thus between the two lines, a constant warfare was carried on by the scouts of both armies, making it a dangerous region for travel. I had not been home since my marriage and we knew that the loving welcome which awaited us there had but increased in warmth for the long absence. Nature's great larder, the Chuckatuck Creek, ran but a stone's throw from the back door, supplying with but little labor terrapin, fish, oysters and crabs in abundance.

On the afternoon of the second day after my Soldier's return, while we were trying to plan a way to go, my little brother Johnny came running in, saying:

"Sister, I saw riding by the door just now that same Yankee who came here to see you the other day, and who said he was brother George's friend. He knew me and asked how you were, and how's the baby."

"Oh, I forgot; I must let you know all about it," I said, and told my Soldier of the visitor who had called before he came back. When I had finished his gray eyes filled with tears and looking at the card he said tenderly:

"Dear old Suckley--dear old fellow--so true!"

I stooped and took my Soldier's head in both my hands, and raising it up gazed searchingly into his earnest, loving eyes to see how he could possibly speak so affectionately of a Yankee.

"You, too, have that same kind of 'off-duty' feeling that this Yankee doctor spoke of having," I said with surprise, and rather disrespectfully for me, I am afraid.

"I must find the dear old fellow," my Soldier said, graciously overlooking my smallness of spirit. Excusing himself and taking leave of baby and me, he went out at once. In a little while he returned, saying:

"It is very fortunate for us, little one, that I went out when I did. Suckley goes down the river to-morrow to Norfolk in the surgeon-general's steamer, and he has kindly invited us to go with him, dear old big-hearted bug-catcher! Come, let us lose no time. Let us hurry and get our little traps together and be ready. We will not say anything about our plans to anyone till to-morrow morning, when we can announce our intentions and say our good-byes simultaneously."

Not only had this Yankee officer, in his "off-duty" feeling for my Soldier, kindly volunteered to transport us to our home, but to carry our trunks and horses, in fact, all we had, which, alas! was very, very little. Most of our worldly possessions--all of our bridal presents, linen, library, pictures, silver, furniture, harp, piano, china, everything except a few clothes--had been stored at Kent, Payne & Company's, and had been burned in the awful fire the night of the evacuation of Richmond.

The General's staff had, one by one, come in during the day from field and camp, and all breakfasted with us for the last time next morning in the old Pickett home. I observed that each wore a blue strip tied like a sash about the waist. It was the old headquarters flag, they explained, the flag of Virginia, saved from surrender and torn into strips by my Soldier to be kept in remembrance. By our door was a rose-bush full of white bloom called, because of its hardihood and early blossoming, the Frost-Rose. It had been planted by my Soldier's mother. He broke off some of the buds, put one in my hair and one in the button-hole of each of his officers. Then for the first time tears came, and the men who had been closer than brothers for four long years clasped hands in silence and parted.

The second social parting was sad, too, for they had taken me, "the child wife," into their lives twenty months before and they all loved me and called me "Sister." Their pride in each other and in their command, the perils that together they had endured, the varied experiences of good times and bad, had bound them together in links stronger than steel.

In spite of the partings, the loss of our cause, our disappointment and poverty, there was a sweet, restful, peaceful feeling of thankfulness in my heart and gratitude because the war was over, my husband had been spared and belonged now only to me; we were going home together, free from intrusion, to live our own lives.

XXII

GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK

The next morning Dr. Suckley called in his headquarters ambulance to take us to the steamer. Just at the close of breakfast we had announced our intention of going. There was to be a sudden breaking up and severing of old associations. The staff were all en route to their respective homes except the adjutant-general, Major Charles Pickett. He and Mrs. Dr. Burwell, the only brother and sister of my Soldier, were to remain with their families for a time in the old Pickett home.

We said our sad good-bye in the great fruit and flower garden at the rear of the house, and passing all alone through the large parlors and wide halls, crept quietly out and softly closed the door behind us. The only evidence of life in the dear old house as we looked back was Dr. Burwell's big dog which, having escaped from the backyard, howled mournfully within the gates. The blinds and window-shades had not been opened or raised since the Federal forces had occupied the city.

As we boarded the steamer that morning I realized for the first time that our cause was lost. In all the days of our beautiful married life cheer after cheer had always greeted us wherever we had gone--salute from soldier or sailor, whether on or off duty. This morning these honors were replaced by stares of surprise, of mingled curiosity and hate. Dr. Suckley recognized this feeling at once, and, with a quizzical smile at my caged-tigress expression of rage, put his arm in that of my Soldier, and with a haughty glance at the men, walked boldly on board. I was shown into the surgeon-general's stateroom, in which there were many evidences of thoughtful care for my comfort. We were soon under way.

My Soldier and Dr. Suckley called each other by their given names and laughed and talked as cordially as if they had loved the same dear cause and fought for it side by side. At the table they drank to each other's health and to the friends and memories of olden times. A stranger could not have told which of the two soldiers had furled his banner.

They chatted of Texas, and the great annexation strife which had changed the political complexion of the nation away back in what seemed to my youthful view a remote antiquity. They talked of Mexico, and my General recalled reminiscences of the battles in which he had fought in that wonderful tropical country. They discussed the wild, free, fresh, novel life of the far-off Pacific Coast, the wealth of the gold-mines of California, its luscious and abundant fruits, and the friends they had known there. They told stories of the great Northwest, that was like a mythologic region to me, of the Chinook Indians, and of the San Juan Island and the English officers who had occupied the island conjointly with my Soldier. I found myself wondering if it had been a dream, and there had been no internecine strife.

Just before reaching City Point, which is a few hours' distance from Richmond, Dr. Suckley came up and told me that we were to stop for General Ingalls, Grant's Quartermaster-General, who wished to come on board to pay his respects, beseeching me, in his sweet gracious way, to be more cordial with him than I had been with another of my Soldier's old friends.

He turned for sympathy to my husband, who looked imploringly at him and at me. Presently my Soldier drew me to one side and whispered:

"Suckley voiced my wishes, my little wife, and I want you to meet my old friend just as cordially as you can. Put your little hand in his and forget everything except that he is one of your husband's oldest and dearest friends."

I promised with all my heart what he asked, and really intended to keep my word. I loved to do everything he bade me. I liked him to make things hard for me sometimes, that I might show him how sincere and loving my obedience was. But when General Ingalls came on board, was given a salute and received, as became his rank, with the honors the absence of which I had marked when my own General came, I slipped my hand out of my Soldier's and ran back to my stateroom as fast as I could.

There I burst out crying and shook our baby, waking him, and told him how his dear father had been treated--that he had not had any honors paid him at all, and that a dreadful old bad Yankee General had come on board and taken them all, and that when he grew up and was a big man he must fight and fight and fight, and never surrender, and never forgive the Yankees; no, not even if his poor, dethroned father asked him to do so. I told him how his father had asked me to shake hands with this Yankee General, because he was his friend, and that I was going to do it because his father wanted me to; that I tried and could not and that he never must, either--never, never!

I did not know there was a witness to all my bitterness till I heard a smothered chuckle and, looking up, saw my Soldier and his friend, General Rufus Ingalls, standing over me. With a twinkle in his eye, and in a voice full of suppressed laughter, General Ingalls said, as he patted me on the head:

"I don't blame you one bit, little woman--not a damn bit. I should feel just as terrible about it as you do if I were in your place. It's all different with Pickett and me, you see. We don't mind. Why, do you know, child, we have slept under the same blanket, fought under the same flag, eaten out of the same mess-pan, dodged the same bullets, scalped the same Indians, made love to the same girls--aye, Pickett, it won't do, by Jove, to tell her all we have done together--no, no--come, shake hands. I am dreadful sorry we have had this terrible kick-up in the family, and all this row and bloodshed, but we are all Americans, damn it, anyhow, and your fellows have been mighty plucky to hold out as they have. Come, that's a good child; shake hands. May I kiss her, Pickett? No--damn it, I shan't ask you. There, there! Here is a basket of trash I had the orderly rake together. I don't know what it all is, but I told the man to do the best he could. Here, Mr. George junior--with your bright eyes and your won't-cry mouth--here is a green chip for a pair of red shoes."

General Ingalls put into our baby's hands his first greenback, and it was the only money we had, too--every cent. Baby and I said good-bye, and he and my Soldier went out on deck. While I was peeping into the basket "Mr. George junior" tore the note in two. I caught the pieces and stuck my bonnet-pin through them till I could paste them together. One of the officers brought me some glue, and I cut a hundred-dollar Confederate note in two to mend it with. Poor Confederate money!

[A]Representing nothing in God's earth now, And naught in the waters below it; As the pledge of a nation that passed away, Keep it, dear friend, and show it. Show it to those who will lend an ear To a tale this trifle will tell-- Of Liberty born of a patriot's dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

Too poor to possess the precious ores, And too much of a stranger to borrow, We issued to-day our promise to pay, And hoped to redeem on the morrow. The days rolled on, and weeks became years, But our coffers were empty still; Coin was so scarce that the treasury quaked When a dollar would drop in the till.

But the faith that was in us was strong, indeed, Though our poverty well we discerned; And this little check represents the pay That our suffering veterans earned. They knew it had hardly a value in gold, Yet as gold our soldiers received it; It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay, And every true soldier believed it.

But our boys thought little of price or pay, Or of bills that were overdue-- We knew if it brought us our bread to-day 'Twas the best our poor country could do. Keep it! It tells all our history over, From the birth of our dream till its last; Modest, and born of the angel Hope, Like our visions of glory, it passed.

[Footnote A: These verses were written on the back of a Confederate note, and for a time were ascribed to John Esten Cooke and to Colonel Wythe Mumford; afterward attributed to Colonel Jonas.]

Baby's first greenback was put to dry, and then I turned my attention to the big covered basket the sailor had brought in. What an Aladdin treat it was! Raisins--the first I had seen in years and years--coffee, real "sho'-'nuff" coffee--sugar, crushed sugar--how nice! (we had had nothing but sorghum-juice sugar and sweet-potato coffee for so long)--rice and prunes, Jamaica rum, candy and a box of dried figs--nothing ever had tasted so delicious as all these good things--and, well--the Yankee General who gave them all to me--the tones of his voice made more peace than his words. Eating the figs, I repeated the words to baby, saying:

"Never mind, baby, about hating this Yankee. He said your father and he had trailed after the same Indians and smoked their venison at the same camp-fire and had drunk from the same flask. He said you looked like your father, and he said you were a beautiful boy. So you need not mind about hating just this one. He said geography and politics had forced your father and him to opposite courses and it took four years to settle for their hot-headedness and ambitions. You must never be a politician, and--you may love this one Yankee a tiny bit, and may suck a piece of his beautiful candy."

Dr. Suckley not only took us to Norfolk, which was the end of his route, but he took us up the Nansemond River, thirty miles, and up Chuckatuck Creek, to my father's wharf. No one was expecting us. They thought, of course, it was the "Yankees come again," and had all run off and hidden, except my father who came down to catch the boat-line and welcome the travelers, whoever they might be. Oh, the joyful welcome of my great big-hearted father!

Soldiers and sailors, one and all, came and shook hands with us. Baby and my little brother, Johnny, had made friends of them all for us. Baby knew no difference between those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray, and some of them had little ones at home. We said good-bye, with many a regret, to our kind friend and benefactor, Dr. Suckley, and to the sailors and officers, and this time cheer after cheer went up for my noble hero Soldier, as the little steamer hauled in the lines and puffed away, and more names were added to the list of Yankees for baby not to hate.

XXIII

"SKOOKUM TUM-TUM"

My Soldier did not like to fight his battles over. He said that the memories they revived were too sacred and sorrowful for utterance. The faces of the dead and dying soldiers on the field of battle were never forgotten. The sorrow of widows and orphans shadowed all the glory for him. In the presence of memory he was silent. The deepest sorrow, like the greatest joy, is dumb.

"We are both too worn and weary now for aught else but to rest and comfort each other," he said. "We will lock out of our lives everything but its joys. From adversity, defeat and mourning shall spring calmness for the past, strength for the present, courage for the future. Now that, in obedience to the command of General Lee, I have finished and sent off the report of the last fight of the old division, the closing days of our dear lost cause, we will put up the pen for awhile and lay aside our war thoughts. We will rest and plan for peace and after a time we will take up the pen again and write down our memories for our children and perhaps for the children of the old division. We will build us a nest over the ashes of our grand old home on the James and plant a new grove in the place of the sturdy old oaks cut down."

My Soldier possessed the greatest capacity for happiness and such dauntless courage and self-control that, to all appearance, he could as cheerfully and buoyantly steer his way over the angry, menacing, tumultuous surges of life as over the waves that glide in tranquil smoothness and sparkle in the sunlight of a calm, clear sky.

This sweet rest which we had planned for ourselves, however, was of but short duration. We had been at my father's home only a few days when a private messenger brought letters of warning from some of my Soldier's old army friends. Two officers high in authority, solicitous for his welfare, advised that in the existing uncertain, incendiary, seditious condition of things he should absent himself for awhile until calm reflection should take the place of wild impulse and time bring healing on its wings and make peace secure. Knowing his fearlessness and stubbornness, General Ingalls and General Tom Pitcher came in person to voice their apprehensions, lest my Soldier might not heed the warning.

Butler, who had not yet recovered from the "bottling-up" experience, had instigated a movement to have my Soldier indicted for treason, based on the assertion that he had joined the Confederacy before his resignation from the United States Army had been accepted by the War Department. He was at that time on the Pacific coast where information of the secession of Virginia had been received many weeks after the ordinance was passed and many more weeks must elapse before a message could be delivered to the Department in Washington and a reply returned.

The nation had gone mad with grief and rage. The waves of passion rose mountain-high and from the awful storm the angels of justice, mercy and peace took flight. All that was bad in the hearts of men arose to the surface; all that was good sank to the depths. The first person that could be seized was regarded as the proper victim to the national fury. The weakest and most defenseless was made the target of popular wrath because rage could thereby most quickly spend itself in vengeance. Mrs. Surratt was imprisoned, and the whole country was in a state of frenzy and on the verge of revolution.

Strictest secrecy was enjoined upon us. Only my father and mother were taken into our confidence. Lucy was bridled, saddled and brought to the door. I walked with my Soldier, he holding the bridle, to the upper gate. It was ten o'clock; the moon was shining brightly and all was quiet and still.

My Soldier's plan for me was that I should go next day to Norfolk, take the steamer to Baltimore and visit his aunt, whose husband, Colonel Symington, had been in the old army, and who had not left it to join the Southern Confederacy, though his sons had fought on that side, one of them having been detailed on duty at my Soldier's headquarters.

"My aunt will welcome you," he said, "and you will remain with her until a telegram shall come to you saying, 'Edwards is better.'" (Edwards was my Soldier's middle name.)