Part 5

The last time I had seen him was at the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, where, though still a child, I held that he was pledged to me and resented his attentions to the belles nearer his own age. Amused and pleased by this, he humored me by devoting most of his mornings to joining in my games and assisting me in sketching, and by dancing in the evening with no one but me until the children's bed-time came, when the ballroom was reluctantly given up to the grown people. One Baltimore beauty took my Soldier to task for his bad taste in dancing with a child, thereby cancelling the little friendship which had existed between them.

White Sulphur Springs, situated in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains, was the most celebrated watering-place in Virginia. It was known to the Indians as the most important lick of the deer and elk. Its medicinal qualities first became known in 1772, when an Indian maiden, suffering from a disease which baffled the skill of the "medicine men," was healed by its waters. It is a beautiful and enchanting spot, the valley opening half a mile in breadth, winding in graceful undulations from east to west beyond the line of vision. The fountain issues from the foot of a gentle slope which ends in the low interval of a beautiful river. The ground ascends from the spring eastward, spreading into a lawn covering fifty acres. Over the fountain was a stately Doric dome, supported by twelve large pillars and surmounted by a statue of Hygeia looking toward the rising sun. A short distance from the spring were the hotel, dining-hall and ballroom. The rest of the ground was occupied by cottages, some of brick, some of wood, and a few of logs, whitewashed. The cabins were all painted white.

The winding roads, leading away into an enchanted world of greenery, were veritable Cupid's paths, opening sometimes into the springtime vales of gay flirtation, sometimes into the warm, deep dells of love. Many were the belles and beaux who met their fate amid the leaf-walled environment of Greenbrier and more matches were made there than in heaven.

My Soldier's furlough soon came to a close and he left, by chance, the day we did. I shall never forget the ride on the top of the old stagecoach, the wonderful red and gold foliage, the birds that sang in the autumn trees, the good dinner at the hotel, the stories told me by my Soldier, who knew everything, I thought. Of the name Greenbrier he said:

"Old Colonel John Lewis, whose grandson you danced with this summer, named this river in 1751 because of its thick growth of green-briers in which his son, Andrew, was once entangled. It had been owned by the French. In 1749 a hunter, wandering through the woods, came to the river-bank and observed that the water ran in a direction opposite from the usual course and reported it, exciting the curiosity of two New Englanders, Jacob Martin and Stephen Sewall. They took up land there, living together in a little cabin until one day they quarreled and separated. One made his home in a hollow tree, the other keeping the cabin in which they had formerly dwelt in peace with the world, themselves and each other. They agreed never to say anything to each other but 'Good morning, Mr. Martin,' 'Good morning, Mr. Sewall,' confining themselves to this limited conversation for the remainder of their years."

My Soldier told me of the Indian wars after peace had been confirmed between England and France, the Dunmore wars, the massacre at Muddy Creek where, under the guise of friendship, the Indians had descended upon the settlers and destroyed their village, the attack of two hundred Indians upon Donnally Fort, and the bravery of the old negro, Dick Pointer, whose freedom was purchased by the State of Virginia in reward for his services. In his helpless old age an unsuccessful effort was made to secure a pension for him. Comparing his fate with that of alleged soldiers of later years who volunteered to do guard duty around their homes for three days, receiving pensions for their courageous efforts, one might wish that he had lived in a later period and served a more appreciative government.

From White Sulphur I returned to my father's home, brightened now by three brothers and two sisters, all of whom had seen so little of "Sister" that they knew nothing of her shortcomings and thought she was the greatest thing in the world.

Then lessons began in earnest and stern duties came to interrupt childish diversions. When the course laid out for me at home was completed, my father decided to take me to Lynchburg Seminary. It was a serious epoch for me, as I was to go among strangers for the first time, so the farewells were solemn.

As a parting present, "Uncle Charles" brought me a nest of guinea eggs, a box of sweet gum which he had been collecting for months, a string of chinquapins and some dried haws, saying as he gave them to me:

"Honey, don't fergit de ole man en bring him sump'n, en remember you's born but you ain't dead yit."

Others of the servants came with blessings and farewell gifts. Mary-Frances, who always received more presents than her twin sister and was noted for her stinginess, bade me a pathetic good-bye, assuring me that she was "gwine to be good en 'vide her light'ood and things wid Arabella." As I had disapproved of her selfish refusal to share her "light'ood" with her sister she thought this promise of generosity would be the best gift she could bestow upon me as a parting keepsake.

After tender farewells from mother, sisters, and brothers I started off with my father on what seemed to me a long, long journey.

At Richmond a man in uniform boarded the train. I looked at him with admiration as he came down the aisle. He was tall and walked erectly with graceful carriage and a commanding air not dependent upon his military dress. He stopped and spoke to my father, who arose, greeted him cordially and, turning back the seat, invited him to join us. He accepted and my father introduced "Colonel Robert E. Lee." The Colonel shook hands with me in a gentle way and began to barter for one of my long curls. In my diffidence I did not close with any of his offers, though I would have given every curl on my head for the asking, for even then, to my romantic vision, Colonel Lee was a hero.

He said that he had just returned from Harper's Ferry, where there had been great excitement. John Brown had descended upon the town and taken possession of the United States Arsenal. Colonel Lee, home on furlough from the West, had been sent with the marines from the Washington barracks and four companies of troops from Fortress Monroe to dispossess them and restore quiet to the little town in the Virginia hills. It was not alone Harper's Ferry that had been terrorized; the entire state had been thrown into a turmoil of excitement.

To a child whose infancy had shuddered at the story of the Nat Turner insurrection of 1832, the John Brown raid in 1859 was a subject of horrible fascination, and I listened intently as Colonel Lee talked of this strange old fanatic and his followers.

"What do you think would be the effect upon the negro, Mr. Corbell," Colonel Lee asked my father, "if we should be compelled to hang John Brown?"

My father replied, "Well, I've thought of that, too, Colonel, and I asked my foreman, who is a representative of his race, if he did not think we ought to hang old John Brown." He looked at me earnestly for a while then, shaking his head slowly, said, "I knows, Marse Dae, dat po' Marse John done en bruk de law, killin' all dem mens; but den, Marse Dae, even ef po' Marse John did bre'k de law, don't you think, suh, dat hangin' him would be a _li'l abrupt_?"

Colonel Lee laughed and replied, "I think that just about expresses the sentiment not only of the colored people but of many others." They agreed that John Brown was an honest, earnest, courageous old man and that his friends ought to put him where he would be cared for.

My eyes were turned steadily toward Colonel Lee with a large measure of that admiration he won from observers older and more experienced than I. Yet I could not have told what manner of man he was, except that he was impressive in appearance and that he drew people toward him with a subtle attraction which was indescribable as well as irresistible.

The story of John Brown was graphically told and heard with absorbed attention, but it is not likely that the Virginia planter with all his knowledge of history and character, nor the great soldier with his military training, recognized signs of the impending storm any more than did the wide-eyed child lost in breathless wonderment over the thrilling episode.

At the next station the Colonel left us and I went on into the hill country.

X

THE BREAKING OF THE STORM

I was a student at Lynchburg Seminary when the storm that had begun to lower at Harper's Ferry broke in full force. To a few prescient minds I think it brought no shock of surprise. Some had watched the little cloud on the horizon till it had overspread the zenith. But most of us, old as well as young, had felt secure "in the land where we lay dreaming."

Virginia held longest by the Union, the bonds of which had clasped the States together until the Old Dominion had forgotten that political ties are not eternal. Since the brave Thirteen had banded together to fight for liberty, Virginia had clung with unswerving tenacity to the central idea that had kept the States together through many severe tests of loyalty. Forged in the fires of the Revolution, the chain that bound her to the Union of States had grown stronger with the years and with the blood of many battles. The Mother of Presidents and of patriotic Statesmen, her devotion to the welfare of the nation was of unusual depth and ardor. Politicians sought to drag her allegiance from the flag whose stars lit the path of her great sons, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the many who had worthily represented her in the work of building up the nation, but the people stood firmly by their historic and hereditary faith. There was but one thing that could shake her fidelity. When she was called upon for aid in a contest against her sister States loyalty to the nation gave way to loyalty to the South and home and kindred, and Virginia joined the Confederacy.

To some the bells which rang out the tidings of the rising of the new star in the Southern flag were joy-bells of victory; to many they tolled the death-knell of a long, proud era. But the new banner floated gloriously to the breeze, huzzas rang out triumphantly and all was glowing to the vision of hope.

The fires of patriotism burned hotly in the heart of youth and there were Stars and Bars enough in Lynchburg Seminary to light a world of new-born nations to victory and set up invincible barriers to the universe. Some weeks later when the news of the battle of Manassas came surging along the line, we felt that events had justified our enthusiasm. In imagination we beheld our flag floating over a great new country that should rival the nations of the world in beauty and glory.

We saw then only the bonfires of joy and heard only the pæans of victory, but a few days later, when my friend, Major John W. Daniel, was brought to his home in Lynchburg with a wound received in that battle which we had celebrated with such triumphant delight, I began to feel that war meant something more than the thrill of martial music and the shouts of victory. Major Daniel had been my friend from childhood, strong, handsome and gallant, and when I saw him in suffering helplessness I felt for the first time something of the power of war to strike down life with all its hopes and dreams and ambitions. He was soon able to return to the field, doing brave service for the cause until he was so badly wounded in the battle of the Wilderness that he was forced to retire. Even more gratefully does Virginia cherish the courageous work he has since done in the United States Senate, and lovingly does she hold him in her heart now that his brave and beautiful life has passed into the great Memorial Hall of her proudest history. Through all the years he has been a loyal friend to me and mine.

The passing of the ordinance of secession was the signal for the return of the martial sons of Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us, from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.

In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army, made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. Government officers called there in search of him, but he was protected by a ruse of his host and rode on the next morning, reaching Richmond September 13, 1861. He at once enlisted as a private, being immediately afterward commissioned as Captain and a few days later promoted to a Colonelcy. His military life from Richmond to Appomattox belongs to the history of the nation.

By this time everyday life in Virginia had become invested with difficulties even for those who might have been regarded as outside the sphere of war. Not only the soldiers in the field had obstacles to encounter; they loomed in the pathway of the school-girl.

My home being within the Federal lines, I spent a part of my vacations with friends in Richmond. There I used to see General Robert E. Lee riding along the street in the graceful way that years before had brought people to their windows to see "the handsomest man in the United States Army" ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The eyes of Richmond followed him with equal admiration in these war days and I used to recall my first meeting with him when the war was a dim prophecy. In a short time he was sent away to Western Virginia, where he fought a valiant but losing battle against mountains, rain, starvation, and Southern editors who were gifted with a military genius never known to the leaders of armies.

"I see that we have made a great mistake," the General lamented. "We ought to have put the editors in the field and set the Generals to managing the newspapers."

The streets of Richmond knew him no more until he returned in the late autumn with no new laurels on his brow but with a strength of soul that could abide the appointed time.

In our study halls we had fancied that we knew something of war. We had cheered our flag, trembled for our soldiers at the front even while we prophetically gloried in their future triumph, and celebrated with great enthusiasm the battle of Manassas. We had made sacrifices for our country, every girl of us having entrusted her jewelry to the principal of the school to be sold for the benefit of our cause. She had accepted the trust, saying that we might redeem our possessions if we wished. Only one piece was ever reclaimed, a ring given to one of the girls by her lover. When he was killed in battle she took back the ring, paying in money for her treasure. Now I was to learn something of what war meant.

XI

THE "VIRGINIA"

On a morning that was like ideal May, the 8th of March, 1862, I sat on my horse by the river bank at Blinkhorn, opposite Newport News. My uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, was stationed there, and I had come to the camp and was one of the hundreds gathered on the bank of the Nansemond River at that point, all eyes turned with eager interest toward Hampton Roads, where lay our new battleship, the _Virginia_.

Like a phoenix, she had arisen from the wreck of the old frigate _Merrimac_. Grim, solemn, weird, builded low upon the water, she was not boat nor ram nor submarine, nor anything else hitherto known to the waves. Newly clad in her robe of iron, she was a veiled mystery, a forlorn hope, a theory, an armed engine, a steam battery protected by armor, an experiment destined to change the course of naval warfare. Being the first ship built in the Old Dominion, she was named for her State, _Virginia_. Commanded by Captain Buchanan and manned by a crew composed largely of landsmen who had volunteered from the Army, she had waited in Hampton Roads for the dawning of her day.

Through my field-glass I watched the _Virginia_ gliding like a great white bird hovering between the pulsing, scintillant blue of the heavens above and the waters beneath. Accompanied by the gunboats _Raleigh_ and _Beaufort_, she passed along amid the cheers of the enthusiastic onlookers thronging both banks and of the troops at the batteries around the harbor. An awesome feeling took possession of me, holding me silent until the enthusiasm of the crowd thrilled me and I waved my handkerchief in messages of Godspeed to the brave new craft.

Slowly she rounded Craney Island, lying like a blue-gray cloud over the water, her batteries turned toward the Norfolk shore. The troops waved their caps and sent up lusty cheers for the strange craft that looked, as some one afterward said, "like a huge terrapin with a large round chimney about the middle of its back." Having passed the island, she turned into the south channel and slowly moved on toward Newport News until, coming within firing range of the United States frigates _Congress_ and _Cumberland_, she was greeted with broadsides from both. A flash of fire, pale against the white day, a puff of smoke, widening, drifting, wreathing around the mouth of the gun and floating off into space, a deep roar of thunder showed us that our _Virginia_ was bearing well her brave old name.

The enthusiasm which had greeted her appearance was as nothing compared with the excitement that thrilled us now. Yells of encouragement and defiance rent the air. Handkerchiefs fluttered; hats were thrown aloft. Some of the men danced; others turned somersaults of enthusiasm. One soldier rushed to Colonel Phillips shouting, "Say, Colonel, say; can't we do something? Can't we help? For God's sake, let us do something to help them!"

Fortunately there was no bridge from the shore to the scene of action. Otherwise every man, woman and child among that seething crowd might have rushed into the fight, to the embarrassment of the plucky little _Virginia_. We could do our part only by going into paroxysms of patriotism, in which we all excelled.

The _Virginia_ went on up the channel, turned and, coming back, ran full against the _Cumberland_, penetrating her side with the sharp prow of the Confederate ironclad. The frigate reeled, shuddered, and began slowly to settle, her guns roaring from her deck. The _Congress_ came to her assistance, but the shots which rained from the two frigates fell harmlessly from the slanting sides of the _Virginia_.

With fascinated eyes I watched the _Cumberland_ tossing upon the waves, gradually sinking, firing another volley as her bow went down, then disappearing under the water, the flag that floated from her masthead still fluttering above the sea.

For days we had seen that frigate with her mate, the _Congress_, threatening us, a blot upon our waters, a monster, a thing of evil, waiting for the moment of fate. But it was pitiful to watch her go down, and I think every heart there felt a pride in that pennant waving defiantly above the water, even while we cheered our victorious _Virginia_. She went on, turned and came back to attack the _Congress_ which, in trying to escape, ran aground. She was soon ablaze, banners of flame flapping out from her rigging. In an hour her flag fell.

We were told afterward that in one of the ships which we could dimly descry in the distance, an old man waited for the battle and for tidings of his son, commander of the _Congress_. When they told him that the flag was down he said sadly, "Then Joe is dead!" He knew by that signal that his son "Joe," Captain Joseph B. Smith, had fallen.

The _Raleigh_ and _Beaufort_ drew up beside the flaming _Congress_, under a heavy fire from the Federal batteries on the Newport News shore which not only did execution upon the crews of the Confederate gunboats, but proved fatal to some of the prisoners from the burning frigate. The _Virginia's_ launch rowed toward the _Congress_ and was struck by a volley from the Federal battery.

Beyond the _Congress_ the _Minnesota_ lay aground. Before the surrender of the _Congress_ the _Patrick Henry_, _Thomas Jefferson_ and _Teazer_, the James River squadron, passed the Federal batteries, the _Patrick Henry_ was struck through the boiler and was towed out of action by the _Thomas Jefferson_, returning after repairs and running up close to the grounded _Minnesota_, being light and able to come nearer than the heavier ironclad. Till night fell we watched the gunboats raining shot upon the _Minnesota_, the _Virginia_, from her greater distance, occasionally firing ponderously upon the grounded frigate. When darkness prevented correct aim the _Virginia_ and her sturdy little assistants retired, slowly moving to Sewell's Point. We returned to our homes, awed by the grandeur of the scene, sorrowful for the lost lives, but triumphant in the victory won by our brave little craft.

Those who watched through the hours of darkness beheld a brilliant fire-scene displayed against the velvety night. Steadily the _Congress_ had flamed upward, paling the stars in its red glow. At midnight banners of flame, showers of stars, fiery serpents writhing upward in sinuous pathways through the dense columns of smoke, marked the end.

That night a new-comer arrived and next morning was lying behind the grounded _Minnesota_--a queer object, afterward described as "a tin can on a shingle." It was Erickson's little _Monitor_, commanded by Captain Worden and manned by a volunteer crew, for no one was ordered for service on the odd little craft with its revolving turret. The position was risky and no officer wanted to reflect later that he had sent men to death on a wild experiment.

Those who could get a clear view of the stranger thought that she was a raft sent to save the crew of the _Minnesota_, but she steamed up toward the _Virginia_ with a war-like expression which left no doubt as to her real character. From tidings sent from New York we had expected the new invention down in our waters, but our imagination had not wound itself around anything so funny looking and we did not recognize her until she revealed herself.

I was early at my post, eager to see the end of the fray. My uncle had his boat ready to put out to the scene of action.

"Oh, uncle, may I go?" I cried, running after him.

"No, no!" he shouted. "Go back!"

He stepped into the boat and pulled off without looking behind and did not see that I followed and took a seat in the boat, with sketch-book and pencil, prepared to take battle views at first hand. Perhaps an artist of to-day might regard my sketch-book with some degree of scorn, constructed as it was of wall paper, turned plain side out, cut into leaves of convenient size, and bound together, the handiwork of my ingenious grandmother. It was the best the Confederacy could afford just then and perhaps it served the purpose as well as a more artistic outfit might have done. I shall never forget the look of horrified amazement that overspread my uncle's face as he chanced to look backward.

"You little dare-devil, you!" he called out, "I've a good mind to drown you!"

The absurdity of the situation flashed upon him and his shout of laughter rang over the water. We were too far out to admit of turning back to put me ashore and there was nothing he could do but endure my company.

"You needn't think I am going to try to keep you out of danger, you disobedient, incorrigible little minx," he said indignantly. "It would serve you right if you were shot."