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
gunboats. That, in the meantime, large foraging parties and immense
wagontrains 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 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 twoweeks’ dream. I wake from that into Petersburg, an
indefinitely long, real life....

                                                           “SID LANIER.”

Of the after months of ’3, 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 nearby
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 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!

                               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 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 ’4, 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 nearby 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 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 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!”

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 nearby 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 ’4, 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.

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 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 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.

                              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
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[31] 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.”

  SENATOR JAMES H. HAMMOND

  of South Carolina
]

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 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 in 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 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 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 care-free
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! 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 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 be 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.[32]

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 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.[33] 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’ 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 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!”

                              CHAPTER XVII
                         CONDITIONS IN 1863–’4

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,[34] 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 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, and realising that a blockaded coast 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 Williams’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 ’4. “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!”

As times grew more and more stringent, tea and coffee proved to be our
greatest lack, and here, as we had done in the last days at Warrenton,
we were glad to drink potato coffee and peanut chocolate. The skin of
the raw potato was scraped off—to pare it might have been to waste
it—and the potato cut into slices or discs as thin as paper. It was then
carefully dried, toasted and ground, and made into what proved to be a
really delicious beverage.[35] Our chocolate was made in this wise:
Peanuts, or pinders, or goobers, as they were variously called, were
roasted and the skin slipped off. They were next pounded in a mortar;
when, blended with boiled milk and a little sugar (a sparing use of this
most costly luxury was also necessary), the drink was ready for serving,
and we found it delightful to our palates.

There were spinners and weavers on Beech Island, too, and unceasing
industry was necessary to prepare and weave cloth, both cotton and wool,
sufficient for the clothing of the army of slaves and the family on the
great plantation. One of the island residents, Mrs. Redd, was a
wonderful worker, and wove me a cotton gown of many colours which had
all the beauty of a fine Scotch plaid. She spun her own cotton and made
her own dyes, gathering her colours from the mysterious laboratories of
the woods, and great was the fame her handiwork attained wherever it was
seen. Calico of the commonest in those days was sold at twenty-five
dollars a yard; and we women of the Confederacy cultivated such an
outward indifference to Paris fashions as would have astonished our
former competitors in the Federal capital. Nor did our appearance, I am
constrained to think, suffer appreciably more than our spirits; for the
glories of an unbleached Macon Mills muslin gown, trimmed with
gourd-seed buttons, dyed crimson, in which I appeared at Richmond in the
spring of ’4, so impressed the mind of an English newspaper
correspondent there, that he straightway wrote and forwarded an account
of it to London, whence our friends who had taken refuge there sent it
back to us, cut from a morning journal.

Not that our love for pretty things was dead; a letter preserved by Mr.
Clay is fine testimony to the fact that mine was “scotched, and not
killed.” It was dated Beech Island, November 18, 1864, and was addressed
to Mr. Clay, now on the eve of departure from Canada.

“Bring me at least two silk dresses of black and purple. I prefer the
purple to be _moire antique_, if it is fashionable. If French
importations are to be had, bring me a spring bonnet and a walking hat,
for the benefit of all my lady friends as well as myself, and do bring
some books of fashions—September, October, and November numbers (_Ruling
passion strong in war_), and bring——.” The list grew unconscionably. In
after years I found a copy of it carefully made out in my husband’s
handwriting, and showing marks of having been carried in his pocket
until each article I had indicated for myself or others had been
selected, Here it is:

 1.  At least, 2 silk dresses, black and purple (for ’Ginie).

 2.  French spring bonnet.

 3.  Walking hat.

 4.  Some books of fashion.

 5.  Corsets—4—6, 22 inches in waist.

 6.  Slippers with heels, No. 3 1–2.

 7.  Gloves—1 doz. light coloured, 1 doz. dark.

 8.  Handkerchiefs, extra fine.

 9.  Two handsome black silk dresses for Lestia.

 10. Flannel, white and red.

 11. A set of fine, dark furs, not exceeding $25.

 12. Set of Hudson Bay Sables, at any price, for Victoria, large cape,
       cuffs and muff.

 13. Two Black Hernanis or Tissue dresses, one tissue dress to be
       brochetted for ’Ginie.

 14. 3 or 4 pieces of black velvet ribbon, different widths.

 15. Bolt of white bonnet ribbon; ditto pink, green and magenta.

 16. French flowers for bonnet.

 17. Shell Tuck comb for ’Ginie.

 18. Present for little Jeff Davis, Claude and J. Winter.

 19. Needles, pins, _hairpins_, tooth-brushes, coarse combs, cosmetics,
       hair oil, cologne.

 20. Domestic, linen, muslin, nainsook, swiss, jaconet, mull muslin,
       each a full piece.

 21. Dresses of brilliantine.

 22. Black silk spring wrapping.

 23. Chlorine tooth wash and Rowland’s Kalydor.

 24. A cut coral necklace.

 25. Lace collars, large and pointed now worn.

Alas! my husband’s zeal in fulfilling my commissions all went for
naught, for the boxes containing them (save two, which were deposited
with Mrs. Chestnut, at Columbia, and later fell prey to the Federals or
to the flames, we never knew which) were swallowed by the sea, and only
he himself came home with the Government papers he had guarded, as the
sole baggage he was able to save from the wreck of the _Rattlesnake_ of
all he had carried. And yet not all, for a long-lost pet which he had
been enabled to reclaim for General Lee[36] was also brought safely to
shore.

“Tell him,” wrote my sister, from Richmond, that “General Lee’s dog
arrived safely. Poor dog! I’m sorry for him, for he will find the
Confederacy a poor place to come to to get anything to eat! I trust for
the country’s sake, he knows how to live without eating!”

For the making of our toilette we discovered the value of certain
gourds, when used as wash cloths. Their wearing qualities were
wonderful; the more one used them the softer they became. Needles were
becoming precious as heirlooms; pins were the rarest of luxuries; for
the greater part of the time locust thorns served us instead. Writing
paper was scarcely to be had, and the letters of that period which were
sent out by private persons were often unique testimony to the ingenuity
of the senders. Wall-paper, perhaps, was most frequently resorted to,
and we made our crude envelopes of anything we could find. We made our
own writing fluids, our commonest resource being the oak ball, a
parasite, which, next to the walnut burr, is the blackest thing in the
vegetable world. Or, this failing us, soot was scooped from the chimney,
and, after a careful sifting, was mixed with water and “fixed” with a
few drops of vinegar. Sometimes we used pokeberries, manufacturing a
kind of red ink, or, made thin with water, some bit of miraculously
saved shoe polish provided us with an adhesive black fluid.

Our difficulties were as great in the matter of transmitting our
letters, when once they were written. We might intrust them to the
mails, but these particularly were prey to our invaders; or we might
charge with the care of them some traveller who was known to be making
his way to the city for which the letters were addressed. Stray
newspapers reached us at “Redcliffe” occasionally, from even so distant
a point as our capital, and efforts were made by local editors to purvey
the news of battles and the movements of the armies, but the supply of
paper necessary for the issuing of a daily journal and even a weekly
edition was difficult to obtain. What at first had appeared as morning
papers were changed to evening editions, as the cost of candles, by
which the compositors must work, had risen in ’3 to three and one-half
dollars a pound. Our brother, J. Withers Clay, who owned and edited the
_Confederate_, turned peripatetic, and issued his paper where he could,
being obliged to keep shifting, printing paraphernalia and all, with the
movements of the army in the Tennessee region. Writing us from
Chattanooga, on August 16, 1863, he thus described his life: “I am
living in camp style. I mess with my office boys and our fare is frugal.
My bed is a piece of carpet, laid on a door, with one end elevated on
two bricks and the other resting on the floor. I lay my blue blanket on
this, and my bones on that, with my head supported by my overcoat and
carpet sack, and cover myself with a Mexican scarf when it is cool!”

On the whole, our condition was almost like that of the ancients who
depended on passing travellers for gossip or news of the welfare or
whereabouts of friends or kin. Thus my sister (by every tie of
affection), writing from Richmond in the spring of ’4, said: “Have no
idea where you are, but send this letter by General Sparrow to Macon,
care of Mrs. Whittle. The last intelligence I had of you was through
Colonel Phillips. He told me he saw you between Augusta and Macon
_somewhere_.”

Nor dared we avail ourselves of our telegraph wires, so costly had the
sending of a few lines become. For the briefest message sent C. O. D.
from Macon to Richmond, my sister paid sixteen dollars and implored me
to send no more! The chief resource of the people was the arrival of the
local train, at which time the railway stations swarmed with inquirers
on foot, hedged in by others as eager, who had driven long distances in
such vehicles as were at their command.

My life was one of continual suspense, notwithstanding the arrival of
special couriers who came from time to time from Richmond bearing
tidings of my absent husband. All lives that lie in close parallels to
governments carry heavy anxieties. Mine, in those days of strife and
terror, was no exception to this general rule. As negotiator at Niagara
Falls with Professor Holcombe and others, the eyes of the North as well
as those of the South for months had been fixed upon Mr. Clay, his
interviews with Horace Greeley and the messengers sent to him by Mr.
Lincoln having excited varying comments and criticisms that were
anything but reassuring. Our friends in Richmond, however, wrote
cheeringly:

  “... I hear occasionally of Mr. Clay,” ran a letter from the
  Executive Mansion, dated August 31st, ’4, “but for some time past
  nothing has been received from him. The company he keeps[37] as
  reported by the newspapers cannot render you apprehensive of his
  being too happy to wish to return, though your desire to be with him
  may have increased his probable want of more congenial communion
  when the day’s work is done. I am assured that his health has
  improved by Canadian air, and we may hope that he will bring back
  increased ability to labour in the cause of the Confederacy, if it
  should not be his portion to relieve us of the need for further toil
  such as now is imposed. The carping spirit which prompted the
  criticism[38] on his course would have found sufficient cause
  whatever he might have done; or, if nothing had been done, that
  would have served equally. No one can hope to please everybody. You
  would not wish your husband to escape the reviling of those who envy
  such as they cannot rival, and strive to drag others down from the
  heights to which they cannot rise?”

Messages were numerous, urging my return to Richmond, which our
President and the Mallorys assured me was the safest of places.

“Now that Sherman’s barbarians are in unpleasant proximity to you,”
wrote Secretary Mallory, “why not come to the front where security,
sympathy, mint juleps, an admiring audience, the freshest gossip and the
most unselfish regard, all combine with the boom and flash of guns to
welcome your coming? The correspondence between your lord and master and
Holcombe on one side, and Greeley on the other, is doing good service.
The parties, fragments, cliques and individuals in the United States who
desire peace, but differ upon the _modus operandi_ of getting it, will
now learn that with Lincoln at the head of affairs, no peace is
possible; while our weak brothers in North Carolina and Georgia who have
clamoured so loudly that peace propositions should be made to us, cannot
fail to see that, at present, peace with Lincoln means degradation. I am
very glad Mr. Clay went, for I see that his presence must be beneficial
to our cause.”

These, and other letters as urgent and as desirous of quieting my
apprehensions, came frequently. Nevertheless, my husband’s stay in the
severe climate of Canada caused me constant apprehension. For months my
only direct news of him was through “personals,” variously disguised, in
the Richmond papers, which Colonel Clay was prompt to forward to me.
Occasionally, however, one of the numerous letters each endeavoured to
send to the other successfully reached its destination. “It gives me
great pain,” I wrote on November 18, ’4, “to learn from yours just
received that none of my numerous letters have reached you since the
30th June! I have sent you dozens, my dearest, filled with all the news
of the day, of every character, and more love than ever filled my heart
before!... My last intelligence of you was sent me from Richmond through
the bearer of despatches, I presume, and bore the date of September
fifteenth, more than two months ago!”

In this letter, which was dated from Beech Island, I conveyed
intelligence to Mr. Clay of Senator Hammond’s death, he being, at the
time, a few days less than fifty-seven years of age. It occurred while
all the affluent colourings of the autumn were tingeing his world at
“Redcliffe.” The circumstances attending his decease and burial were
unique, and to be likened only to those which, in mediæval days,
surrounded the passing away of some Gothic baron or feudal lord. Mr.
Hammond had been failing in health for some time, when, feeling his end
drawing near, he asked for a carriage that he might drive out and select
his last resting-place. He chose, at last, a high knoll, from which a
fine view was to be had of Augusta and the Sand Hills; and, having done
this, being opposed to private burial grounds, he bequeathed the
surrounding acres to the town in the precincts of which his estate lay,
on consideration that they turn the plot into a public cemetery. First,
however, he laid an injunction upon his wife and sons, that if the
Yankee army penetrated there (the end of the war was not yet, nor came
for six months thereafter), they should have his grave ploughed over
that none of the hated enemy should see it.

Again and again in the remaining days he reiterated his wish. Fears were
spreading of the approach of Sherman’s devastating army, and the
destruction of “Redcliffe,” conspicuous as it was to all the surrounding
country, seemed inevitable. Marvellous to relate, however, when at last
the spoiler came, his legions marched in a straight line to the sea,
some fourteen miles away from the Hammond plantation, leaving it
untouched by shell or the irreverent hand of the invader.

The funeral of Mr. Hammond was solemn and made especially impressive by
the procession of two hundred of the older slaves, who marched, two by
two, into the baronial parlors, to look for the last time upon their
master’s face. Save for this retinue, “Redcliffe” was now practically
without a defender, Mr. Paul Hammond being absent much of the time,
detailed upon home guard duty. In his absence, my maid, Emily, and I
kept the armory of the household, now grown more and more fearful of
invasion with its train of insult and the destruction of property. There
were many nights when, all the rest in slumber and a dead hush without,
I waited, breathless, until I caught the sound of Paul Hammond’s
returning steps.

Just before the close of my refugee days on Beach Island, a young
kinsman, George Tunstall, who filled the sublime post of corporal in
Wheeler’s Brigade in camp a few hundred miles away, learning of my
presence there, obtained leave of absence and made his way, accompanied
by another youth, to Mrs. Hammond’s to see me. The two soldiers were
full of tales of thrilling interest, of hairbreadth escapes and camp
happenings, both grave and gay; and, rumours of Sherman’s advance being
rife, our young heroes urged my cousin to take time by the forelock and
bury the family silver. “Redcliffe” being almost in direct line of the
Yankee general’s march, the advice seemed good, and preparations at once
began to put it into operation. Though there was little doubt of the
loyalty of the majority of the Hammond slaves, yet it seemed but prudent
to surround our operations with all possible secrecy. We therefore
collected the silver, piece by piece, secreting it in “crocus” bags,
which, when all was ready, we deposited in a capacious carryall, into
which we crowded. It was at early dusk when lurking figures easily might
be descried in corn-field or behind a wayside tree by our alert eyes.
Declaring to those of the servants who stood about as we entered the
carriage, that we were taking some provisions to Mrs. Redd, much to
Lot’s[39] surprise, we dispensed with a coachman, and drove off. We had
many a laugh as we proceeded through the woods, at our absurdity in
concealing our errand from the family servants and in confiding our
precious secret to two of Wheeler’s men. They had a terrible reputation
for chicken stealing.[40]

  GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER

  of Alabama

  From a war-time photograph
]

When we had driven a mile or more, Mr. Tunstall produced a hatchet and
began to blaze the trees. “There!” he said, after instructing us as to
the signs he had made, “when you come to where the blaze stops, you’ll
find your valuables!” and under his directions the silver was silently
sunk in the ground and the earth replaced.[41]

Apropos of General Sherman, when a month or two later I was in Macon, I
heard a very excellent story. A party of his men one day dashed up to
the house of a Mrs. Whitehead, a fine old lady (a sister of my
informant), and demanded dinner at once. The lady long since had learned
that resistance to such imperative demands would be in vain, and
preparations were at once begun for the meal. Notwithstanding her
obliging and prompt compliance, the men immediately started a forage in
the poultry yard and the outhouses beyond. One of the officers
penetrated the servants’ quarters, and entered a cabin in which a young
black woman lay sick.

“What’s the matter, Sis?” he asked, in a tone that was meant to convey
sympathy.

“Ain’t no Sis of yourn!” was the sullen reply. “God knows I ain’t no kin
to no Yankee!” At that moment an infant’s cry was heard.

“Hello!” said the officer. “Got a little pickaninny, hey? Boy or girl?”

“Boy chile! What’s that ter you?” snapped the woman.

“What’s his name?” persisted the soldier.

“Name’s Wheeler, dat’s what ’tis!” answered the invalid triumphantly,
and the colloquy ended abruptly.

As the soldiers sat down to the table, some one, going to the door, saw
Wheeler’s men come tearing down the road flat on their horses. Instantly
he shouted back to his companions, “Wheeler!” but they, believing the
cry to be a ruse, continued to eat. The sounds of the galloping steeds
soon became audible, however, and a stampede that was highly amusing to
the now relieved household took place through doors and windows. When
General Wheeler arrived, he found a steaming repast already prepared,
and a cordial welcome from Mrs. Whitehead and her family, including
“Sis.”

                             CHAPTER XVIII
                      THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The South was now sadly crippled. Our bulwarks were demolished and our
granaries emptied, our most fertile valleys occupied by the Northern
army, and Confederate money was depreciated to such an extent as to make
it practically useless.[42] Our army was thinning daily, and even the
news from Richmond, save from Mr. Davis himself, seemed to carry an
undertone prophetic of coming collapse. “The enemy, yesterday and
to-day,” wrote Mr. Mallory, from the capital, late in October, “is, in
the graphic gorillaisms, ‘pegging away’ close at us; and the flash of
his guns is visible and their roar was audible from my piazza yesterday.
His approaches have been very slow, to be sure, but nevertheless, he has
taken no step backward, but is ‘inching’ upon Richmond surely and
methodically in a way that seems as gopherlike as it is certain; and he
will keep up this system unless we can, by hard fighting, push him
back.”

Supported by the hope of Mr. Clay’s return, and knowing he would seek me
first among those of our kin who were nearest to the coast, I lingered
on Beech Island until late in January, 1865, though I did so against the
advice of Colonel Clay, who urged me to go southward, and the assurances
of Mr. Davis that I might safely return to Richmond, which city, the
President was confident, would continue to prove an impregnable refuge.
In the last days of December two such messages, equally positive and
each positively opposed to the other in its significance, sped to me by
courier from the capital. Who was to decide when such correspondents
disagreed? Yet the need for some move became more and more urgent. To
return to Huntsville was out of the question. Northern Alabama was
overrun with Federal soldiers, to whom the name alone of Clay, borne as
it was by three men all actively labouring for the preservation of the
Confederate States, was a challenge to the exercise of fresh authority.
I heard distressing news of the contemplated transportation, to
Nashville, of the aged ex-Governor Clay (our uncle, Mr. McDowell, a
non-combatant full of years, had already died in that prison under most
pitiful circumstances), yet I was powerless to send him even a line of
comfort or encouragement. Mail routes in every direction were in
possession of the enemy, or liable to be interrupted by them, and
straggling companies of Union soldiers were on the lookout to intercept
such messengers as might attempt to bear our letters from point to
point.

My husband was in Canada, or on the seas, I knew not where; J. Withers
Clay, the second son of the ex-Governor, was active with pen and press
in lower Alabama; Colonel Clay was stationed in Richmond in the thick of
the political battle. Our parents were left alone in the old home, to
brave the discomforts put upon them by their sometimes cruel and
sometimes merely thoughtless oppressors. A grandson, Clement, a mere
lad, but a hero in spirit, venturing into the town to succour the old
people, was promptly arrested. “I wonder,” wrote one who visited our
parents, “that their heartstrings have not long since snapped!”

All through the Tennessee Valley dejection was spreading. “If Mr. Davis
does not restore General Johnston to the army of the Tennessee,” wrote
J. Withers Clay, “his friends generally out here believe that he will
never recover his lost popularity, or be able to get back the thousands
of soldiers (now) absent without leave. I wish you would tell the
President this. You have no idea of the extent of demoralisation among
soldiers and citizens produced by his persistent refusal to restore
him!”

For now several months I had been secretly tortured by an indecision as
to what course to pursue. Though urged by a hundred generous
correspondents to share their homes (for I have ever been blessed by
loyal friends), I had a deepening conviction that my interests were
detached from all. I was homeless, husbandless, childless, debarred from
contributing to the comfort of my husband’s parents, and I chafed at my
separation from those to whom my presence might have proved useful. As
time went on, all deprivations and anxieties were obscured by one
consuming determination to join my husband at all hazards; but, despite
every effort toward accomplishing this, I found myself swept helplessly
along by the strong currents of the times. My sole means of
communication with Mr. Clay was now through occasional “personals,”
which were published in the Richmond _Enquirer_, coöperating with the
New York _Daily News_. One of these, which appeared early in November,
1864, indicates the indecision and anxiety which by this time was felt,
also, by my husband in his exile:

“To Honourable H. L. Clay, Richmond, Virginia. I am well. Have written
every week, but received no answer later than the 30th of June. Can I
return at once? If not, send my wife to me by flag of truce, via
Washington, but not by sea. Do write by flag of truce care John Potts
Brown, No. 93 Beaver Street, New York. Answer by personal through
Richmond _Enquirer_ and New York _News_.”

“I inclose you a ‘personal’ from Brother Clement, published in
yesterday’s _Enquirer_,” Colonel Clay wrote on November 11, 1864. “I
consulted Mr. Mallory, Mr. Benjamin and the President, and then sent him
the following: ‘Your friends think the sooner you return the better. At
the point where you change vessels you can ascertain whether it is best
to proceed direct or by Mexico. Your wife cannot go by flag of truce.
She is well. I send you letters to-day by safe hands. H. L. C.’ The
reason why the earliest return is advised is that the fleet off
Wilmington is not yet increased to the degree intended; and during the
rough weather, before the hard winter sets in, it is much easier for
vessels to run the blockade. I shall tell him that the statistics kept
in the Export and Import Office show five out of six vessels, inward and
outward bound, safely run the blockade, but that he must himself
consider the risk from what he learns after reaching Bermuda.”

Colonel Clay’s prompt decision, such was my distracted state of mind, by
no means satisfied me. The suggestion contained in my husband’s words
seemed feasible to my courageous mind. I despatched a note of inquiry at
once to Richmond, begging Mr. Davis to write to Mr. Seward to secure my
safe passage by land to Canada. I told him of my unrest, the increasing
uncertainty that prevailed in the neighbourhood of “Redcliffe,” and my
desire to join my husband. The President’s reply was reassuring and full
of the confidence which sustained him to the end of the remaining days
of the Confederacy. “There is no danger in coming here now,” ran his
message from the capital, dated December 29, 1864. “When he (Mr. Clay)
returns he will, of course, visit this place, and can conveniently meet
you here.” But, when I proposed to try to make my way to this haven,
Colonel Clay wrote excitedly, animated by an anxiety as great as my own:

“Don’t come to Richmond! Don’t send the President letters or telegrams.
He is in a sea of trouble, and has no time or thought for anything
except the safety of the country. I fear the Congress is turning madly
against him. It is the old story of the sick lion whom even the jackass
can kick without fear. It is a very struggle for life with him. I do not
know that he has any reliable friends in Congress, who will sustain him
upon principle, fearlessly and ably. He has less and less power to
intimidate his enemies, and they grow more numerous every day.... If he
were preëminently gifted in all respects, the present moment is perilous
enough to call forth all his energies no matter how great.... Before
this reaches you, you will have read my private letter to Hammond, in
regard to the military situation in South Carolina and Georgia. I think
as soon as Sherman reduces Savannah, he will move promptly up the
Savannah River, and endeavour to capture Charleston by taking it in
reverse. That success would be a feather in any general’s cap. We cannot
hope to make fight on that river, I think, but must take the Edesto as
our line of defense. Now, look upon the map and you will see that the
whole of Beech Island lies between the two rivers, and in the event
Sherman moves up (as he will do, to cut off supplies from Charleston and
Virginia), the South Carolina Railroad will fall within the line of his
advance. I only give you my personal opinion; for, of course, no one can
speak assuredly of Sherman’s intentions. If I am right, I think you had
better move in the direction of Alabama before there is any rush of
travel, and as soon as you can well do so.... In Alabama or western
Georgia there will be plenty of food; more, indeed, because of the
inability to bring it east of Augusta. I write to advise you to go as
far away from the line of the enemy’s march as you can ... I dare not
look into the future, after Hood’s battles in Tennessee, if the Yankee
accounts are verified. God knows we are pressed hard on every side by
the enemy, and have no wise counsellors to give proper direction to our
weak, erring efforts for independence. Passion and prejudice and
personal feelings govern in many instances where patriotism should rule.
Congress is discussing questions of the smallest moment while the
Confederacy is in the grip of the Yankees struggling for existence.... I
fear the pending attack upon Wilmington will prevent Brother Clement
from coming in at the Port (if he should conclude not to go to Mexico)
for some time yet. Until the flotilla set sail from Fortress Monroe I
looked for him to come in about the last of this month or the first of
the next. Now I shall not know when to expect him, for no vessels will
attempt the blockade there at Washington.”

It now became apparent that to wait at our exposed Island was no longer
prudent. A family council was called, and it was decided that, upon the
first sign of a suitable escort, I should make my way to Macon. I had
not long to wait. Within a few days we learned of the presence of
General Howell Cobb in Augusta. I wrote to him at once, telling him of
my contemplated exodus and of my desire to place myself under his
protection upon his return journey to his headquarters at Macon. He
replied with the gallant cordiality which was ever a characteristic with
him, and which I think would never have deserted him even in the midst
of the roar of cannon:

                                  “AUGUSTA, Georgia, January 21, 1865.

  _“My Dear Friend_: ... I assure you that your threat to cling to me
  like the old man of the sea to Sinbad is the most agreeable threat
  that ever was made to me, and it shall not be my fault if it is not
  executed. I am here under orders from Richmond, which leave me in
  doubt whether I am to remain a day, a month, or a year. My opinion
  is that I will be ordered back to Macon in a very few days, and
  there is no telling at what hour I may receive the order. To make it
  certain, however, that I can give you timely notice, you ought to be
  in Augusta. I am ready to receive the acceptable trust and devote my
  best efforts to your comfort and happiness.

                                          Very truly your friend,
                                                        “HOWELL COBB.”

Early in February I arrived in Macon without misadventure, and here, on
February 10th, my husband joined me, having learned of my whereabouts
from our friends in Augusta.

Mr. Clay’s experiences since leaving Nassau had been exciting. _The
Rattlesnake_, a hitherto skilful blockade runner, on which he had taken
passage, was bound for Charleston; but, finding an entrance at that port
impossible for the moment, she had crept cautiously up to Wilmington,
only to be obliged again to show her heels to the wary and enlarged
blockading fleet. After numerous efforts to find a friendly harbour, the
little ship, reconnoitering about the South Carolinian coast, ran
aground four miles away from Fort Moultrie, grounded, it was rumoured,
by the pilot. Here the little craft, which quickly became the target of
the enemies’ guns, was abandoned, her timbers ablaze, while passengers
and crew, taking to the life-boats, bore with them such baggage as might
be gathered in their haste; and now, to cap the climax of their
disasters, the life-boats, too, ran aground, and sailors and passengers
were compelled repeatedly to wade through the waves, which dashed
throat-high about them, in an effort to rescue the pieces of baggage
they had been able to save from the ship. On that cold, blustery day in
early February, in garments saturated with brine, Mr. Clay was taken in
a yawl to Fort Moultrie, whence, ill from the exposure he had undergone,
he was carried in a sail-boat to Charleston by the Reverend Mr. Aldrich,
an accidental visitor to the Fort. By that kindly man he was put to bed
and to sleep under the stimulus of orange-leaf tea, while his clothing
and few rescued belongings were undergoing a drying.

Upon awakening, Mr. Clay’s first effort was to forward to Richmond to
the care of Colonel Clay, to be held until his own arrival in the
capital, a small hand-trunk addressed to Judah P. Benjamin, and to
General Lee, his restored pet; his second, to find me. This
accomplished, it was his intention to proceed at once to Richmond, to
deliver in person his State papers, the most important of which he had
carried in an oil-silk bag suspended about his neck. To the complete
frustration of his plans, however, my hapless husband found the railway
route between Augusta, where he supposed me to be, and Charleston, now
effectually closed. It was by a roundabout road, therefore, made partly
by carriage, that he reached the desired point on the seventh of
February, only to learn of my departure a few days before under the
escort of General Cobb. By the 10th, when Mr. Clay arrived at last in
Macon, he had informed himself of the grave plight of our armies, and of
the lamentable political differences existing in the capital, to which
Colonel Clay, in his letter to me, had alluded. A few hurried
conferences with General Cobb and others, and together we took our
departure for Richmond. Everything which might become an impediment to
the rough travel that lay before us was dispensed with, even my
invaluable maid, Emily, being left behind at the home of Major Whittle.
We proceeded first to Washington, Georgia, going, upon our arrival, to
the home of General Toombs, where was sojourning Mr. Stephens, our
Vice-President. The hearts of all were heavy as the gentlemen conferred
together upon the outlook of our country and arms. Letters from Richmond
which reached our hands at this point were excited in tone, and added to
our apprehension and sorrow.

“On every side,” wrote our sister, “the city rings with the cries of
Rachels weeping for their children!”

“Don’t come to Richmond!” urged Colonel Clay, “[or] if you think it
necessary to come on, do so at once; don’t delay. Leave sister; don’t
undertake to bring her in the present uncertain condition of the
railroad connections between here and the Georgia line.... Our armies
have been dwindling, until none is large enough to withstand an attack
in the open field. There is a collapse in every department, and, worse
than all, there is an utter lack of confidence by the people, in the
administration, in Congress, and in the success of the cause itself....
Campbell _will_ go out. He cannot see any benefit to be derived from his
longer continuance in office as the _drudge_ of the War Department,
especially when the Treasury is bankrupt, and Congress cannot devise a
new scheme for reëstablishing faith in the currency. That department is
$400,000,000 in arrears, it is said. I know it is enormously in debt to
the War Department ($32,000,000), and that the Quartermaster General and
the Commissary General cannot obtain the means to pay current expenses.
If we cannot have transportation and bread for the soldiers in the
field, to say nothing of clothing and pay, ... what becomes of our
army?... As I see the present and argue thence what the future has in
store for us, ... I see nothing but defeat and disaster and ruin!”

Characterised throughout his life by a punctilious observance of
everything which in his eyes appeared a duty, Mr. Clay was not to be
deterred by even such grave news from carrying out his intention to
deliver in person, to the President and Mr. Benjamin, an account of his
stewardship in Canada. Late in February, therefore, he resumed his
journey, mounted upon General Toomb’s grey mare, and accompanied by the
General’s man, Wallace. He had not proceeded far, however, when,
overtaken by an illness, the result of his exposure at Charleston, he
was obliged to return to Washington. A month elapsed ere he was able
again to set out for Richmond, the city which was so soon to be the
theatre of our national collapse.

The roads now, in many places, were impassible. The number of Union
soldiers was increasing daily in the States which Mr. Clay must cross in
his northward journey. My husband, with his precious documents, would
have been a rich prize to any who might have seized him. Through many
vicissitudes he made his cautious way toward the capital, securing a
horse, when he could, or a mule team, or following the railroad tracks
where necessary. Much of the journey he made alone, but he sometimes
found himself in company, and that not always wholly desirable. On one
occasion he fell in with two straggling Confederate soldiers, and, being
near the home of a distant kinsman, Robert Withers, upon the arrival of
the trio he asked Mr. Withers’ hospitality for them all. Consent was
promptly forthcoming, but my husband’s feelings were somewhat less
cordial toward his whilom companions when one was allotted to him as a
bedfellow. “Had to sleep with ——,” reads his diary, “much to my dread of
camp-itch!”

Eight days were consumed in that journey to the capital, by this time
the scene of an excitement truly anarchistic. Mr. Clay was probably the
last man in the Confederate service to seek to enter Richmond. The trend
of Confederate travel just then was in an opposite direction.

Making at once for Colonel Clay’s headquarters, my husband secured the
trunk destined for Mr. Benjamin, to whom he shortly afterward
transferred his papers. The transaction was a hurried one, and Mr. Clay
pushed on to the apartment of Mr. Davis. In after days I often heard him
describe the scene which there met him. He found the President engaged
in hastily packing a valise, his clothing and papers scattered in little
heaps about. I think he assisted his hapless friend in these
preparations. An hour or two later and Mr. Clay was _en route_ for
Danville, on the last of the over-laden trains to draw out from the once
dear but now desolated city. Of the sad journey of the President through
the Carolinas, with his company of legislative friends, of which, for a
portion of the way, my husband was one, I remember no particulars. I
recall a hasty return to Macon, where Mr. Clay joined me, whence we
hurried on in a few days to the home of former Senator B. H. Hill, at
Lagrange, in western Georgia. The remembrance of the days that
immediately succeeded the evacuation of Richmond, followed, as that
event was, by the murder of Abraham Lincoln, is a confused one. A kind
of horror seized my husband when he realised the truth of the reports
that reached us of this tragedy. At first he had refused to credit them.
“It’s a canard!” he said; but when, at last, he could no longer doubt,
he exclaimed: “God help us! If that be true, it is the worst blow that
yet has been struck at the South!”

                              CHAPTER XIX
             C. C. CLAY, JR., SURRENDERS TO GENERAL WILSON

Upon leaving the home of General Toombs, we proceeded directly to that
of Senator Hill, where shortly were gathered ex-Secretary of our Navy
and Mrs. Mallory, Mr. and Mrs. Semmes, of Louisiana, and Senator
Wigfall. We were an anxious circle, our hearts heavy with the constantly
increasing testimony to our great disaster, and our minds alert to
measure the ways and means of our future course. My husband and Mr.
Wigfall had already determined to seek the other side of the
Mississippi, there to join the gallant Kirby Smith, and make a last
stand for our cause; or, if needs must be, to press on to Texas. Day by
day disturbing news reached us concerning the whereabouts of Mr. Davis
and his party, now making their sorry flight toward the coast of
Florida, fugitives from the Federal authorities.

A Northerner would have found us a wonderful nest of “rebels,” could he
have looked in upon the group that one evening surrounded the table in
the library of the Hill residence, upon which was spread the map of
Georgia. The gentlemen were seated, the ladies standing behind them.
Every eye was bent upon the road which our host was pointing out.

“If Davis would take this route”—and Mr. Hill’s finger traced the way
upon the diagram before us, “if he keeps to it without any detour
whatsoever, he will get away,” he declared. “If he turns aside a step or
lingers an hour he is lost! If he crosses the river there”—and our host,
who knew the topography of his State by heart, paused as he marked the
spot, “no one can take him!”

Not a member of that circle but was tense in his or her desire that our
chief should be spared the ignominy and pain of capture. The magnanimity
of Senator Wigfall, whose antagonism to President Davis had caused a
profound concern in Richmond in this hour of the Confederacy’s downfall,
was especially marked.

To the present, none of those assembled at the hospitable Hill home had
reason to apprehend a personal danger from the conquering party. The
meeting had taken place at Appomattox which, more than victories gained,
has made the name of Grant immortal. The Northern General had received
the proffer of Lee’s sword, and peace had been proclaimed. By the terms
made we had some little reason to be optimistic as to our future,
despite the peopling of our Southern cities with Union soldiers. The
developments of one fateful day, however, unveiled to us the actual
perils we were yet to face.

As I have said, my husband and Mr. Wigfall had practically completed
their arrangements to leave Lagrange and strike for the Mississippi. It
was my expectation, thereupon, to return to our parents’ home in
Huntsville. The day agreed upon for my departure approached. At the
request of my husband, I drove to the cars to ascertain what currency
would be required to take me to Macon, whence I was to proceed at once
to Alabama. In company with Henrietta Hill and her little brother, I
drove to the station in time to see the afternoon train pull in. As it
swept into the city with a shrill scream, it was crowded with men and
women of both races; so overcrowded, rather, that many clung to the
platforms. There were shouts and a general Babel, which I did not
understand, and, as debarkation began, to these was added the bedlam of
drunken laughter. When as near to the cars as the carriage would permit,
I directed Benny Hill to go forward to the conductor and ask “What
currency is needed to get to Macon?”

The man seemed to understand that I had prompted the question, and
called to me, “Gold or greenbacks, Madam?” Then, not waiting for my
reply, he hastened to add the news, “Macon has been surrendered by
General Howell Cobb to the Federals, General Wilson commanding. Atlanta,
as you know, is in the hands of the Yankees, Colonel Eggleston in
charge!”

This was disappointing news to me, as I had but little gold and a peck
of Confederate paper, which was not likely to carry me far under
reported conditions. I waited until the crowd had thinned out somewhat,
and then questioned the man further.

“Is there any other news than that of the proclamation for Mr. Davis’s
arrest?” I asked. His reply astounded me.

“Yes, Madam!” he said; “$100,000[43] is offered for Clement C. Clay, of
Alabama.” A trembling seized me. I don’t know how I made my way to the
carriage. Before I was fairly seated I saw Colonel Philip Phillips, at
this time a resident of Lagrange, coming toward us. In his hands he held
a journal. Quickly reaching the carriage, he handed me the paper, and,
pointing to the despatch, which contained the proclamation, he said, “Go
home quickly and give this to Mr. Clay!”

Scarcely aware of what I did, I ordered the coachman to drive back at
once, forgetting in the excitement of the moment to invite the Colonel
to accompany me. Arriving at the Hill residence, I met my hostess almost
at the door.

“Please ask the gentlemen to come to us!” I said faintly, “I have
important news!” and I hastened upstairs.

I found Mr. Clay sitting quietly, deep in the conning of a thick volume.
It was Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” ever a favourite with him. It
lay open on his knee, steadied with one hand; the other, as was a habit
with my husband, was stroking his beard, absentmindedly. Before I could
summon my voice to utter the terrible news, the others of the party had
hastened upstairs. Handing the fatal paper to Senator Hill, I cried,
half-hysterically, “For God’s sake, read that!”

As Mr. Hill read the proclamation aloud, everyone was silent. Senator
Semmes was the first to break the silence that followed the reading.

“Fly for your life, Clay!” he said, “The town is full of men from two
disbanded armies, any of whom would be tempted by such a sum. Take no
chances!” Then all at once everyone but my husband began to talk
excitedly. As the meaning of the despatch broke upon him, Mr. Clay
blanched a moment, but at Mr. Semmes’s urgings he spoke.

“Fly?” he said, slowly, like one recovering from a blow, “from what?”
Mr. Semmes’s answer came drily.

“From death, I fear!” he said. My husband turned inquiringly to the
others. Secretary Mallory, seeing the unspoken question in his face,
answered it.

“I don’t know what to say, Clay! One hundred thousand dollars is a
glittering bribe to half-starved soldiers!” He had scarcely spoken when
a knock was heard. Alarmed by the thought that some renegade was already
come to arrest my husband, I flew to the door and locked it. As I did
so, Senator Hill was beside me, and I remember the forceful feeling with
which he spoke, even as the click of the key sounded.

“By the eternal God, Clay!” he said. “The man who dares cross my
threshold to arrest you, falls on it.”

Fortunately our fears were groundless, for in a moment we heard the
word, “Phillips!” and, upon opening the door, the Colonel quickly
entered. His calm bearing was a relief to us. Some one at once put the
question to him, “What do you think Clay ought to do?”

“What does Mr. Clay think he should do?” was Colonel Phillips’s reply.
My husband was prompt to answer:

“As I am conscious of my innocence, my judgment is that I should at once
surrender to the nearest Federal authorities!” he said.

At this announcement I could not restrain my sobs. I doubt not I
troubled him much by my tears and pleadings. I begged him hysterically
to fly; I would join him anywhere if he would but escape. But my ever
patient husband only answered, as he tried to calm me, “Virginia! my
wife! Would you have me fly like an assassin?”

I could say no more, but only listen, between the crowding fears and
terrors that seized me, while those about discussed the wording of a
telegram which, a short time afterward, Colonel Phillips carried to the
telegraph office. It ran thus:

  “_Bt. Major-General Wilson, United States Army_: Seeing the
  proclamation of the President of the United States, I go to-day with
  the Honourable P. Phillips, to deliver myself to your custody.

                                                      C. C. CLAY, Jr.”

I think this resolute act, and the preparation of a letter which was
immediately written to the same general, relieved my husband, for he was
instantly calmer. For myself, I felt that he had signed his own death
warrant. During the succeeding hours, the entire household was in
consultation. Having decided to proceed to Macon by the early train the
next morning, Mr. Clay retired and slept, to my surprise, as peacefully
as a child, though I, less fortunate, watched and wondered at his
calmness.

Early the following morning we left Lagrange, accompanied by Colonel
Phillips. The world appeared very strange and worthless to me as the
train hastened on to Atlanta, where a change of cars was necessary. We
found that city a pandemonium; soldiers patrolling the streets, drums
beating, and vans, loaded with furniture, moving up and down the
avenues. In our desire to proceed as rapidly as possible we accosted a
soldier.

“Where is Colonel Eggleston?” Colonel Phillips asked.

“There he is, within ten feet of you!” was the reply. The Colonel
thereupon approached the officer in command and said to him, “I have a
distinguished friend here, Mr. Clement C. Clay, of Alabama, who is on
his way voluntarily to surrender himself.”

On hearing my husband’s name, Colonel Eggleston approached us and held
out his hand, saying: “Is it possible, Mr. Clay, you are the man who is
making such a stir in the land? I am not surprised at your surrender. I
knew your record through my Senators, Pugh and Pendleton, of Ohio.
You’ve done the right thing, sir, and I hope you’ll soon be a free man.”

Mr. Clay, surprised at the Federal Colonel’s magnanimity, turned and
presented him to me. He extended his hand. I took it. It was the first
Yankee hand I had touched since we had left Minnesota, four years
before. The Colonel assured us it was impossible for us to proceed that
night to Macon. “It will be best for you,” he said, “to spend the night
at the Kimball House. But the city is in a tumult, and, as Mrs. Clay is
with you, I will have a guard that you may not be disturbed.” When we
were ready to retire, two soldiers appeared, with muskets in hand, and
took their stand, one at each side of our chamber door, where they
remained until the next morning.

Shortly after breakfast, Colonel Eggleston presented himself. His manner
was courteous. “As times are so turbulent,” he said, “I think it best
that I should detail a guard to accompany you to Macon; that is,” he
added, “unless you object.” Upon Mr. Clay’s assurance that the guard
would not be unpleasant to us, the General presented Lieutenant Keck, a
young officer, who, during the conversation, had been standing near.
Thereupon the Lieutenant attached himself to our party and we boarded
the car for Macon. Throughout the trip our guard behaved with
undeviating consideration, and this, under trying circumstances; for,
the wires flashing the news about the country, many of the stations
along the road were crowded with friends, who, when they saw us, uttered
expressions of intensest regret, even urging my husband to fly. On more
than one occasion, so considerate was Lieutenant Keck’s conduct, that he
allowed Mr. Clay to leave the car, unguarded.

During that journey the young officer addressed me but twice; the first
time to offer me a glass of water, and the second to tell me a piece of
news that shocked me in double force. As we approached Macon, my husband
had endeavoured to prepare me for whatever the future might hold for us.
He was a prisoner, he said, and though self-surrendered, I must not be
alarmed if we should find a phalanx of soldiers waiting us at the depot.
The picture thus conjured had already made me sick at heart, when my
husband, excusing himself, went forward into the next car for a few
moments. A short time afterward Lieutenant Keck appeared. Approaching me
he said, with some hesitation, “Mrs. Clay, I have some sad news for
you!”

My husband’s previous words suddenly rushed over me. He had been
preparing me for something he knew but dared not tell me! In a moment,
in my mind’s eye, I saw a gibbet. “Great God,” I cried. “What is it?
Will they hang my husband?”

“Don’t be frightened, Mrs. Clay,” our guard answered. “Don’t cry! Your
chief was arrested yesterday!”

“My chief,” I echoed. “You mean General Lee?”

“No!” was his response, “Mr. Davis! He is now at the Lanier House, in
Macon!” The loosening of the tension to which I first had been keyed was
so great that I was scarcely able to utter a comment, nor had I
recovered from the shock when the train pulled into Macon.
Notwithstanding my husband’s brave counsels, the news of Mr. Davis’s
arrest added a hundredfold to our depression. When I told Colonel
Phillips and Mr. Clay, who shortly returned, my husband’s face grew
graver. “If that is true,” he said, “my surrender was a mistake. We
shall both perish!”

In an indistinct way I felt my husband to be right; and surely after
events demonstrated how nearly truly he had prophesied. The almost
instantaneous appearance of Mr. Clay and Mr. Davis as prisoners produced
a confusion in the press statements and telegrams that flew over the
country, and coloured the feeling of the public to such an extent that
those in high places who were seeking sacrificial victims were enabled,
without exciting a protest, to overlook the fact that Mr. Clay, scorning
arrest, had confidently and voluntarily committed himself into the
Government’s hands, to court its fullest investigation. “The arrest of
Clement C. Clay,” was the heading under which my husband’s courageous
act was buried in so far as it might be; and so generally was the fact
of his voluntary surrender overlooked, that a Southern historian, whose
books have been circulated among schools, took up the phrase and
incorporated it among the “historic” facts which children con.

Arrived at Macon, we found a single transfer wagon at the station. To
this we were conducted, and our party of four, with our grips and
valises, completely filled the vehicle. As we drove away from the
station I felt much as must have felt the poor wretches in the French
Revolution as they sat in the tumbrels that bore them to the guillotine.

We drove at once to the residence of our friends, Colonel and Mrs.
Whittle, whence Colonel Phillips proceeded to General Wilson’s
headquarters to deliver my husband’s letter announcing his surrender. It
was a beautiful afternoon. The trees were in full foliage and the air
delicious with sweet odours of Southern blossoms. Dusk was approaching
as, without previous announcement, we drove up to the Whittle home. The
family were seated on the veranda. With them was our brother, J. Withers
Clay. As they recognised us they rushed down the steps to meet us, full
of eager questioning.

“What does it mean?” they cried. “Why have you come here?” and every eye
was full when my husband answered, “I have surrendered to the United
States Government. Allow me to present my guard, Lieutenant Keck!” Never
shall I forget how dear Mrs. Whittle (who was slightly deaf), with eyes
full of tears, reached out her hand to that representative of our
triumphant antagonists, as if, by a forbearing kindness, she would
bespeak his favour for my husband.

As we entered the house, we were all in tears, and Colonel Phillips,
glad of an excuse to leave the painful scene, hastened to deliver his
message to the General in command. Returning in the course of an hour,
he reported General Wilson as approving Mr. Clay’s course. He sent word
that he was awaiting instructions in regard to Mr. Davis’s party, “Whom,
I presume, you will accompany. Meanwhile, I request that you will not
talk of the surrender!” He further directed that Lieutenant Keck be sent
immediately to him. I think this young soldier had a tender heart, for,
seemingly touched at our sorrowful situation, he lingered about a moment
as if unwilling to leave us without a farewell. Seeing his hesitation, I
offered him my hand and thanked him for his humane treatment of my
husband, which, I assured him, I should ever remember. If his eyes, or
those of others to whom he was dear should see this acknowledgment they
will know I did not speak lightly.

General Wilson’s request was scrupulously observed by us, and though
friends came in numbers to sympathise with us and encourage us, we were
silent on the forbidden topic of my husband’s surrender. A day or two
later, word came that we must hold ourselves in readiness to leave
Macon. Meantime, I had addressed a note to General Wilson, begging that
I might be allowed to accompany my husband on his journey to his
destination, wherever it might be. The Commanding General promptly
acceded to my request, though, he assured me, the trip before us would
be a rough and disagreeable one, and advised me to consider well before
I took it.

Of course, I was not to be deterred. I made instant preparation for the
journey. My available wardrobe was small, being limited to a few
Perodi’s (which in those days served the same purpose as the shirt-waist
of 1900) and a rusty black skirt, a veritable war-relic; but my friends
in Macon, knowing the impossibility of getting my own possessions
together, quickly came to the rescue. The results of their generosity
were not in all cases strictly what donor or recipient might have
wished, from the point of view of fashion or art. For example, Mrs.
Lucius Mirabeau Lamar sent me a treasured foulard silk gown, of a pretty
brown and white pattern; but she, being both shorter and stouter than I,
the fit was not one that even the deliberately courteous would have
ventured to call a good one; nevertheless, I received it gratefully and
courageously adapted it to serve as travelling attire. Mrs. William D.
Johnston, too, sister of our loved General Tracy, likewise urged a gift
upon me of several changes of Parisian _lingerie_, which she had but
just acquired. With this borrowed finery (which afterward carried its
own penalty) stowed in my valise, when the announcement of the time
appointed for our departure came to us, it found me ready.

It was set for the late afternoon. We arrived at the railway station a
half-hour before train time. At the last, we hastened away from the
friends whose sorrow and sympathy threatened to disturb the composure it
was so necessary to preserve against our coming ordeals. We were
surprised to find the city in a kind of uproar. Cavalry clattered
through the streets and gazing sight-seers thronged the sidewalks. Our
passage to the station proceeded without mishap or adventure of any
kind; nevertheless, we had scarcely alighted from our carriage when,
looking back, up the street we saw a company of cavalrymen approaching.
There was an increasing activity in the gathered crowds, which were
composed of silent citizens of Macon, elbowed by Freedmen and Union
soldiers, who lounged among them.

As the cavalry approached the station, the significance of the scene
became plain to us. They were a guard, flanking on each side an old
“jimber-jawed, wobble-sided” barouche, drawn by two raw-boned horses. In
the strange vehicle were seated Mr. and Mrs. Davis. Mr. Davis was
dressed in a full suit of Confederate grey, including the hat, but his
face was yet more ashen than was his garb. Behind them, completing the
pitiful cortège, came a carryall, in which were Miss Howell, the Davis
little ones and nurses; and, as the procession drove by, the alien and
motley crowd along the walks yelled and hooted in derision. But not
all—one heartless Union soldier tried the patience of a sorrowful
“rebel” onlooker.

“Hey, Johnny Reb,” shouted the first, “we’ve got your President!”

“And the devil’s got yours!” was the swift reply.

As the procession arrived at the station, two soldiers approached Mr.
and Mrs. Davis, and escorted them at once to the cars. The interest of
everyone for the moment being centred on the party of the late
President, my excitement grew. Wild thoughts filled my mind. I could not
restrain them. “Oh! if they would only forget you!” I said impetuously,
to my husband. Alas! scarcely had I uttered the words when two guards
approached. “This is Mr. Clay, I presume?” and with a hasty farewell to
our kind friends, the Whittles, we were soon aboard the cars.

As we entered, Mr. Davis rose and embraced me.

“This is a sad meeting, Jennie!” he said, as he offered me a seat beside
him, for Mrs. Davis and my husband, already deep in conversation, had
established themselves nearby. As I seated myself I became aware that
the car had filled up with soldiers. I heard the doors slam, and the
command, “Order arms!” and in the dull thud of their muskets as the
butts struck the floor, I realised for the first time that we were
indeed prisoners, and of the nation!

                               CHAPTER XX
                     PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES

Dawn found us haggard and ill. Our night ride to Augusta was a fatiguing
one. Of our party, only the children slept. The air in the car was of
the foulest, and the discomforts of the trip were consequently most
trying to our invalids, of whom there now were three—Mr. Davis, Mr.
Clay, and our venerable Vice-President, Mr. Stephens, we having taken
the latter aboard during the night; also, our late Postmaster-General
Reagan, ex-Governor Lubbock, and General Wheeler and staff. Nor were we
again permitted to leave the car until our arrival in Augusta.
Telegraphic orders having been sent ahead for our meals, these were
brought to the train and eaten _en route_.

Upon our arrival in Augusta, I asked Colonel Pritchard for the privilege
of driving in the carriage assigned to us to the home of a beloved
friend, Mrs. George Winter. Upon my promise that at the hour appointed I
would be responsible for Mr. Clay’s appearance on the boat which was to
take us to Savannah, Colonel Pritchard gave a somewhat reluctant consent
and we drove rapidly away. As had been the case in Macon and Atlanta,
the town was in commotion. This visit to our friends was almost an
error; for, greatly excited at our appearance among them, they embraced
us in hysterical alarm, and begged my husband even yet to fly. To add to
the distress, neighbouring friends, hearing of our presence, hastened in
and joined their pleadings to those of our hostess. The scene was
unendurable to Mr. Clay, and, literally tearing ourselves from their
embraces, we re-entered the carriage. The horses heads were turned at
once toward the river where our custodians awaited us. Arrived there,
though I cannot admit that it was our intention or impulse to board the
boat with a fond alacrity, our embarkation was not without a misleading
appearance of-eagerness. The bank of the river was both steep and
slippery, and, notwithstanding I was assisted in my descent by two
officers, my approach was neither stately nor awe-inspiring. In fact, it
was precipitate, and I found myself, most unexpectedly, in the arms of a
soldierly little figure in undress uniform who stood close to the crude
gang-plank. As I opened my lips to apologise for my unexpected
onslaught, he turned and raised his hat. It was “little Joe!”

An episode of that trip in connection with General Wheeler fixed itself
indelibly in my mind. I was in conversation with this hero on one
occasion, during which he leaned against the side of the boat in a
half-recumbent position. Presently a young officer, rude in the display
of “his brief authority,” approached us, and rapping General Wheeler
sharply with his sword, said, “It is against the rule to lean on the
guard-rail!”

To my amazement, our hero, who had fought so nobly against his peers and
whose name alone had been a menace to his foes, merely touched his hat
and said quietly, “I did not know the rule, sir, or I would not have
infringed it.” I was thrilled with admiration.

“General!” I exclaimed, “you have taught me a lesson in self-control and
courtesy I can never forget! Had I been a man, that Yankee would have
been exploring the bottom of the Savannah River, or I, one!”

The discomforts to which we had been subjected during our journey to and
from the headquarters of General Wilson culminated in the wretched
little craft on which we now were. Not a chair was in the cabin for our
invalids, nor an available couch. For Mr. Davis, who suffered intensely
during the trip from pain in his eye (for years a chronic disability),
two valises were stacked one on top of the other, being the nearest
approach to a seat it was possible to improvise. On these he rested
during much of the journey, Mrs. Davis, Miss Howell or myself in turn
acting as support in lieu of a chair-back. From time to time we bathed
his temples with cologne in vain attempts to lessen his tortures.

Our journey from Savannah may best be pictured by reference to my
pocket-diary, carried throughout those momentous weeks. We boarded the
_William P. Clyde_ on the fifteenth of May, our destination still
unknown to us, as we steamed out into the Atlantic. These are some of
the brief records I made of ship and passengers:

  “May 16, 1865. _William P. Clyde_ is a brig-rigged steamer, quite
  comfortable. The Fourth Michigan is with us, and an armed convoy,
  the _Tuscarora_, escorts us. Her guns bear directly upon us, day and
  night. Fears are entertained of the _Stonewall_ or _Shenandoah_. My
  husband keeps well and heroic. God in mercy give us grace for the
  fiery ordeal.”

  “May 17th. Fairly at sea, and considerable fear of the _Stonewall_
  evinced by the ship’s crew. All the axes of the vessel are removed
  from their usual positions to the Colonel’s room. Mrs. Davis sent
  ashore for oranges for Miss Howell, who is ill. Poor girl!”

  [“It was Mr. Davis who called my attention to the removal of the
  battle-axes. ‘Cowards!’ he said, ‘They’re afraid of this handful of
  Confederate men!’”]

  “May 19. Nearing Fortress Monroe. We are boarded by Captain Fraley,
  Commander of the _Tuscarora_, the man-of-war which has been our
  escort, her guns bearing directly on us from Hilton Head. The
  Captain called on Mr. and Mrs. Davis, and husband and myself, and
  renewed an acquaintance of former years. He proffered any attentions
  in his power. Just to our left is seen Fort Calhoun, built by Mr.
  Davis, while Secretary of War....”

  “May 20. Anchored off Fort Monroe awaiting orders. General Halleck
  to arrive on board at 11 A. M. I sadly fear they will land my
  darling at this fort. God forbid! In sight are many vessels, some
  bearing the English and some the French flags. The fort presents the
  same appearance as years ago, when I went to visit the spot. One
  week this day since we bade adieu to friends. Two days have we been
  anchored. General Halleck said to be on _Tuscarora_.”

  “May 21. Last night at dark a tug was hailed. She replied, “General
  Halleck!” She was alongside in a few moments with orders which were
  quickly known. Governor Lubbock, Colonel Johnston and General
  Wheeler and staff left at six this A. M. for Delaware. At ten, Mr.
  Stephens and Judge Reagan were put aboard the _Tuscarora_ for Fort
  Warren. Mr. Stephen’s servant detained. We are still in doubt, but
  Monroe is probably our destination.”

  “May 22. Mr. Davis, Mr. Clay and Burton Harrison are all left!
  Preparations are going on at Fortress Monroe for them,’tis said.
  Colonel Pritchard says I will not be allowed to land or go to
  Washington or Baltimore or abroad!!! Terrible firing from a
  man-of-war!”

  “May 23. Wrote letter to Judge Holt, and note to General Miles. At
  ten we were boarded by Major Church, and two Yankee women and four
  guards, and all hands, luggage, berths and persons thoroughly
  searched. A comico-serio-tragico’ scene! Sailors our friends. Both
  nurses leave. Mrs. Davis’s [man] Robert only left.”

Our journey on the _Clyde_, though sorrowful, apprehensive as we were
concerning the fate to which the prisoners were being led, was otherwise
uneventful. Mr. Davis was exceedingly depressed, and moved restlessly
about, seeming scarcely ever to desire to sit down. Always an
intellectual cosmopolite, however, he made observations on the natural
phenomena about us, commenting from time to time on the beauty of sea or
sky. Our meals, which were served at a table reserved for the prisoners,
by no means represented the fare of the coastwise steamers of to-day,
but few of us were in a mood to take note of culinary deficiencies.

On the morning of May 22d a sultry, drizzling rain fell. It was a day
exactly calculated to induce melancholy even in the stoutest-hearted. To
us, eagerly alert to learn what we might of our fate, it was unspeakably
distressful. Shortly after breakfast my husband came quietly into our
stateroom. “There is no longer any doubt,” he said, “that this fort is
the one destined for Davis and me! I have just been notified that we are
expected to take a ride on a tug. I am convinced we shall be taken to
Fortress Monroe. I can’t imagine why they do not come out boldly and
tell us so, but be sure this is our farewell, my wife!” We took leave of
each other in our stateroom, nor did I leave it to follow Mr. Clay to
the deck. I stood, instead, at the fourteen-inch window of my cabin,
alone with my thoughts.

As Mr. Davis passed the aperture, he stopped for a second to say
good-bye to me, then he, too, disappeared. A few moments passed, and
then the weeping of children and wailing of women announced the return
of the stricken family. I heard a soldier say to Mr. Davis’s little son,
“Don’t cry, Jeff. They ain’t going to hang your pa!” and the little
fellow’s reply, made through his sobs.

“When I get to be a man,” he cried, “I’m going to kill every Yankee I
see!”

When the child approached my door and I caught him in my arms and tried
to cheer him, his resentment quickly changed to a manly tenderness; and,
putting his baby lips up for a kiss, he said, “My papa told me to keep
care of you and my Mamma!”

I referred in my diary to the serio-comic incidents of the search of our
party. The event occurred early in the morning of the day following that
of my husband’s removal. While gazing sadly across the waters toward the
grim fort, I espied what seemed to be a pretty shallop, dancing lightly
over the waters, in which were seated two women, brightly dressed. The
little vessel seemed to be making for the _Clyde_. When I observed this,
I called Mrs. Davis’s attention to the approaching party, saying, “Thank
God! Here, I do believe, are two Virginia ladies come to give us some
comfort.”

In a few moments one of our unknown visitors was at my cabin door. In my
eagerness to meet a friendly face, I had almost extended my hand, when
something in the appearance of the person before me struck me as
peculiar. My surprise and curiosity was soon relieved, for my visitor
said glibly, “We’ve been sent by the Government to see if you have any
treasonable papers on board!” I looked at her in amazement.

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that the United States Government thinks we
are such simpletons as to have carried treasonable papers aboard this
ship?” My indignation grew.

“I frankly confess that if I could sink the whole Yankee nation in
Hampton Roads I would do so; but carry valuable papers _here_? Pshaw!”
and I turned away from her, full of contempt.

It was a hot, sultry day; one of those May days when the sun strikes the
water vertically, and even breathing becomes a fatiguing effort. Despite
the weather, the women who had thus unexpectedly presented themselves
were greatly overdressed. Each wore an immense chignon on the back of
her head, and was rouged and powdered and be-frizzed to an extent that
was altogether unusual in ordinary circles. Bustles of the largest size,
high-heeled shoes, conspicuous stockings, and as freely revealed gay
petticoats completed the gaudy costumes of these remarkable agents of
the Government. The person who had addressed me entered my cabin and
proceeded to strip the pillow-case from the by no means immaculate
pillow. She shook and felt carefully each article of bedding; then
opened my valise and as minutely examined every article of borrowed
finery therein. She commented on their quality as she did so, but I
speedily put an end to this. “Proceed with your work, Madam!” I said,
and I turned from the unpleasant sight before me.

As she emptied my gripsack, I heard her utter a half-shriek of alarm.

“Oh!” she cried, “you have a pistol!”

“Of course I have,” I said, complacently reaching for it and taking it
in my hand; and, a spirit of mischief seizing me (it has often been my
salvation), I twirled the alarming firearm in the air, taking care that
the barrel should fall pointing toward her, saying, as I did so, “You
may take everything in the stateroom but this. If necessary, I shall use
it!” As I marked the effect of my words, her shrinking and ejaculations
of fear amused me more and more, nor did she resume her work until,
tired of the farce, the pistol was once more safely bestowed in my bag.
When she renewed her search, her manner was somewhat more timid.

Upon completing the overhauling of my belongings she turned to me. “Will
you please take off your dress, Madam?” she said. My answer was forceful
and prompt.

“I will not! If you wish it taken off, you may disrobe me!” And I added,
in my indignation, “I’ve heard that white maids are as good as black
ones!”

And now the comedy moved rapidly. The lady began by taking off my
breastpin and my collar. She unfastened my bodice and removed it,
examining every seam with a microscopic care. She then proceeded to
remove my clothing piece by piece, submitting each to the same
scrupulous examination. Coming at last to my stays, she attempted to
unclasp them.

The situation was so amusing I could not resist the growing desire to
accentuate it. I have alluded to the prevailing sultry weather. In the
close little cabin, the heat was scarce bearable. Already perspiration
was trickling in streams down the cheeks of my unwelcome visitor.
Smiling within myself as the lady came forward to remove the last-named
garment, I took a full, deep breath and held it, expanding my form to
the very utmost, tightening my clothing for the time being to such an
extent that I think she could scarcely have pried open the garments with
hammer and chisel. The efforts of my tormentor (?) were entertaining.
Every now and then between a straining on my part and a futile tugging
on hers, she would run out of the cabin, fanning herself and gasping to
the guards, “Oh! I am nearly dead!”

At first, I utilised these intervals “to gird on my armour” still
tighter; but, at last, when I was myself almost exhausted from holding
my breath, I relaxed and allowed her to proceed. By the time her
examination of my apparel and belongings was completed, the lady’s face
was striped, and the path of the perspiration, wending its way through
layers of cosmetics, had quite destroyed her erstwhile dazzling
appearance; but though I, too, was almost fainting from the heat, and
would gladly have been left alone, my determination to tease her was by
no means appeased. I, therefore, demanded that, having undressed me, the
lady complete her work and put my clothing on again. This, with various
delays, amusing and otherwise, she at last accomplished, much to her
satisfaction if not wholly to mine. Once rehabilitated, I stepped to
Mrs. Davis’s stateroom, mine being between those of Mrs. Davis and Miss
Howell. I found the former in tears and reduced to the lightest of
deshabille. I tried to comfort her, but she still wept, saying:

“Oh,’Ginie! What humiliation!”

“But I would die before they should see me shed tears!” I declared.

“Ah, you haven’t four little children about you,” said Mrs. Davis. Nor
did this search end the trials that befell us while we lay in Hampton
Roads. Upon leaving my stateroom the following morning I met Mrs. Davis,
baby Winnie in arms. She was greatly agitated.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“That man!” she replied, pointing to an officer near by, “has come to
take away my shawl. It’s the last wrapping I have! He declares it is
part of Mr. Davis’s disguise!”

“You’re not going to let him have it?” I asked, my indignation rising at
once.

“What can I do?” asked Mrs. Davis, wringing her hands.

“Tear it into shreds as fine as vermicelli!” I cried, “and throw it into
Hampton Roads!”

As I spoke the officer stepped toward us. Raising his hand and shaking
his finger in my face, he asked, threateningly, “You dare counsel
resistance, Madam?”

“Yes!” I retorted, returning the finger-shaking, “To the shedding of
blood, and I’ll begin with you!”

The scene must have been a ludicrous one to all save the two
participants. Mrs. Davis’s spirits certainly rose in contemplating it,
for, as the officer strutted off, his sword dragging at his side, she
smiled as she said, “Puss-in-boots!” In a second, however, her anxiety
returned.

“What shall we do?” she asked. “He will surely come back for the shawl.”
Bent upon foiling him, I quickly suggested an expedient.

“My shawl,” I said, “is almost a counterpart of yours. Let’s fold them
both up and make him guess which is which. Perhaps he’ll take mine!” and
we laughed heartily at the device.

It was not long ere Lieutenant Hudson returned, this time with another
shawl, a coarse thing such as the small stores nearby afforded. Upon his
repeated demand we complacently handed him Mrs. Davis’s shawl and mine.
To our amazement he took them both. Then, as the old saying puts it, we
“laughed on the other side of our faces.” For, by the aid of one of Mrs.
Davis’s former maids, Lieutenant Hudson was enabled to identify Mrs.
Davis’s shawl, which he retained, returning mine. The first, for many
years, was preserved among the curios of the Smithsonian Institution.

During the morning of the day made memorable by the visit of the
Government’s searching party, General Miles and his staff boarded the
_Clyde_. It was my first meeting with the handsome young officer who was
destined to incur so much odium in the near future for his treatment of
the unfortunate ex-President of the Confederate States. I can recall no
particulars of that first meeting with my husband’s jailor, save that he
and his staff made an impressive group as they stood bowing
respectfully, while a few civil words were spoken by their leader.

Upon the question of the latter, as to whether he might serve me in any
way, I answered, “Yes! let me know, from time to time, whether my
husband lives or is dead. If you will do this it will relieve me from an
insupportable suspense!” To this he kindly agreed.

In the interim, I had sent to my husband his valise, containing some
gold and my Bible, which, being set in a specially large type, I knew he
would be glad to have. These were brought back to me shortly after
General Miles’s visit, by an officer who found us still at the mess
table. My Bible was returned to me because of the following
“communication from Mrs. Clay, written on the fly-leaf.”

  “2 P. M. Ship-board. May, ’5. With tearful eyes and aching heart, I
  commend you, my precious husband, to the care and keeping of
  Almighty God. May He bless you, and keep you, and permit us once
  again to meet, shall be my unceasing prayer. Farewell,

                                                                WIFE.”

As the officer dropped the gold upon the table beside me, he said,
“Please count it, Madam!” I instantly declined to do this, however,
saying, “If General Miles sent it, I presume it is correct,” and swept
it into my lap without further examination.

                              CHAPTER XXI
                      RETURN FROM FORTRESS MONROE

By the second day after the incarceration of Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay we
were a heartsick company, and I was glad when, in the late afternoon of
the twenty-fourth of May, our sailing orders came. During the last day
we were anchored off Fortress Monroe, two hundred paroled prisoners had
been taken aboard the _Clyde_, a small and stuffy boat at best, and the
five days spent upon the return trip added to our anguish of mind by
much physical discomfort. The sea was exceedingly rough. Often during
the voyage a hundred or more passengers at a time were confined below.
Those who were well found their cabins unendurably warm. In mine, the
gossip of the negroes and sailors on the lower deck was clearly audible;
and, as their themes ran principally upon the probable fate of the
prisoners, questionable as I knew the source to be from which flowed the
conversations, the gossip did not serve to lessen my melancholy, though
it keyed my alertness to a higher pitch.

Some hours previous to our departure from Hampton Roads, in sheer
exhaustion from the experiences that had crowded upon us, I lay down in
my cabin, a prey to mingled heart-aching and bitterness; when, looking
toward the door, I perceived a sentinel on guard. What I took to be an
added indignity made me resentful. I spoke to him.

“You are a brave man, standing there with bayonet in hand to terrorise a
wretched woman!” I said. He turned slightly, “Mrs. Clay,” he answered,
“You ought to be glad to have me here guarding you, for this boat is
full of rough soldiers!” In a moment my wrath was turned to gratitude. I
thanked him, and I felt that in him, thereafter, I had a friend; indeed,
we had reason to feel that all aboard who dared to show it felt pity for
and kindness toward our desolate party.

During the trip, as Mrs. Davis, Miss Howell and I sat at night on deck,
looking out over the seas, I thought the swish of the waters against the
_Clyde’s_ side was as melancholy a note as I had ever heard. One evening
we had sat thus, discussing our situation and the dangers that
surrounded us, when, rising to return to my stateroom, I felt my dress
slightly pulled. Thinking my skirts had become entangled in the rope
coils or rigging near us, I reached out to detach them, when, to my
alarm, I found my hand in contact with another, and into mine was thrust
a bundle of newspapers. I could not have thanked the sailor who handed
them to me had I had the presence of mind to do so, for, passing swiftly
on his way, he was lost in the darkness ere I could identify him. The
roll was in my hand, however, and I made my way quickly to the cabin
with it. They were the first newspapers we had had since arriving at the
Fortress. By the light of the dim cabin lamp I read them. The
aggregation of “opinions of the press” was so awful in its animosity
that they stunned my very power of thought. One extract burnt itself
into my brain. It ran, “We hope soon to see the bodies of these two arch
traitors, Davis and Clay, dangling and blackening in the wind and rain!”

The horror of these printed words for the moment overbalanced my reason.
I hastened with it to Mrs. Davis; a great mistake, for her agony of mind
upon reading it was such that restoratives were necessary to prevent her
from fainting. I never knew who the sailor was who gave the papers to
me, though I was more fortunate in regard to the author of another
kindness which, happily, was less reactionary upon me.

Immediately upon my husband’s incarceration I had busied myself in
writing letters to a list of distinguished public men which had been
prepared for my use by Mr. Clay. It included the name of Joseph Holt,
who, once our friend, had deplored the possible loss to the nation of my
husband’s counsels. My list comprised thirteen names, the number that
has been accounted unlucky since thirteen sat at the table of our Lord
and one betrayed him. In view of the months of persecution, which
followed my husband’s surrender, directly traceable to malice or
fanatical zeal in the Judge Advocate’s office, an analogy is
unavoidable. My list included the names of T. W. Pierce, of Boston, Ben.
Wood, owner and editor of the New York _Daily News_, R. J. Halderman,
Charles O’Conor, the great jurist, Judge Jeremiah Black and others. To
Mr. Holt I wrote as follows:

                              “OFF FORTRESS MONROE ON STEAMER _Clyde_,
                                                  “May 23, 1865.

  “JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL HOLT.

  “_My Dear Sir_: The circumstances of my husband’s voluntary
  surrender to the Federal authorities, to meet the charges against
  him, doubtless have reached you, as General Wilson, commanding at
  Macon, promised to telegraph as well as write you immediately of it.
  We left Macon on the 13th, in company with other prisoners, General
  Wilson permitting me to accompany Mr. Clay without orders or