A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“A Federal officer who is about done for, poor fellow, handed me that just now. I don’t know the name. He couldn’t talk.”

“I do!” General Stuart exclaimed, with quick, strong interest. “Where did you see him? This is the name of one of my classmates at West Point.”

“I saw him on the roadside as I came on to supper. While riding along I heard a strange sound, something like a groan, yet different from any groan I ever heard – the strangest, most uncanny sound imaginable. I dismounted and began to look around for it, and I found a Yankee soldier lying in a ditch by the roadside. I couldn’t see that any legs or arms were broken, nor that he was wounded at all. I felt him all over, and asked what was the matter. He didn’t speak, and I saw that he had been trying to direct my attention to his face. He tried very hard to speak, but only succeeded in emitting the strange sound I had heard before; and on examining his face closely, and moving the whiskers aside, I found that he was shot through both jaws. He made the same noise again, put his hand in his pocket, and gave me this card, with another pitiful effort to speak. I put my coat under his head, laid some brush across the ditch to hide him, and promised to go back for him in an ambulance.”

“Thank you, in my own behalf!” General Stuart said warmly.

“Perhaps, poor fellow,” said Dan, “he took chances on that card’s reaching you. Seeing my uniform of major of cavalry, he may not have considered it impossible that you should hear of his condition through me.”

“When you have finished your supper, major, we will go after him.”

Tired as they both were, they went out and attended personally to the relief of the poor fellow by the roadside. General Stuart had everything done for him that was possible, smoothed his last moments, and grieved over him as deeply as if his classmate had not been his enemy.

Another sad thing among the sorrows of that supper was when Colonel Sol Williams’s brother-in-law, John Pegram, came in, and sat down in our midst. General Stuart went up to him, and wrung his hand in a silence that even the dauntless Stuart’s lips were too tremulous at once to break. When he could speak he said:

“I grieve for myself as for you, lieutenant, but it was a death that any one of us might be proud to die.”

Even then the shadow and glory of his own death was not far from him.

Colonel Williams had been Lieutenant Pegram’s superior officer as well as brother-in-law. It had been his sorrowful lot to take the body of his colonel on his horse in front of him, and carry it to a house where it could be reverently cared for until he could send it home to bride and kindred. He had cut a lock of hair from the dead, and when the troops went off to Pennsylvania, he gave it to me for his sister. I shall never forget that supper hour, or how the unhappy young fellow looked when he came in among us after his ride with the dead, and I shall never forget how I felt about that poor young Federal soldier who was wounded in the jaws and couldn’t speak, and how I felt about the women who loved him far away; I began to feel that war was an utterly unjustifiable thing, and that the virtues of valor, loyalty, devotion which it brings out had better be brought out some other way. If General Rooney Lee didn’t take my room, I gave it up all the same. Two wounded men were put into it. There were a number of wounded men in the house, and, of course, everybody gave way to their comfort. All but my two were removed in a day or two, but here these two were, and here they were when Aunt Sally came home. Her homecoming was after a fashion that turned our mourning into righteous and wholesome wrath. We were sitting on the porch one afternoon, free and easy in our minds and believing Aunt Sally away in distant Washington, when we noted a small object far off down the road. As it crawled nearer and nearer we perceived that it was an ox-cart; we saw the driver, and behind him somebody else sitting on a trunk.

“Good gracious! that’s Aunt Sally!” cried Mr. Bradford in consternation.

We were all dreadfully sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.

She climbed off the cart at the gate, and called for some negro to come get her trunk. Mr. Bradford had already found one, and was running to the rescue. In fact he had been running in a half dozen different directions ever since he had spied Aunt Sally. He looked as if his wits had left him and as if he were racing around in a circle.

“You orter been on hand to he’p me off o’ that kyart,” she told him. “It do look like when a man’s wife’s been away this long time he might be on hand to he’p her off the kyart.”

As she came up the walk she said the yard looked awful torn and “trompled down”; that she was afraid she would find it so soon as she heard that the place had been camping ground for the whole army and her away and nobody there to manage the army as she could have done. She greeted me and her niece, and in the same breath told her niece that there was some mud on the steps which ought to be washed off. Then she went into the house, taking off her things and remarking on “things that ought to be done.” Presently there was a great stir in the house; she had found out the wounded men. She commented on their presence in such a loud voice that we heard it on the porch, and the men themselves must have heard it.

“Just like Mr. Bradford! If I had been here it wouldn’t have happened. The idea! Turning the house into a hospital! I won’t have it! Nobody knows who they are. I can’t have ’em on my best beds, and between my best sheets and blankets. Dirty, common soldiers! I never heard of such a thing!”

And she got them out before supper.

There was an office in the yard and she had them taken to this. They had to be carried past us, and I can see them now, poor, mortified, shame-faced fellows! I was as afraid of Aunt Sally as of a rattlesnake, but I think I could have shaken her then!

Little it was that I saw of Dan or any of my army friends after the battle of Brandy. The cavalry was too busy watching Hooker’s, while our infantry was pushing on toward Pennsylvania, to spare any time to lighter matters. Every day the boys in gray marched by on their way North.

I watched from the porch and windows if by any means I might catch sight of Dan. But his way did not lie by Bradford’s. One morning, however, I saw General Stuart riding by at the head of a large command. I thought they were going to stop and camp at Mr. Bradford’s, perhaps, but I was mistaken. As soon as I saw that they were going by without stopping, I ran to the fence and beckoned to General Stuart. He had seen me on the porch, and rode up to the fence at once.

“Aren’t you going to stop at all?” I asked.

“Not to-day. In fact we’re off for some time now.”

“Is Dan going?”

“Yes. He’s ahead now with General Chambliss.”

“Am I not to see him at all, General Stuart?” I said, trying hard to keep my lip from quivering – I had a reputation to keep up with him.

But he saw the quiver.

“You can go on with the army if you want to,” he said in quick sympathy. “I will give you an ambulance. You can carry your own maid along, have your own tent, and have your husband with you. I will do anything I can for your comfort. You would nurse our poor fellows when they get hurt, and be no end of good to us. But it would be awfully hard on you.”

“I wouldn’t mind the hardships,” I answered, “but you know Dan won’t let me go. I have begged him several times to let me live in camp with him. I could nurse the sick and wounded, and take care of him if he was shot, and I wouldn’t be a bit of trouble; and I could patch for the soldiers. Oh, I’d love to do it! If you come up with him, General Stuart, ask him to let me go, and if he says yes, send the ambulance.”

“I’ll promise him what I promised you,” he said, smiling kindly. “Good-by now. I’ll ride on and send him back to say good-by to you, if I can manage it. Then you can talk him into letting you come with us.”

I climbed up on the fence to shake hands with him and to say good-by, and I had another word for him. Beneath my dress and next my skin was a little Catholic medal which had been blessed by my confessor. It hung around my neck by a slender chain. I unclasped the chain, drew forth the medal and gave it to him, my eyes brimming with tears.

“It has been blessed by Father Mulvey,” I said. “Wear it about your neck. Maybe it will bring you back safe.”

I was leaning upon the horse’s neck, crying as if my heart would break. General Stuart’s own eyes were dim.

“Good-by,” I said, “and if you can send Dan back I thank you for us both – I thank you anyway for thinking of it; but – the South and his duty first. Good-by, and God bless you, General Stuart!”

That was the last time I ever saw him, the last time that knightly hand clasped mine. Before he rode away he said some cheerful, hopeful words, and looked back at me with the glint of merry mischief in his eyes, threatening to tell Dan Grey that I was losing my good repute for bravery. Dan did not come back to say good-by. I had a little note which he contrived to send me in some way. It was only a hasty scrawl, full of good-bys and God bless yous.

After saying good-by to General Stuart I returned to the house. Esten Cooke sat at a table writing. He was preparing some official papers for General Stuart, I think, and had been left behind for that purpose. I understood him to answer one of my questions to the effect that he was going to follow the cavalry presently.

“Colonel Cooke,” I asked humbly enough, for I was ready then to take information and advice from anybody, “how long do you think it will be before the army comes back?”

“Can’t say, madam.”

“Would you advise me to wait here until its return?”

“Can’t say, madam.”

“Would you advise me to go to Richmond?”

“Madam, I would advise you to go to Richmond.”

“You think then it will be some time before the army returns?”

“I can’t say, madam?”

I felt like shaking him and asking: “What can you say?” He may have been a brave soldier and written nice books and all that, but I think John Esten Cooke was a very dull, disagreeable man.

I waited several days, but as I got nothing further from Dan than the little note – which was bare of advice because, perhaps, he didn’t have time to write more, and because he may not have known how to advise me – I took John Esten Cooke’s advice and went to Richmond. I stopped there only a very short time, and then went on to Petersburg, where mother was. Reunion with her was compensation for many troubles, and then, too, she needed me. She had not heard from Milicent since my departure for Culpeper. Then a letter had reached us through the agency of Mr. Cridland, in which Milicent had stated her purpose of coming to us as soon as she could get a pass – a thing it was every day becoming more difficult to secure – for she was determined upon reaching us before the cold weather came again. Since that letter there had been absolute silence.

Then came upon us that awful July of 1863, and the battle of Gettysburg, the beginning of the end. Virginians fell by hundreds in that fight, and Pickett’s charge goes down to history along with Balaklava and Thermopylæ. There were more vacant chairs in Virginia, already desolate – there were more broken hearts for which Heaven alone held balm. “When Italy’s made, for what good is it done if we have not a son?” Again the angel of death had passed me by. But my heart bled for my friends who were dead on that red field far away – for my friends who mourned and could not be comforted.

One of our wounded, whose father brought him home to be nursed, bore to me a letter from my husband and a package from General Stuart. The package contained a photograph of himself that he had promised me, and a note, bright, genial, merry, like himself. That picture is hanging on my wall now. On the back is written by a hand long crumbled into dust, “To her who in being a devoted wife did not forget to be a true patriot.” The eyes smile down upon us as I lift my little granddaughter up to kiss my gallant cavalier’s lips, and as she lisps his name my heart leaps to the memory of his dauntless life and death.

He was shot one beautiful May morning in 1864 while trying to prevent Sheridan’s approach to Richmond. It was at Yellow Tavern – a dismantled old tavern not many miles from the Confederate capital – that he fell, and Colonel Venable, who was serving with him at the time and near him when he fell, helped, if I remember aright, to shroud him. When he told me what he could of General Stuart’s last hours, he said:

“There was a little Catholic medal around his neck, Nell. Did you give him that? We left it on him.”

And so passes from this poor history my beloved and loyal friend, my cavalry hero and good comrade. Virginia holds his dust sacred, and in history he sits at the Round Table of all true-souled and gentle knights.

CHAPTER XXI

RESCUED BY THE FOE

Milicent’s arrest in Washington as related by herself

I passed May and a part of the summer of 1863 in fruitless efforts to get a pass to Virginia. This was when the Civil War was at its whitest heat, and I was in the city of Baltimore, where a word was construed into treason, and messages and letters were contrived to and from the South only by means of strategy. One by one my plans failed. Then came the battle of Gettysburg, and as I heard of our reverses I felt an almost helpless lethargy stealing over me – as if I should never see Nell or mother again. How long the war would last, and what would be the end of it none could tell. Nell and mother were in a besieged country, and the blockade between us seemed an impassable wall. The long silence was becoming unbearable as I slowly realized that it might become the silence of death and I not know.

At last came news which I thought affected them, and which startled me into instant energy.

One morning my friend, Miss Barnett, a beautiful girl, rushed into my room, and, throwing herself on the floor beside me, began telling me with sobs and tears that my brother-in-law, Major Grey, or his brother Dick, was a prisoner in the Old Capitol at Washington. She begged me to go at once and see what I could do. If I could not find some way of helping the prisoner to freedom, I could at least add to his comfort in prison.

“You could at least show him that he was remembered,” she said. “You could take some little delicacies which would be grateful to a prisoner. I will help you to get them up.”

Poor Isabelle! It was one of the tragedies of the war. She was too wretched to attempt any concealment.

“You see, if I had any right to go myself I would not ask you to go for me. If I were even engaged to him – but I am not. You see, it couldn’t be. But, O Millie! I wish there wasn’t any war that I might be my love’s betrothed and go to him!”

For a minute her proposition daunted me. To rush into Washington, a Southern woman, alone and unprotected; to be surrounded on all sides by the Government officials and spies whose business it was to watch and report every careless word and act of any one who was known to be interested in the South or in Southerners – the undertaking seemed desperate. But there were Isabelle’s tearful eyes, and there was the fear that Nell’s husband might be the prisoner. I determined to make the trip at all hazards.

Together we made purchases of what we considered the most tempting delicacies to take to an invalid or prisoner. There were cheeses, crackers, oranges, lemons, jellies; and we did not forget to add to our stock wine, whisky, pipes, and tobacco. Isabelle herself sent a box of fine cigars, a costly gift, for the war with the Southern States affected the price of tobacco.

The next morning I started off by myself to Washington in fear and trembling. Taking a hack there, and trusting to a kind Providence for guidance and protection, I drove first to the office of the provost marshal for a permit. On entering his office, to my consternation I recognized in him the judge-advocate under whose protection our truce boat had gone to Richmond not many months before with the distinct understanding that her passengers were not to return from Dixie while the war lasted. But it was too late to retreat. Rallying all my courage and self-control I greeted him as a stranger, asking whether or not I was addressing Judge Turner. Answered in the affirmative, I requested permission to visit the prisoners in the Old Capitol.

While I was talking he looked up and a glance almost of recognition lighted his face. It was succeeded by a more scrutinizing regard as I stood in perfectly assumed unconsciousness before him. Bowing, he asked me to be seated, and to repeat my petition. Others were waiting their turn, and his answer was prompt:

“Certainly, madam. You can see the two prisoners mentioned, or any one you wish, and take with you what you please.”

An easy job certainly!

My heart grew light; I arose to go, thanking the judge cordially.

He said: “One moment, madam.”

I went back, and he handed me a pen, ink, and slip of paper, saying:

“Just sign this, please. It is of no consequence at all – a mere matter of form – only you can not see your friends without it.”

There spread out before me was the ironclad oath!

Without a moment’s hesitation I replied:

“The oath, Judge Turner! Am I to sign that? I can not! and never will!”

He smiled apologetically and said:

“It is of no consequence – only a little form that we have to insist on. Sign it, and you can go to your friends.”

“If it is of no consequence to your side, provost, why should it be of so much to mine that I can not see my friends without it?”

He smiled, and still held the pen out to me.

“No! never!” I said.

“Then I can not help you. I am sorry. You must apply at military headquarters.”

He kindly directed me to the same. I hurried down the steps, jumped into my hack, and drove quickly to the War Department. Here I made my request again and again met with the same polite consent backed with the oath. Again I refused and turned to go, when one of the officers kindly suggested:

“Make application to the officer at the Old Capitol. He may permit you to see the prisoners without oath, though I fear not.”

As there was not much time left before my train would start for Baltimore, I urged my driver to do his best, and we sped on in haste until we stopped before the gloomy, formidable-looking prison of the Old Capitol. With the permission of the guard I entered. The officer in command received me with kindness and courtesy, and with his consent I was about to ascend the stairs when he extended his hand, saying:

“The oath, if you please. I presume you took it at the War Department, and have your pass.”

Again I was foiled. This was my last chance. There was no use pleading, and I was in despair. I leaned on a chair to rest a moment before leaving the room, defeated. I had not a word to say, and I did not say a word. I suppose my deep dejection touched him. I was about to go when he said with great kindness:

“Wait here near these steps. I will send up an order, and if he is there, he can come to the railing and you can speak to him, and send him anything you wish. But you can not go up.”

An orderly ascended with the message, and I waited at the steps, watching anxiously for Dan or Dick to appear at the railing. I did not have many minutes to wait. The orderly returned with the reply that Lieutenant – not Major – Grey had been exchanged that very morning, and was now on his way home. Happy for Nell and Isabelle and myself, I poured out my thanks to the officer in command for helping me to such good news, and asked his permission to send the large basket of good things I had brought to the other prisoners. He gave it, and I saw the orderly again mount the stairs, burdened this time with good wishes and my still more substantial and acceptable offering. As I went out, passing again through the prison gates, my driver whispered in the most excited manner:

“Lady! lady! do take care! The prisoners are all at the windows, and if you look up or speak to them we will both be arrested instantly.”

I seated myself quickly, and then, in spite of all fears and warnings, glanced up, to see the windows filled with faces, and hands and handkerchiefs waving to me inside the bars. As we dashed forward, I leaned out of the window waving my handkerchief in vigorous response. In the excitement, the enthusiasm of the moment, I lost all sense of fear or danger – my whole heart was with those desolate, homesick Confederates behind the bars. Fortunately the driver was frightened out of his wits and drove like mad, or we should never have gotten to the train in time.

I had been fortunate enough to find in my driver a strong, if secret, sympathizer with the South. As I bade him good-by, and thanked him for the care and promptness with which he had carried me about, and for his unheeded warning as well, he said:

“Oh, lady, lady, you ran a great risk when you waved that handkerchief! I saw it and drove as fast as I could to get you away from there. It is a wonder we were not arrested.”

I stepped on the car, and was taking my seat, when a hand lightly touched my shoulder from behind, and I heard myself arrested by a name that was not mine. Behind me stood a sergeant in the United States uniform, who informed me that I was his prisoner.

I tried to shrink away from him.

“That is not my name,” I said.

Still he kept that light grip on my shoulder. I felt sick. The day had been a long one of exercise and excitement. I had eaten nothing since my early breakfast of a cracker and a cup of coffee, and I was physically weak. The terror of the situation, the full foolhardiness of my undertaking flashed upon me. Alone in Washington, not a friend near, and under arrest! For an instant everything whirled around me, and I fell back against the breast of the sergeant; but as instantly I pulled myself together and stood erect.

“You are mistaken,” I said quietly, “I am not the person you have mentioned.”

And I threw back my heavy mourning veil and looked my captor full in the face.

“Ain’t you? It’s widow’s weeds this time!”

These words were spoken sarcastically by a man in civilian dress who was with the sergeant – a detective, I suppose.

“I am Mrs. Milicent Duncan Norman, of Baltimore,” I said firmly. “You can telegraph to No. – Charles Street and see. You will please remove your hand,” I continued. “If necessary I will go with you, but I am not the person you wish to arrest. You are making a mistake.”

I turned my face full to the light, and stood, calm and composed, though my knees were trembling under me, and I felt as if I should faint. I saw Bobby at home waiting for me!

“I must stay over if you insist,” I repeated, “but I hope you will permit me to convince you of your mistake. It would be extremely inconvenient to me to be detained here. I left Baltimore this morning, and my little boy has been without me all day. He will cry himself sick if I don’t get home to-night.”

In spite of all I could do my lips quivered.

“I am sorry, madam,” said my sergeant, more respectfully than he had hitherto spoken, “but you will have to come with me. If it is as you say, you can telegraph and satisfy the authorities very quickly.”

My arrest had attracted some attention. I saw that people in the car were gathering around me, and I saw curiosity in some faces, sympathy in some, but among all those faces none that I knew. This was my first visit to Washington, and there was not a soul to identify me. There was nothing to do but to go and telegraph – if they would let me. I would have to miss my train. Bobby was watching from the window for me this very minute – Bobby would cry all night. I told the sergeant that I would go, and tried to follow him, and then everything grew dark around me, my head whirled, and I dropped across the seat nearest me.

I could not have been unconscious more than a second. The kind gentleman over whose seat I had fallen had caught me, and was slapping my face with a wet handkerchief, and assuring the sergeant that he knew by my face that I was perfectly harmless and ought not to be arrested, that he would bet anything on it, when a new passenger hurriedly entered the car and brushed squarely up against us.

The sergeant was saying: “We must hurry,” and offering me his arm very courteously. “You will feel better when you get out in the air. And you will perhaps come out all right, and be able to go on to-morrow.”