A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“Adjutant of the Thirteenth here?”

I leaned over the railing.

“I am his wife,” I said.

He saluted. “Can you tell me where the adjutant is, ma’am?”

“He will be here on the next train.”

“That might be midnight, ma’am, or it might be to-morrow. My orders were to meet the adjutant here about this time.”

“The adjutant got left by the regular passenger. But a freight was to leave Richmond soon after the passenger, and the adjutant will come on that.”

“The freight?” the orderly looked doubtful. “Maybe so.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, ma’am, all trains are uncertain, and freight trains more so. And sometimes freight trains are mighty pertickular about what kind of freight they carry.”

I laughed, but the orderly did not see the point. Dan’s body-servant was to drive the ambulance back, so the orderly, turning it over to a man whom he picked up in the tavern, went back to camp according to instructions. As soon as he was out of sight I began to repent. If Dan shouldn’t come on that freight, what would I do with myself and that strange man and the ambulance and the mules? It was getting late when the welcome sound of a whistle broke upon my ear and the freight came creeping in. On the engine beside the engineer stood my husband, with that abominable little bundle of General Lee’s in his hand.

“Josh got left somewhere,” Dan said of his servant, “the man will have to drive.”

At last we were off, Dan and I sitting comfortably back in the ambulance. I was very cold when I first got in, but he wrapped me up well in the blanket and I snuggled up against him, and began to tell him how nice and warm he was, and how thankful I was that there was no possibility of his getting left from me between here and camp.

“I had a time of it to come on that freight,” he said.

“The orderly said you would.” I repeated the orderly’s remark, and Dan laughed.

“He told the truth. I had to do more swearing to the square inch than I have been called upon to do for some time. I knew you didn’t even know where you were going, and that I must get here to-night. As soon as I heard about the freight, I went to the conductor. He said passengers couldn’t be taken on the freight, it was against orders. ‘I belong to the army as you see,’ I urged, ‘I am an officer and it is important for me to rejoin my command.’ He insisted still that I couldn’t go, that it was against orders. I told him that it was a bundle for General Lee that had got me left, and I pictured your predicament in moving colors. He was obdurate. ‘If the freights begin to take passengers,’ he said, ‘there would soon be no room for any other sort of freight on them.’ I felt like kicking him. It was then that I told him that orders were not made for fools to carry out, and the swearing began. I threatened to report him. He looked uneasy and was ready to make concessions which politeness had not been able to win, but I walked off. Evidently, like a mule, he respected me more for cursing him. I had my plan laid. Just as the train moved out of the station I swung on to the engine, and politely introduced myself to the engineer. He had overheard my conversation with the conductor – the first part of it, not the part where the swearing came in – and he invited me to get off the engine. While we were debating the engine was traveling. I saw that he was about to stop it.

“Quick as a flash I had my pistol at his head.

“‘Now,’ I said, ‘drive on with this engine, or I’ll kill you and run it myself!’ I am not telling you all the words I used, Nell, you’ll forgive me this time, I had to get to you, and honest English is wasted on fools and mules. ‘Hold off!’ he said, ‘and don’t put that d – d thing so close to my head, and you can ride up here and be d – d to you.’ The invitation was not very polite, but I accepted it. I gave him some good tobacco, and we got to be friends before I got off.”

The short day was done. I was tired and warm and sleepy and went to sleep while Dan was talking. I don’t know how long I had dozed when the driver doubled up suddenly and turned head over heels backward into my lap. I struggled from under him, and Dan gave him a push that helped to free me and at the same time jumped on to the driver’s seat and caught up the lines.

“Lord-a-mussy on me!” I heard the man groaning, “dat ar d – n mu-el! she have kicked me in de pit er my stummick!”

He gathered himself together in a corner of the ambulance, and continued to express forcible opinions of the mule.

“Dan,” I said, “please get away from there! That mule might kick you.”

“Don’t be silly, Nell! Somebody’s got to drive.”

“But, Dan, if you get kicked, you can’t drive.”

“I won’t get kicked. I know how to talk to a mule. Just shut your ears, Nell, if you don’t want to hear me. I’ve got to convince this mule. She’s just like that engineer and conductor. As soon as I get through giving her my opinion in language she can understand, she’ll travel all right.”

Presently Dan called out: “You can unstop your ears now, Nell – I think she understands.”

“Dan,” I said, “are you cold out there?”

“Not a bit of it! This isn’t anything to a soldier. But a soldier’s wife, eh, Nell? Getting to be rather hard lines, isn’t it?”

“Dan,” I said, my teeth chattering, “don’t it seem that I have had more adventures in one day than I am entitled to?”

“Rather! By the way, Josh got on that same freight. How he managed it, the Lord only knows! Worked himself in with the brakeman, I suppose. But he got off – to look around, I reckon – just like him! – at some station before Milford and got left. He’ll come straggling into camp to-morrow. You see there’s another accident you can credit your account with. Josh could have driven these mules instead of that fool white man over there who don’t know what to do with a mule. Then I would have been back there entertaining you, and you would have been complimenting me by going to sleep.” He drove on singing:

“Sweet Nellie is by my side!”

We caught up with another ambulance. In it were an army friend of Dan’s with his wife, and she proved the straw that broke the back of my endurance. She played the martyr. She had rugs, and shawls, and blankets. I cross-examined her and made her show that she hadn’t been left on a car by herself without a ticket or a cent of money, and with no knowledge of where she was going, that the driver of her ambulance hadn’t been kicked in the stomach and tumbled himself backward into her lap and nearly broken her bones, and that my case was far worse than hers. But in spite of it, she complained of everything, and had Dan and her husband sympathizing so with her that they had no time to sympathize with me. I sat, almost frozen, huddled up in the one shawl that answered for shawl, blanket, and rug, and tried to keep my teeth from chattering and myself from hating that whining Mrs. Gummidge of a woman.

At last our ambulance drew up in front of the Rev. Mr. McGuire’s, where we were to stop. There was a hot supper ready, in parlor and dining-room cheerful flames leaped up from hickory logs on bright brass fire-dogs, and our welcome was as cheery as the glow of the fire. As our ambulance had driven into the gate a few minutes in advance of the other, and as Dan had also engaged board for me several days before, I had a right to the first choice of rooms. One of these was large with a bright fire burning in the fireplace, and a great downy feather-bed on the four-poster; the other was small, and had neither fireplace nor feather-bed. Of course “Mrs. Gummidge” got the best room. Dan had to go back to camp. I slept on my hard bed in my cold room and cried for Milicent and mother; and the next morning I broke the ice in my bowl when I went to take my bath. I was very, very miserable that morning. I was not out of my twenties, I had been a spoiled child, I had not seen Milicent or mother since my marriage, I had nearly lost my husband, and I had been ill unto death. Following my husband around as I did, I yet saw very little of him, and I endured hardships of every sort. I was in the land of war, and in spite of all his efforts to protect me life was full of fears and horrors. I do not mean that it was all woe. There were smiles, and music, and laughter, too; my hosts were kind, Dan came over from camp whenever he could, and life was too full of excitement ever to be dull. During the day I managed fairly well – it was at night that the horrors overwhelmed me. My room was cheerless, my bed was hard and cold – I wanted Milicent, I wanted mother. I felt that the time had come when I must see them and I couldn’t: there was no way! The longing grew upon me the more I struggled against it, until there was no risk I would not have run to see them. I was sitting in the parlor one night thinking with indescribable longing of the happy, care-free days in Norfolk, and seeing dissolving pictures of home in the hickory fire. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, for while I was living over those dear old days I was living in the present, too. Suddenly I heard a voice in the hall – Dan’s and another’s!

I sprang up. And there was Dan, and behind him in the doorway stood a graceful figure in a long wrap. And a face – Milicent’s face – pale and weary, but indescribably lovely and loving, was looking toward me with shining eyes.

“Millie!”

“Nell!”

That was one time I forgot Dan, but he didn’t mind. He stayed with us as long as he could, and after he left Milicent and I talked and talked. Milicent – she was a widow now – had come all the way from Baltimore to see me – she had left mother and Bobby to come to see me! My little bed wasn’t hard any more, my room wasn’t cheerless any more; I didn’t mind having to break the ice for my bath. Ah, me, what a night that was and how happy we were until Dan’s command was moved!

Millie and I – Catholics – wish to pay tribute to the sweet piety of that Protestant home which sheltered us. Every evening the big Bible was brought out and prayers were held, the negro servants coming in to share in the family devotions.

CHAPTER VIII

BY FLAG OF TRUCE

Milicent tells how she got from Baltimore to Dixie

The War Department of the United States issued a notice that on such a date a flag-of-truce boat would go from Washington to Richmond, and that all persons wishing to go must obtain passes and come to that city by a certain date.

I had not heard from my sister, Mrs. Grey, for some time. We were very anxious about her, and I determined to seize this opportunity to get to her.

I was fortunate in making one of a party of three ladies, one of whom was Mrs. Montmorency, the widow of an English officer, and the other Mrs. Dangerfield, of Alexandria, Virginia. On our arrival at Washington late at night, we found all the hotels crowded and were told that it would be impossible to get a room anywhere. Fortunately for us, Mrs. Dangerfield was acquainted with the proprietor of one of the hotels where we inquired, and here, after much difficulty, we secured two small rooms. As he left us the old lady said triumphantly:

“Now, see what’s in a name! If my name hadn’t been Dangerfield none of us could have gotten a place to sleep in to-night.”

The next morning we started for the flag-of-truce boat. Immediately upon our arrival our baggage was weighed and all over two hundred pounds refused transportation. The confusion was indescribable. As soon as the steamer cleared the wharf every stateroom was locked, and the five hundred passengers on board, with the exception of the children, were subjected to a rigid examination – their persons, their clothing, their trunks were all thoroughly searched. We were marched down two by two between guards, and passed into the lower cabin, where four women removed and searched our clothing; our shoes, stockings, and even our hair were subjected to rigid inspection.

Mrs. Dangerfield being the oldest lady on board was by courtesy exempted. As for myself, I fell into the hands of a pleasant woman, who looked ashamed of the office she had to perform. She passed her hand lightly over and within my dress, and over my hair; touched my pockets and satchels, which I willingly showed her, and dismissed me with a smile and the kind remark, “Oh, I know you have nothing contraband,” while around me stood ladies shivering in one garment.

I had tea and sugar, both contraband articles, in a large satchel upstairs in the care of the provost marshal. I out-Yankeed the Yankees this trip. As soon as I had heard that we were to be searched and have our things taken from us, I had walked up to the provost marshal, told him I had tea and coffee – a small quantity of each – and asked to be allowed to use them. In the gruffest manner he bade me bring them immediately to him. My dejected looks must have inspired him with some pity, for when I went off and brought back my satchel and handed it to him, he turned and said in the kindest manner:

“Now I have saved them for you. After the search is over come to me and I will return them to you.”

I thanked him and hurried off to impart the good news to my friend Mrs. Dangerfield. I found her in a most animated discussion with an officer who had just pronounced her camphor-bottle contraband. The old lady was asserting loudly her inability to stand the trip or to live without her camphor-bottle. After much argument and persuasion she was allowed to retain it.

The scenes on deck at this time were too painful to dwell upon. Mothers who had periled everything and spent their last dollar in buying shoes for their children had to see them rudely taken away. Materials for clothing, and pins, needles, buttons, thread, and all the little articles so needful at home and so difficult to obtain in the Confederacy at that time were pronounced contraband. Men went about with their arms filled with plunder taken from defenseless women who stood wringing their hands and pleading, crying, arguing, quarreling.

By this time we were far down the Potomac. Weak, hungry, and seasick, we were glad when dinner-time drew near. The official notice had stated that food would be provided, which we, of course, had construed into three meals a day of good steamboat fare. The bell rang out loudly at last, and we all rushed to the cabin, where to our utter consternation we saw nothing whatever to eat, no set table, and nothing that looked like eating. Coming up the steps was a dirty boathand with a still dirtier bucket and a string of tin cups. He deposited these on a table and then called upon the ladies to help themselves to atrocious coffee, without milk, sugar, or spoons. Down he went again, and came up laden with tin plates piled one on the other, and containing what he called a sandwich. This sandwich was a chunk – not a slice – of bread, spread with dreadful mustard, a piece of coarse ham and another chunk of bread. Each person was generously allowed one of the tin plates and one sandwich. The very thought of swallowing such food was revolting, and more particularly so because we were tantalized with odors of beefsteak and chicken and other appetizing delicacies prepared for the officers’ table.

How thankful I was to the provost for confiscating my tea and coffee and sugar and crackers and ginger-cakes! Each of our party had something to add. Down upon the lower deck we had seen an immense pile of loaves of bread, and near them a large stove. We coaxed the sailor in charge to get us a clean loaf from the center of the pile and to put our tea on his stove to draw. In a few moments we disappeared to enjoy in our stateroom the luxury of a cup of tea! How others fared I do not know. We were the only people, I think, who had saved any tea. Almost every one had brought a few crackers, or cakes of some kind which they had managed to keep, and these they must have lived on with the abominable coffee.

When we reached the boat that morning only one stateroom was vacant, and this we contrived to secure. It was crowded comfort for three persons, but we were thankful. When night came our less fortunate fellow travelers were scattered in every direction on the floor, their only accommodations filthy camp mattresses without sheets, pillows, or covering of any kind except their own cloaks and shawls.

We traveled slowly and cautiously, fearing that in the night our flag might not be distinctly seen and we might be fired upon. The provost and his officers were in most things polite and kind. The men got up a little play between decks for the amusement of the ladies; but our party was too ultra-Southern even to look on.

We remained off Fortress Monroe all night, only starting at daylight for the James River. The trip up the James was accomplished in safety and without incident of special interest, if we except a very sudden and desperate love affair between a Southern girl and a Federal officer and the amusement which it afforded us.

As our boat neared the wharf at City Point, on all sides were heard cries of:

“Here we are in Dixie!”

As soon as we were landed a rush was made for the cars, and after everybody was seated the provost marshal came through bidding us good-by, shaking hands with many and kissing the pretty young girls. He had been very kind, and, as far as lay in his power, had done so much for the comfort of all and for the pleasure of the young people that most of us felt as if we were parting from a friend. Indeed, some were so enthusiastic that before we reached City Point they went among the passengers begging subscriptions to a fund for purchasing the provost a handsome diamond ring as a testimonial. Many, however, refused indignantly, declaring that they did not feel called upon to reward the provost for confiscating every article possible, and for giving us for seven consecutive meals spoiled bacon, mustard, and undrinkable coffee.

In Petersburg little or no preparation had been made for us, although the hotel proprietors knew the truce boat was expected that afternoon at City Point. We were scarcely able to secure an ordinary supper, and had to sleep, eight or ten in a room, on mattresses laid on the floor, and which, though clean and comfortable enough, were without covering. The next day we parted to go in different directions.

CHAPTER IX

I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE BLOCKADE

Late one day we saw an ambulance driving up to the gate through the pouring rain. A few minutes after, Patsy, the housemaid, came in to say that the adjutant had sent for his wife and her sister. We supposed that the two men with the ambulance were rough and common soldiers – one of them, in fact, the one who had given the message to Patsy, was a negro driver – and sent them around to the kitchen to warm and dry themselves. Very soon Aunt Caroline, the cook and a great authority, came in hurriedly and attacked Mrs. McGuire.

“Law, mistess! Y’all sholy orter ax one er dem men in de house. He sholy orten ter bin sont to de kitchen. He ain’t got no bizness in de kitchen. He’s quality. You orter ax him to come to de parlor. He specks you gwine ter ax him to come to de parlor, case he done bresh hissef up, and he’s puttin’ sweet grease on his har, and he say he kin play on de orgin.”

Such accomplishments as these changed the whole situation. Aunt Caroline was sent to fetch him. When she threw open the door and announced him and he entered, bowing low and gracefully, we could hardly restrain a laugh, for we had a good view of the top of his head, and it was fairly ashine! He was Lieutenant Dimitri of New Orleans, my husband’s courier, who had been sent as our escort. A most efficient and agreeable one he proved.

If I had only been a young lady following my father or brother around, how interesting these memoirs might be made, for Lieutenant Dimitri was only one of many charming men I met. Available heroes pass through, bow, and make their exits. And I am afraid of boring my friends with the one hero who remains because he is my husband; consequently I keep him as modestly as possible in the background. He had risen steadily in rank, and I was proud of him, but I must say that my memory is less vivid as to his deeds of gallantry than it is to what might have been reckoned minor matters by an older woman. The greatest crosses of my life were separation from my mother and sister, telling my husband good-by, and beholding him in a hopelessly shabby uniform. The greatest blessings of my life were found in the little courtesies and kindnesses of life and in getting my husband back to me, safe and sound.

When morning came it was still raining, and the roads in such a condition that Mr. McGuire, fearing our ambulance would break down, opposed our going. But I knew that the men and team must return to camp according to orders, so we started off in spite of the weather and Mr. McGuire’s protest.

We had not gone far when our driver was halted by a vidette who barred the way.

“Is Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”

“Yessuh.”

“Turn back. Smallpox ahead.”

The driver turned another road. It was only a short distance before we were halted again.

“Adjutant Grey’s wife in the ambulance?”

“Yessuh, she sho is.”

“Turn around. Smallpox this way.”

“Lord! how is I ter go?” groaned the driver.

At the next fork the driver paused with a look of utter distraction.

“I don’t kyeer whicherway we go, dar’ll be smallpox in de road sayin’ we can’t go datter way.” And he drove recklessly on the way the mules seemed to prefer. The mules struck it.

A vidette halted us again, but it was to say that we were traveling in the right direction and to give minute directions for the rest of our journey. There was a village and its neighborhood to be avoided, and we had to make a wide detour before the driver put us down, according to orders, at Mr. Wright’s.

Dan came in quite soon, looking as shabby as one of his own orderlies, but glad enough to see me. For some time here I was in a fool’s paradise in spite of the war and the fact that mother was far away in Baltimore, ignorant of what might be happening to us, for camp was very near, there were no active hostilities, and Dan came to see me every day.

Then the cavalry received marching orders. The night after I heard it I determined to tell Dan of a decision I had come to. Milicent had not spoken, but I knew the drift of her thoughts and purposes. We had not heard once from mother and Bobby since she left them in Baltimore. Milicent was going to them, and I had made up my mind to go with her. There was no return to Baltimore by flag of truce; the only way to get there was to run the blockade, a most dangerous and doubtful undertaking at this period of the war. But Milicent’s boy was in Baltimore, and mother was there. She had come to me; she would go to them, and I intended to go with her.

My heart was set on seeing mother. To be left alone now by both Milicent and Dan would drive me crazy; for Milicent to run the blockade alone would serve me as ill. Besides, I wanted some things for myself, some pins and needles, and nice shoes and pocket handkerchiefs and a new hat and a new cloak, and I wanted a new uniform for Dan. Dan had had no new uniform since his first promotion, a long time ago. He was an officer of high rank, and he was still wearing his old private’s uniform. He had traveled through rain and snow and mud, and had slept on the ground and fought battles in it. Though I had many times cleaned that uniform, darned it, patched it, turned it, scoured it, done everything that was possible to rejuvenate it, my shabby-looking soldier was a continual reproach to me. When Dan would come to see me I used to make him wrap up in a sheet or blanket while I worked away on his clothes with needle and thread, soap and water and smoothing irons. I was ready to run the blockade for a new uniform for Dan if for nothing else, but to tell him that I was going to run the blockade – there was the rub! Evening came and Dan with it, and the telling had to be done somehow.

“Dan,” I began, patting the various patches on his shabby knee, “I want you to have a new uniform.”

“Wish me a harp and a crown, Nell! One’s about as easy as the other. You’ll have to take it out in wanting, my girl.”

“I expect I could buy Confederate cloth in Baltimore.”

“Maybe – if you were there.”

“Dan, I think I’ll slip across the border and buy you a Confederate uniform, gold lace and all, from a Yankee tradesman, and then slip back here with it, and behold you in all the glory of it. Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan?”