A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“Rather!”

Dan took in his patches at a glance, perhaps by way of mental comparison between himself in this and himself in the imaginary new uniform. But I saw he did not understand me at all – I had to make things plain.

“Dan,” I said, “I am going to Baltimore.”

“What?” he thundered.

“I am going to run the blockade with Millie.”

“Have you lost your senses?”

“No, Dan. But I’m going to run the blockade with Millie – to get you a new uniform.”

“Nell, don’t be a goose!”

“And some shirts and some socks and some pins and needles – and I want to see mother – and Bobby – and – I’m going.”

“I’m not going to allow you to attempt such a thing!” he said gravely.

“I want to see mother – and to get a new uniform – and other things.”

Dan looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.

“Milicent is going – and I think I ought to go with her.”

“I don’t want Millie to go – I don’t think she ought to try it; and I won’t permit you to go off on such a wild-goose chase.”

I was silent a minute, trying to think how to tell him as respectfully as I could that I differed with him on this point. It all ended by my repeating in a stupid, poll-parrot fashion:

“I’m going with Millie to Baltimore.”

Dan looked at me as if he would like to spank me! Here was his obedient, docile girl-bride blossomed into a contumacious, rebellious wife!

I was ready to cry – nay, I was crying – but I still affirmed that I must go to Baltimore. Dan reasoned and argued, but that didn’t do any good. Then he swore, but swearing didn’t alter the case. The case was, indeed, beyond Dan, but he made a long and hard fight, and didn’t surrender for a long while. I cried all night, and he reasoned all night. When he saw that the case was hopeless, he started us to Petersburg under suitable escort. We had to go first to Petersburg in order to get the money which we wished to take North to exchange for all the goods and chattels we might be able to smuggle South.

Dan detailed a driver and an ambulance for our service and Lieutenant Johnston to act as escort. The morning we started it looked cloudy. Dan tried to dissuade us. I said I had always been a good weather prophet and I didn’t think it would rain. Millie reinforced me.

But when it actually came to telling Dan good-by, I broke down. His threadbare clothes plead with me both ways. I hung around his neck and did so much crying that he got sorry for me and helped me off.

“When I get you a new uniform, Dan – ” I sobbed, as he tucked the old blanket shawl about me where I sat in the ambulance.

“Uniform be – !” growled Dan. Then, seeing my crestfallen look, “I reckon I’ll like it well enough, Nell – when it comes. Good-by, girls. You’re mighty big geese. God bless you! If you change your minds in Petersburg – but, Lord! an earthquake wouldn’t change you! Good-by, my darling – God bless you! I reckon you’ll get along all right.”

The rusty coat-sleeve was out of sight, and I was on my way.

CHAPTER X

I CROSS THE COUNTRY IN AN AMBULANCE AND THE PAMUNKEY ON A LIGHTER

As we traveled along farther and farther from Dan, I kept on crying softly to myself now and then, turning my face from Milicent. Presently her arm stole around me.

“Do you feel so badly, darling?”

“I hate to leave Dan – I can’t bear it!”

“Then we’ll turn back, Nell.”

And our astonished driver and escort received orders to turn back toward camp.

“But in a few days,” I sobbed, “Dan – will – be – gone. And you – will be – gone. And I can’t stand that!”

And to the further confusion of escort, driver, and mules, we were turned again.

“Better not to do dat too offen, lessen we won’t git nowhar!” our driver muttered to himself. “Dese mules is clean upsot in dar min’s.”

I was upset in my mind, too. I continued to cry in a helpless, hopeless fashion, and was feeling that nothing on earth could make me more wretched than I already was when it began raining. Lieutenant Johnston, who had the soul of Mark Tapley, prophesied a shower and refused to leave his seat with the driver, but in a little while he was driven inside with us. It rained harder and harder – it poured. The ambulance began to leak and the straw on the floor got wet. Milicent and I huddled together under the old blanket shawl and drew over that a ragged piece of oilcloth; but the rain soaked through. Where Lieutenant Johnston sat there was a steady dripping, bursting now and then into a stream. But he was not to be daunted by discomforts or difficulties. He invented a trough for carrying off the water by making a dent in his broad-brimmed hat, pulling the brim into a point, and sticking it through a rent in the ambulance cover; and he was so merry over it all, and so convinced that things might be far worse and would soon be much better, that we were beginning to laugh at our own expense, when a sullen rushing and roaring reminded us that the worst of our troubles were still before us. We looked out of our ambulance upon the swollen waters of the Pamunkey River.

The thing on which we were to cross it was moored to the bank by a great chain. It was a lighter crowded with men and horses. There were soldiers at the ends and sides holding long sticks which they used as poles to direct and govern the craft. Our ambulance and mules were driven on along with other teams, and we walked into the midst of rearing and plunging horses, that threatened every minute to back off the lighter into the river and drag us with them, while our craft was making its slow way to the opposite bank.

I stood between two horses that reared and plunged the whole time. The men who held them had hard work to control them, and, I must add, that they swore roundly, and confess that this was the one occasion of my life when I did not undervalue that accomplishment or wish to put any restraint upon its free exercise. The truth is I was so scared that I was ready to help along with either the work or the swearing, if I had only known how.

As one of the men was trying his best to keep the horse he was holding from plunging and kicking itself into the river, or plunging and kicking itself on me, he caught my eye in the middle of an oath, and interrupted himself to begin an apology. The horse took advantage of this to make more vigorous demonstrations.

“Oh! oh!” I cried in terror, “finish – finish what you were saying to the horse! He’s going to jump on me, and I’ll have to say it myself if you don’t!”

I didn’t realize what I was saying until I heard a chuckle from the men within hearing distance. They knew that I was beside myself with terror, and did their best to smother their laughter. But I was past caring for public opinion. I was in an agony of terror. There was no other place for me to stand – horses, kicking, plunging, rearing horses were crowded everywhere. A lighter is the rudest excuse for a boat. Ours was made of planks crossed and nailed together, and between their wide spaces, just under my feet, I saw the swollen waters, upon which we seemed to be tossed, and careened, and whipped about without the control or guidance of those on board. Never before or since, never during any period of the war, was I in such a state of helpless fright as on that day when I crossed the mad Pamunkey on a lighter with swearing men and kicking horses around me and the water bubbling up against my feet.

Appearances to the contrary, our soldiers with the poles were directing our craft and turning the will of the tide to our profit, and at last we were on the shore. Safe in our wet ambulance, we started on our way again. I was never so cold, so wet, so everything wretched in my life, and what should Lieutenant Johnston do but propose to go out of our way to see St. Peter’s Church.

“An old colonial relic,” he said. “You ladies ought not to miss it now that you are so near.”

“I don’t want to see any relics,” I answered promptly. “The only thing I want to see is a fire and something to eat.”

But he would drive out of our way to show us that old church. I was too wretched and miserable to look at it with proper interest. I don’t remember how it looked – I only know that I had to go there and see it whether I would or no. George Washington had done something or other there – got married, I believe. I think the church had some very fine ivy on it, but I am not sure. I thought it was old and small, and that it might do very well in summer, but that under present circumstances Washington himself would forgive me for being wholly in the thought of getting to a fire. Hunger and cold, cramped positions and rain dripping in on me had blunted everything in me except longings for creature comforts. The lieutenant drove all around the church religiously before starting on our way again.

“I don’t believe you saw it at all,” he said to me with real concern.

“Oh, yes, I did!” I answered promptly, terrified lest we should be turned back to look at it again, “I saw it thoroughly.”

Of course, Milicent had looked the old church over and talked intelligently about it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember whether it was made of brick or wood. And I didn’t care, either.

The rain had dwindled into a drizzle, night was coming on, and I began to grow more and more anxious to find a stopping-place.

“I do hope we shall get into a place where they keep good fires,” I said. “If we should get into a place where they burn green pine, I should lie down and die. Wet, green pine,” I continued dolorously, “that smokes and never burns, and raw, clammy biscuit is about what we’ll get to-night.”

The lieutenant looked as if he was very sorry for me.

“I wish,” he said unhappily, “I wish I knew how to tell a place where they burn green pine.” Suddenly he brightened.

“I have it!” he exclaimed. “We won’t stop at any house where there isn’t a big wood-pile. We don’t stop anywhere until we find a big white house, a big wood-pile and a nigger chopping wood.”

We passed several dwellings, but the lieutenant wouldn’t stop. “I don’t see any wood-pile,” or “The wood-pile ain’t big enough,” he would say.

At last we came upon what we wanted – a large white house, a wood-pile nearly as high as the house and a negro man chopping wood for dear life.

Through a big front yard full of shrubbery, a wide graveled walk and circular drive-way led up to the house, and in a few minutes our ambulance was in front of the veranda. The lieutenant sprang out and went up the steps.

A gray-headed negro butler answered his knock.

“Wanter see master, sah? Yes, sah. Won’t you step right in, sah?”

“I haven’t time to stop a minute unless I can get lodgings for the night. I have ladies in the ambulance. Ask your master if he will be good enough to see me at the door for a minute.”

Sambo bowed, made haste backward, and almost immediately an old gentleman appeared.

“Certainly, sir, certainly,” he said, interrupting the lieutenant in the middle of his application. “Bring the ladies right in, sir.”

And he helped to bring us in himself. Servants of all kinds appeared as if by magic from all quarters, and took charge of our trunks, satchels, ambulance, and driver.

The Virginia gentleman of those days was hospitable, as men are truthful, for his own sake first. His hospitality was spontaneous, unconscious, and free as heaven itself with its favors. All it asked in return was that you should come when you pleased, go when you pleased, stay as long as you pleased, and enjoy yourself to the top of your bent.

The house was a house of spindle-legged chairs, spindle-legged piano, brass fire-dogs, fine dark woodwork, candelabra of brass and crystal, and tall wax candles. Through the gloom the eyes of old portraits looked down upon us. In the wide fireplace of our bedroom crackled a mighty fire of oak and hickory; over the fire hung a bright brass kettle singing merrily; there were the ever-present fire-dogs and fender of burnished brass, and on the mantle two wax lights burning in silver candlesticks. Two smiling negro maids stood ready to minister to us.

In opposite corners of the room stood two large, canopied, mahogany bedsteads, with great, downy feather-beds and counterpanes, sheets and pillows as white as snow and smelling of lavender. The undiminished length of the table at which we sat down that night bore testimony not only to the good cheer it had given, but to that which it was ready to give. It was of dark rich mahogany, polished to the fineness of a mirror, that reflected the tall silver candlesticks holding wax candles. The silver service and beautiful old china rested on white mats that were not visible except where encircling fringes of gleaming damask suggested nests of snow. On a quaint buffet stood cut-glass decanters holding topaz and ruby wines and brandy and whisky.

The great mahogany sideboard – a small house in itself – nearly reached the ceiling. The upper half was a cabinet with glass doors shaped like the doors of a Gothic cathedral. The lower half had drawers with white knobs, and bellied doors of the most beautiful dark wood, reflecting, like the table, the glow of the wax lights. The glass cabinet glittered with silver and crystal, and here and there was clouded with the rich maroon and saffron of rare old china. Our hostess was a stately and beautiful old lady in black silk (much worn), with fichu and cuffs of real old lace. Our host wore fine black broadcloth, threadbare and of ancient cut.

Such a soft, shining picture as that supper-room was! I wish I could paint it as I saw it that night! And what a delicious supper! There was tea, sure enough; tea of delicious aroma; and sure enough sugar, too, in fine white lumps which had to be picked up with silver tongs. There were little tea-cakes and fairy-like puffs and wafers, and delicious hot rolls! creamy and velvety, and light as a breath.

In crystal dishes gleamed the rich, clear red and amber of preserved fruits, and crystal-clear sweetmeats were set before us in crystal dishes. These were cut in designs of leaf and flower, fish and bird, squirrels, rabbits, and acorns – really too elaborately cut and too beautifully transparent to be eaten. And then there was Virginia fried chicken – of such a delicate rich brown! and such juicy sweetness! At last we each lay covered up in a great downy bed, and went to sleep, and slept as if we never expected to wake up.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD ORDER

We found fresh straw and hot bricks in the bottom of our ambulance when we were ready to leave the next morning, an excellent luncheon and two bottles of wine. Soon after we started the wind changed, the clouds disappeared, and the sun came out. By the time we reached the Chickahominy there was sunshine in plenty – and wind, too.

Not a boat was in sight, and no figure on either bank of man or beast. I thought the lieutenant and the driver would split their lungs hallooing, but there was no response. Nobody answered and nobody came. We waited on the bank an hour without seeing anybody. Then an Indian came by in a skiff and we hailed him. He paddled to the shore, and we asked him if he knew where we could get a boat and some one to put us across. He knew of nothing and nobody of the kind within reach.

“I must hire your skiff then,” said the lieutenant.

The Indian grinned.

“You no get cross in it. You spill out.”

“Never mind that, so you get paid for your skiff. I am an old sailor.”

Powhatan didn’t think the lieutenant could manage that skiff; however, he got his price and gave in.

When he saw the three of us squeezing ourselves into the skiff he remonstrated again.

“Squaws spill out. Squaws git sick,” he insisted. He told the lieutenant that we would be frightened out of our lives before we got across the river. He didn’t know that Millie and I had been brought up on the coast and were as used to water as ducks.

Whoever has rowed an Indian skiff may have some idea of what a cockle-shell it was that took us across the Chickahominy. I sat in one end, Milicent in the other, and Lieutenant Johnston in the middle, paddle in hand, while our little craft switched and wriggled and rocked itself about in a manner that was as extraordinary as it was dangerous, and that was nearer perpetual motion than anything I ever saw.

At last the lieutenant stood up and straddled the boat to balance her. How he ever balanced himself I can’t say, but he stood with one foot on each of her sides and managed her somehow. No one but an old sailor could have done it. I expected every minute to see him fall over into the water.

The sun was shining down, silvering the waters of the Chickahominy. The strong winds churned the waves and blew our hats and veils almost off our heads, and almost blew our breath away – when the rocking skiff left us any. And out on the wide, turbulent, bright river we tossed and tumbled, and laughed and got wet and came near drowning. I never had more fun in any sail. But at last we were safely across, and waiting by the York River Railroad for our train. The half-breed gave us our trunks, and took back his skiff and our money. In a few hours we were in Richmond, where the lieutenant saw us to our hotel, and left. I sent a letter by him to Dan, begging Dan’s pardon for having my own way.

The next day found us in Petersburg. Our business here was to provide ourselves with money with which to buy Yankee goods – particularly a Confederate uniform – in Yankeeland. I wanted as much gold as our broker could let me have, but he advised me against taking more than enough to make the trip with, and a small margin for contingencies.

“It will be in your way and increase your danger,” he said. “Confederate notes will get you to the Potomac. From there you need a little gold to take you to Baltimore. After you are there I will contrive any sum you want to your trustees in Norfolk. They, being inside the Yankee lines, can send it to Baltimore.”

Our next objective point was Mrs. Rixey’s in Culpeper. Blockade-runners were continually setting out from there, and we thought we would have no difficulty in attaching ourselves to a party. After a rest in Petersburg of a day and a half, we started for Culpeper, reaching Mrs. Rixey’s at nightfall. We told her husband that we wanted to join a party of blockade-runners.

“Mrs. Otis and her two daughters start north to-morrow; perhaps you can go with them,” he said, and went out to see about it.

Unfortunately – or fortunately – the Otis party was complete – there was no vacant seat in their wagon.

“I will be on the lookout for you,” Mr. Rixey said. “Somebody else will be along soon.”

Before breakfast he knocked at our door.

“There are two gentlemen downstairs who are going north,” he said, when Millie stuck her head out. “They give their names as Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway, and they seem to be gentlemen. That is all I know about them. You might see them and talk the matter over.”

We finished dressing hurriedly and went down to the parlor, where we met Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway, and after a brief talk decided to go with them.

The best vehicle we could get was a wagon without springs, and instead of a body four planks laid across the axles, one plank set up on each side, and no ends at all.

Over the rude floor we had a quantity of straw piled, and two chairs were set up for Milicent and me. The gentlemen seated themselves on our baggage, which consisted of two small trunks into which we had crowded a few articles for each of them. The wagoner, a rough mountaineer, sat on a plank which had been laid across the two uprights at the sides.

It was a bitterly cold day. Milicent and I wore thick cloaks, and the wagoner supplied a blanket which we wrapped about our feet. In addition, the gentlemen contributed a large blanket shawl which they insisted upon folding about our shoulders, declaring that their overcoats protected them sufficiently. Now and then they got out of the wagon and walked and stamped to keep their legs from getting stiff with cold, and at last Milicent and I were reduced to the same device for keeping up our circulation. We got so stiff we couldn’t move, and the gentlemen had to lift us out of the wagon, pull us about, and drag us into a walk and a run.

It was dark when we reached the house at which it had been suggested we should stop. Lights were in every window and we could see much moving about. Mr. Holliway went in to ask for lodgings.

He returned quickly and jumped into the wagon, saying to the wagoner:

“Drive on.”

Milicent and I were almost freezing.

“What’s the matter?” we asked in keen disappointment.

Just then the wagon made a turn, and we saw distinctly into the house through an uncurtained window. There was a long white object in the middle of the floor and over it stood a weeping woman.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “somebody’s dead there.”

“Yes, I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “It’s a dead soldier. I was afraid it might make you feel badly. Ladies are sometimes superstitious, and I feared you might take it as a bad omen for our journey.”

But we found out afterward that it was he who had taken it for a bad omen. He was going north to see his family, and he was so anxious about them that he talked of little else. Captain Locke’s mission was not so clear. He called it business – we little knew what dangerous business it was! – and we troubled our heads no further about it.

It was very late when we at last came upon a tumble-down farmhouse, where we were taken in for the night. The family who lived there did their best for us, but they were far from being comfortable themselves. By this time, however, any quarters and any fare were acceptable. We slept in the room with a goodly company, all fortunately of our own sex, and the gentlemen, as we heard afterward, in even more crowded quarters.

Our poverty-stricken hosts did not wish to charge us, but before we left the next morning we insisted upon paying them.

That morning a little Jew boy was added to our party. Just how, or when, or where we picked him up, I can not recall, and I should probably never have thought of him again if he had not impressed himself upon me most unpleasantly afterward at Berlin.

Our second night we spent according to our program, in Fauquier County, with Mr. Robert Bolling, a friend of my husband’s.

“I am astonished at your trying to run the blockade, Mrs. Grey,” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “And why are you more astonished at me than at Milicent?”

I had been hearing similar remarks, and was becoming curious.

“Because you look like a little girl. I am surprised at such nerve in so youthful a lady.”

“I want a new uniform for Dan,” I said. “He’s promoted.”

Mr. Bolling laughed heartily.

“And I am quite as brave as Milicent,” I insisted.

“Well, I am surprised at you both. It is a dangerous undertaking.”

Our wagoner was invited to take supper with us. He was rough and ill-clad, and he felt out of place, but Mr. Bolling charmed him into ease and talked over our prospective journey with him.

“It is well for you to be on good terms with your wagoner,” he said to us privately, when he sent out the invitation.

Mr. Bolling was old and gray-haired, or he would have been in the field. His home was one of the most celebrated country-seats in Fauquier, and he himself full of honors and one of the best-known men in the State.

The night we spent at this old Virginia homestead was repetition of a night previously described, with variations. Here were the same old-fashioned mahogany furniture with claw feet and spindle legs, and wax lights in brass and silver candelabra, and rare old china, and some heirlooms whose history we were interested in. Several of these had come with the first Bollings from England. There was a sword which had come down from the War of the Roses, and on the wall, in a place of special honor, hung the sword of a Bolling who had distinguished himself in the Revolution. Mr. Bolling took it down and laid it in Milicent’s outstretched hands with a smile.

“I am a believer in State’s rights, and I am a Secessionist, I suppose,” said the old man with a sigh, as he hung the sword back in its place. “But – I hate to fight the old flag. I hate that.”

Above the sword was the portrait of the Bolling who had worn the sword, a soldierly looking fellow in the uniform of a Revolutionary colonel.

“He saved the old flag once at the cost of his life,” the aged man said, sighing again. “He is buried out yonder in the graveyard, wrapped in the folds of the very flag he snatched from the hands of the British. If we were to open his grave to-night, we would find his bones and ashes wrapped in that flag he died to save. Yes, I am sorry to fight the old flag.”