A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865

This time we waited only a little while before an orderly rapped at the door to say that an ambulance was in waiting for us below. We hurried down with him, and in ten minutes were inside the ambulance, and prisoners of the United States.

Behind us into the ambulance stepped a dashing young officer, all brass buttons and gold lace.

“I am Captain Goldsborough,” he said, saluting, “commissioned by General Kelly to attend you.”

Our escort consisted of five soldiers who followed us, sitting in a wagon on our baggage. That afternoon we passed through Charleston, and Captain Goldsborough pointed out to us the house in which John Brown had lived – an ordinary two-story frame house.

As well as I can remember we reached Berryville about nine o’clock. Our ambulance drew up in front of the tavern, and Captain Goldsborough went in to see about getting accommodations for us. He came out quickly and said, “This is no fit place to-night for you, ladies. I am informed that there is an old couple on the hill who may take us in. I hear, too, that they are good Confederates,” he added mischievously. Of course lights were out and everybody asleep when we drove up, but our driver went in and beat on the door until he waked the old people up. They received us kindly, and the old lady got a supper for us of cold meats and slices of loaf bread, butter, milk, preserves, and hot coffee which she must have made herself as no servants were in the house at that hour; and we had a comfortable room with two beds in it. The old lady came in and chatted with us awhile, telling us all she knew about our army’s movements, and listening eagerly to what people in Maryland had to say about the war. We were very tired, but I am sure it must have been one o’clock when we went to sleep. At daybreak there came a great banging at the front door. Mother put her head out of the front window and inquired who was trying to break the door down.

It was our driver, and there at the gate stood our ambulance. The driver hurried us desperately, saying we had not a moment to lose. The noise had aroused our hosts, and when we got down the old lady had spread us a cold lunch and made us a cup of coffee.

“I was hoping to have you a nice hot breakfast,” she said, “but since you must go in such a hurry this is the best I can do. If I had known you were going to make such an early start I would have got you a hot breakfast somehow.”

We swallowed our food hurriedly, but this did not satisfy our driver. Every few minutes he came down on the door with the butt end of his whip. Finally we left off eating, ran up-stairs, and gathered up our bags. As we hurried down, almost falling over each other in our haste, we saw a magnificent-looking soldier standing in the hall. He was in the full uniform of a colonel of cavalry, glittering with gold lace, with gauntlets reaching his elbows, and high military boots.

“Mrs. Duncan and Miss Duncan, I suppose,” he said with a sweeping bow, “and – ”

“Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby,” we said of the ladies who came behind us.

“I am Colonel McReynolds, commandant at this place, and at your service, ladies,” he continued. “I have to apologize for not paying my respects to you last night upon receipt of General Kelly’s letter asking me to take charge of you. The lateness of the hour must be my excuse. At the time Captain Goldsborough presented it I had a number of important despatches to attend to, and I supposed you were tired out and in need of rest.”

We expressed our appreciation of his courtesy and General Kelly’s thoughtfulness.

“What is all this?” he asked, pointing to our ambulance, baggage wagon, and impatient driver.

We explained that they were the conveniences furnished us by General Kelly.

“But you surely do not propose starting off in such weather as this, ladies?”

I have neglected to say that it had been storming since daybreak.

“The driver has been beating on the doors since before day,” somebody said.

“He has, has he? Then he has exceeded his instructions. He had no right whatever to disturb you, ladies. I will see that he is reported.”

He called the driver and reprimanded him sharply.

“Pray don’t feel that you must leave us in such weather as this, ladies,” he continued with the utmost kindness. “Stay here a week if you like. That ambulance and wagon and those men and horses are at your service as long as you choose to keep them here, and we will be glad to do whatever we may for your comfort or pleasure until it suits your own convenience to leave us.”

We hardly knew how to thank this princely young enemy, but we insisted that the driver should not be punished, and that we should be allowed to proceed on our journey, as we were anxious to reach our friends and kindred.

He rode in our ambulance with us to his headquarters, where we were joined by our other charming enemy, and, making our adieux to the gallant and handsome colonel, continued our journey.

During the day something happened to Captain Goldsborough’s watch, and it stopped running, much to his annoyance.

“I should like to know what time it is,” he said.

I pulled my watch out and held it open for him to see the time. I could have told him what hour it was. I don’t know what made me such a reckless little creature in those days. The watch I held to him had a tiny Confederate flag pasted inside. My companions had either secreted their watches or were not traveling with them. I had been urged to do the same, but had openly worn my watch ever since leaving Baltimore. Captain Goldsborough saw the hour, and he saw the flag also. He stared at me in utter amazement.

“You are brave – or reckless,” he said.

“I know this is contraband goods, and, according to your ideas, treasonable. Will you confiscate it?” quietly holding it out again.

His face flushed.

“Not I! but some one else might. You are not prudent to wear that openly.”

And I was so ashamed of myself for hurting his feelings that I made amends in rather too warm terms, I am afraid, considering that he didn’t know I was married and a privileged character.

“You are traveling in the wrong direction, I think, Miss Duncan,” he ventured to say after awhile. “You shouldn’t leave the North and go south now.”

“Why?”

“I – I shouldn’t think you would receive the attention there just now that is your due. You are young and fond of society, I imagine. And – there are so few beaux in the South now – I shouldn’t think you would like that.”

“Really?”

“I mean that I wish you would stay up North where it is pleasanter. It’s so – uncomfortable down South. You are so young, you see, you ought to have a chance to enjoy life a little. I – I wish you were up here – and I could add a little to your happiness. I – I mean,” catching a glance which warned him, “it is must be dull for you in the South – no beaux – no nothing.”

“All the beaux are in the field,” I retorted, “where they ought to be. I wouldn’t have a beau who wasn’t, and if I were a Northern girl I wouldn’t have a man who didn’t wear a uniform – though, I think, it ought to be gray.”

“I expect you have a sweetheart down South whom you expect to see when you get home. That is why your heart has been so set on getting back.”

“If I had a sweetheart down South I couldn’t see him when I got back home, for he would be in the field.”

“So, your sweetheart is a Southern soldier?” wistfully.

“I wouldn’t have a sweetheart who wasn’t a soldier – a Southern soldier.”

In the other side of my watch I had pasted a small picture of Dan in uniform. I opened this side and held it out to my companion.

“That’s my sweetheart’s picture.”

He looked at it long and hard. “A good-looking fellow,” he said, “and I have no doubt a gallant soldier. If I ever meet him in battle – he will be safe from my bullet.”

Behind our wagon all the way from Harper’s Ferry had come a party equipped like ourselves. They were Jews, and, as we were informed, were prisoners of the United States. They had an ambulance like ours, a baggage wagon like ours, and a similar escort of five infantry perched on trunks. Their escort who rode inside, however, was not so attractive as ours. We felt and expressed much commiseration for them because they were prisoners – “those poor Jews,” we called them.

We were all suffering the consequences of late and early hours, and of the worry and excitement at Harper’s Ferry. I felt almost ill, and when Miss Oglesby, whose home was in Winchester, invited us to spend a week with her, we concluded that we would accept her hospitality until better able to continue our journey.

Winchester was the most difficult of all places for Southerners to pass through at this time, and we could not possibly have gotten through if we had been left to our own resources. Milroy was commandant, and his name was a terror. He belonged to the Ben Butler of New Orleans type. Some time near the middle of the day we drew up in front of Milroy’s headquarters. Immediately behind us came the Jews and their belongings. They did not go in with us, and I supposed they were awaiting their turn. General Milroy was absent, off on a fight, and we fell into the hands of his adjutant, a dapper little fellow. We heard him talking to Goldsborough of the recent fight and victory, and heard him making arrangements for our transportation.

Here we thought it proper to inform him that we were going to remain a week in Winchester.

“You can not remain here,” he said. “You go on immediately.”

“Oh, no!” we said, “we’re not going on now. We are going to stop here for a visit and until we are rested.”

“You are prisoners and under orders. You go at once – ” he began bruskly.

“Oh, no!” we interrupted, eager to enlighten him, for we saw he had made a very natural mistake. “We are not prisoners. Those poor Jews out there, they are prisoners. We are going to stop here on a little visit.”

“You don’t stop here an hour. This is Miss Oglesby’s destination, and she stops, but the rest of you go on – now.”

He looked as if he thought us demented. Goldsborough kept making faces at us, but we were so anxious to correct the adjutant’s mistake that we had no attention to bestow elsewhere. We thought we had never seen so stupid a man as that adjutant.

“We are not the prisoners,” we insisted. “Those Jews out there – ”

Here he told Captain Goldsborough to conduct “these prisoners” down-stairs and into the ambulance provided for them. “You will not go far before you meet a detachment of cavalry on their way to this place,” he informed Captain Goldsborough, and then instructed him to turn back of these a sufficient escort for our party.

We were in a perfect rage as Captain Goldsborough led us down-stairs. We thought Milroy’s adjutant the very rudest and stupidest person we had ever seen.

CHAPTER XVIII

WITHIN OUR LINES

After leaving the saucy and peremptory adjutant we were shown into the handsomest ambulance I have ever seen. I suppose the one we had been using was returned to Harper’s Ferry or left at Winchester for the horses to rest until Captain Goldsborough’s return. At any rate, we were in new quarters, and very elegant ones they were. The sides and seats were cushioned and padded, and it was really a luxurious coach. It was drawn by four large black horses with coats like silk. There was a postilion on the seat, and beside him sat a small boy who kept peeping behind us and into the woods on all sides, and as far ahead as possible. I didn’t know what he was trying to see or find out, but I came to the conclusion that he was there to “peep” on general principles.

As soon as we were seated we asked Captain Goldsborough what upon earth that impertinent adjutant meant by referring to us as “prisoners,” and ordering us about so.

Whereupon he explained with much embarrassment and many apologies that we were really prisoners – that General Kelly could not have sent us through without the formality of putting us under arrest.

“I wish,” he said in an aside to me, “that I didn’t have to release you.”

Of course we were perfectly satisfied to be General Kelly’s prisoners under such circumstances. In fact, we charged Captain Goldsborough to tell him how nice we thought it was to be put under arrest by him.

We withdrew our charges against the adjutant, and even acknowledged that there was kindness in the pert little Yankee’s telling us to “holler for Jeff Davis and we’d get sent on quick enough.”

Six miles from Winchester we met the detachment of cavalry to which Milroy’s adjutant had referred. It was a magnificent-looking body of men, handsomely uniformed and mounted. As they were about to dash past us Captain Goldsborough halted them, gave an order, and instantly thirty riders wheeled out of line and surrounded the ambulance, the others riding on without a break in their movements. Captain Goldsborough had gotten out of the ambulance some minutes before we met the detachment of cavalry, and was sitting with the driver, having sent the little boy inside. It sounds rather a formidable position for a Southern woman, a blockade-runner, in a Yankee ambulance, and surrounded by thirty Yankees armed to the teeth; but I was never safer in my life. The little boy was in a state of terror that would have been amusing if it had not been pitiful.

“What are all these men around the ambulance for?” I asked. He didn’t look as if he could get his wits together at once.

“Are they afraid we will get away?” I continued.

“Oh, no’m! no’m!” he answered, his eyes as big as saucers. “There’s been lots of fightin’ – an’ there’s rebels all along here in the woods – and they’d come out and take this here ambulance an’ these here horses – an’ we all, an’ you all, an’ all of us!”

A novel position, truly, Yankees protecting us against our own soldiers! We met another company of soldiers, and alas! we could turn back none of them. They were not mounted, they were not handsomely uniformed. From the windows of our ambulance we looked out on them with tearful eyes, and waved our handkerchiefs to them; but their heads were bowed, and they did not see us. They would hardly have believed we were prisoners if they had seen us, for our escort of Union cavalry the whole time they guarded us treated us as if we were queens. Not one profane word did we hear – not a syllable that breathed anything but respect and kindly feeling.

At Newtown we were released and were Union prisoners no longer, but Southern travelers close to the Southern lines and on our own responsibility. Captain Goldsborough bade us adieu, saying that he was sorry he could not take us farther, but that his orders compelled him to turn back here, and we poured out our gratitude to him and to Colonel McReynolds and General Kelly by him. He put a little sentiment into a farewell pressure of my hand, and I am afraid I put a great deal too much gratitude and penitence into my eyes. My genius for friendship had asserted itself, and I was fast learning to give him a companion niche in my heart with Captains Hosmer and Locke. Another day with him, and I would have told him I was married, showed him Dan’s picture, bored him with Dan, and found in him all the better friend and good comrade.

Our hearts sank as our gallant bluecoat, our cozy ambulance, and our cavalry guard left us, three lonely women in the tavern at Newtown. We spent the night there, and the next morning secured, with much difficulty, a small, uncovered, one-horse wagon to take us on our journey. We were very much crowded. Our trunks were piled up in it – mother’s, Mrs. Drummond’s, and my own. I made mother as comfortable as possible, and Mrs. Drummond carefully made herself so, while I sat on the seat with the driver, a trunk sticking in my back all the way. I had to sit almost double because of the trunk, the wagon being so small that no other arrangement was possible.

Rain had fallen plentifully here. The day was one of fogs and mists with occasional light showers, the roads were, muddy and seamed with ruts, over which the wagon jogged up and down, and I jogged with it, feeling as if my back would break in two and almost wishing it would and end my misery. About nine of that miserable wet night we hailed with eager, glad, tired hearts and eyes the lights of Woodstock. Here we knew we should find Southern forces encamped, here we knew we should be at home among our own people. Just outside the town a voice rang through the darkness:

“Halt!”

A sentry stood in our path.

“We are Southerners,” we said. “Let us pass.”

“Where are your papers?”

“Papers? We haven’t any papers. We are Southerners, we tell you – Southern ladies, and we are in a hurry, and you must let us pass right now.”

“I can’t do it. Show your papers or turn back.”

We set up a wail.

“Here, we’ve come all the way from Baltimore, and the Yankees have sent us and have brought us all the way in a fine ambulance and cavalry escorts and big horses and gold lace and everything, and now we’ve got home, and our own people won’t let us in! tell us to turn back!”

The sentry seemed impressed. Rags and musket, he was a pathetic if stern figure as he stood in that lonely, muddy road in the glare of our driver’s lantern.

But he was firm. He told us that he was obeying orders and could not let us by since we had no passes.

“I’m so tired, and my back is almost broken with this trunk sticking into it,” I moaned.

“That ain’t comfortable,” he admitted, but his resolute position in the middle of the road showed that we couldn’t pass, all the same.

“Look here,” I said, plucking up some of my accustomed spirit, “do you know that my husband is an officer in the Confederate army? My husband is Captain Grey.”

“Can’t help it. Got to obey orders.”

“And my brother,” said Mrs. Drummond, “is a colonel in the Confederate army. To think that I– I, the sister of Colonel – , am told that I can’t pass here!”

“Law, ma’am! that’s my colonel!” said the man. “I tell you what I’ll do, ladies. I’ll send a note in to the colonel and see what he says about it.”

So we waited till he found a passer-by who would be a messenger; and then we waited until the messenger replied to the note, and we were permitted to pass.

Soon after we reached the tavern the news of our arrival and exploits got abroad and soon the little tavern parlor was filled with people listening to the tales of the blockade-runners who were just from Yankeeland, bringing a trunk or two full of clothes. The news of our doughty deeds spread from house to house, and soldiers gathered in front of the tavern and gave us ringing cheers, and welcomed us home with all their lung power. Poor, ragged fellows! how I did wish that mother and I had worn home a hundred or two more Balmorals!

The next morning we left Woodstock.

We were traveling now in a comfortable spring wagon, and made good time, reaching Harrisonburg in time to take the train for Staunton.

As we sat in the parlor of the hotel in Staunton who should walk in but an old friend and cousin of Dan’s, Lieutenant Nelson! But he could tell me nothing about Dan – he did not even know where he could be found. This was just before the second battle of the Wilderness, and the cavalry was being shifted constantly from place to place. But if Lieutenant Nelson could tell us nothing, he was greatly interested in our exploits. We told him of the Balmorals with pride.

“And here are two shirts for Dan,” I said, pulling at our long scarfs. “Just think of our getting through with a full uniform – cloth, brass buttons, gold lace, and all!”

As at Woodstock, the story of our prowess spread. It went from one person to another until the soldiers got hold of it, and gathered around the hotel and more ringing cheers were given us.

The next morning we took the train for Richmond – but we did not get there.

At Lindseys Station, just before we reached Gordonsville, a man in the uniform of the Thirteenth got on.

I called him to me.

“Can you tell me where the Thirteenth is?”

“Yes’m. We lef’ ’em ’bout the aige of Culpeper, yistiddy. Lor’m! we’ve had times!”

“What was the matter?”

“We been havin’ a heap o’ fightin’. The kurnel, he warn’t thar at Beverly Ford, an’ we didn’t have but one squadron, an’ the adjutant, he led the charge an’ he sholy come mighty nigh gittin’ killed. Lor’m! what’s the matter with ye?”

“Nothing! Go on! Make haste, tell me – make haste. The adjutant – ”

“His horse got shot under him, an’ his courier ridin’ right ’longside o’ him got killed, an’ the adjutant warn’t hurt, not a mite. But, Lor’m! that was sholy a narrer escape! An’ they say that the adjutant’ll git promoted.”

Didn’t I say so? Didn’t I think of that when I got the uniform?

“Thank you,” I said to the man. “You bring me the first news I have had of my husband for a long time.”

“Good gracious! you ain’t our adjutant’s wife?”

“Yes, I am. And I am glad to meet one of his soldiers. And you are the first to tell me good news.”

“Lor’m, now, ain’t I proud o’ that! An’ you our adjutant’s wife. You don’t say! An’ I jes been a-tellin’ you how it was a’mos’ a mi-racle that you warn’t a widder ’oman! An’ you never let on! But I see you changed your face, marm, when I tole ’bout his pretty nigh gitting shot. Yes, marm; the adjutant charged beautiful! he jes rid right squar into ’em, an’ he made the Yankees git!”

“How long do you think the Thirteenth will remain in Culpeper?”

“That I couldn’t say for certain, marm. They mought be thar for a day or two, an’ they mought be thar longer. You can’t always tell much ’bout what the cavalry gwine to do. But we’s sho proud o’ the adjutant, marm. Ginral Lee an’ Ginral Stuart an’ Kunnel Chambliss all give him the praise.”

It was after this battle that Dan was promoted to the rank of major, “for gallant conduct.”

I bade the soldier a hurried good-by and went to the conductor.

“My husband’s regiment is in Culpeper,” I said; “I have just heard it from one of his men, and I want you to put me off at Gordonsville. I have decided not to go on to Richmond, but to take the next train to Culpeper.”

“The next train to Culpeper, ma’am – I think the next train for Culpeper passes Gordonsville at four in the afternoon. There’s no train before that, I know, and I am not sure that there’s one at four. There’s no tavern nor anything to put you down at – I’ll just have to set you out on the roadside.”

And it was on a red roadside that we and our baggage were set down, on a bank of red mud, and there sat we on top of them as the train rolled away. The conductor left us regretfully.

“Maybe you might get accommodations at that house up there, ma’am,” he had said, pointing to the only house in sight, a two-story white dwelling about a quarter of a mile distant. “I don’t know what else you’ll do if that train don’t come along at four.”

This was ten o’clock in the morning. Four o’clock came, but no train. We waited faithfully for it, but it did not come at all. At last we gave up hope and paid a boy to carry our trunks to the house on the hill. I shall never forget our reception at that house. At first they refused to take us at all. After arguing the point with them and placing our necessities before them, and promising to pay them anything they might wish, we were thankful to get a gruff:

“Come in.”

We were shown to a room and shut in like horses. There was not even a fire made for us. We had been warmer sitting on the roadside in the sunshine. I will pass over the supper in silence. We had had no dinner and were hungry, and we ate for our part of that supper the upper crust of a biscuit each. A hard bed, the upper crusts of two biscuits, no fire – this was what we got at that house. The next morning we left before breakfast and went back to our mud-bank in the sun, first asking for our bill and paying it. It was two dollars apiece in gold!

The train came along early, however, and we were on it, and off to Culpeper, all our troubles forgotten, for every mile was bringing us nearer to Dan. As soon as we got off I saw quite a number of soldiers belonging to Dan’s command. Many of them were known to me personally. They came up and welcomed me back to Dixie, and congratulated me on my husband’s gallantry and probable promotion, and I sent word to Dan by them that I was there.