PICKET! AND HIS MEN
.
LASALLE COR BELL PICKETT
(Mas. GHN GEORGE E. PICKETT)
SECOND EDITION
H£ FOOTF. &
l<j> Q2
PICKET! AND HIS MEN
LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT
(MRS. GEN. GEORGE E. PICKETT)
SECOND EDITION
ATLANTA, GA.
THE FOOTE & DAVIES COMPANY
PRINTERS AND BINDERS
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT.
All riff Jits reserved.
DEDICATION.
To my husband, the noble leader of that band of heroes whose deeds are sparkling jewels set in the history of the great Army of Northern Vir ginia, I would gladly inscribe this book — to him alone, to whom my life has been dedicated; but remembering how often, in the humility of his great soul, he has said, "I did not do it — my men did it all," I feel that he would be better pleased to know that the brave men whom he led through those four long, dark years have held a high place in my thought as I have written. Hence —
To the men of Pickett's Division, who yet clasp hands with me in the friendship that was cemented in blood to grow stronger through all the passing years, and to the memory of those who have gone from our sight to be ever present in our hearts and on the most glorious page of our country's history, this volume is lovingly dedicated.
M~~
PREFACE.
Why do I write this book? To add my tribute to the memory of my hero husband and the noble men who fol lowed him through the trials, dangers and hardships of a four years' war. The impulse which moves me is love, and I have endeavored that nothing should be written un worthy of that motive. If anything expressed or implied shall give pain to any, whether he wore the gray or the blue, it is contrary to the purpose or the wishes of the author — contrary to the chivalrous soul of the soldier and patriot, George E. Pickett, whose courage and con stancy this work is intended to commemorate.
In the compilation of this record the reader must know that I could not bring personal witness to the events de scribed. They are based upon the official and other re ports of eye-witnesses and participants. In treating of the maneuvers and engagements herein mentioned, I have excluded every disparaging statement which the facts of history and justice to all participants would possibly per mit. I have purposely avoided reading histories of the conflict by authors on both sides, and based my own nar rative upon original material, to avoid the possibility of traveling over ground already covered by others.
Upon the battle-field I visited last year grew a wonder ful wealth of white daisies, piled drift upon drift like the ba^nks of snow that glitter in the light of the winter sun. So blossom the flowers of peace and love and hope in the hearts which yet fondly cherish the memory of the long- gone days of darkness and of blood.
VIII PREFACE.
Though the dream nation about which Clustered so many beautiful visions will never take its place among the courts and powers of the world; though the ideal which led the South through efforts of heroism not sur passed in all the records of the world will never be crys tallized into that reality known to mortal eyes, yet in that higher realm of thought, where the ideal is the true real, it dwells in transcendent glory which transmutes into a golden veil of light the war-clouds by which it was en shrouded.
That dream nation did not crumble into ruins and fade away into naught. The setting sun reflected from its gleaming minarets makes more radiant the light by which our united country marches on its way to national glory The bells in its towers ring out a paean to swell the grand symphony which circles the world.
The gallant sons of heroic fathers who fell on battle fields of North and South now stand together to defend our common country. Side by side North and South are marching against the foe; step by step they keep time to the mingled notes of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Dixie," blending into the noblest battle-hymn that ever thrilled the heart of soldier to deeds immortal.
Three phases of loyalty sway the Southern heart to day — loyalty to memory, loyalty to present duty, loyalty to hope. There is no rivalry among these phases of the same noble sentiment. Together they work for the evolu tion of a regenerated nation. He who is untrue to the past is recreant to the present and faithless to the future.
LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT.
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
August 15, 1898.
CONTENTS.
CKAPTEK. PAGE.
I. — THE FALL OF RICHMOND 1-9
II. — ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS 10-16
III. — "WHOA, LUCY" 17-21
IV. — GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK 22-28
V. — " SKOOKUM TUM-TUM " 29~33
VI. — CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY 34-46
VII. — " EDWARDS is BETTER " . 47-51
VIII. — ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALT 52-60
IX. — A FAMILIAR FACE 61-66
X. — VISITORS, SHILLING A DOZEN — OUR LEFT-HANDERS 67-76
XI. — BORN WITH EMERALDS — NEMO NOCETUR . . . 77-85
XII.— TURKEY ISLAND 86-89
XIII. — MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS 90-98
XIV. — SAN JUAN 99-110
XV. — SAN JUAN CONTINUED 111-125
XVI. — PICKETT'S WEST POINT APPOINTMENT AND MILITARY
SERVICES IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY . . 126-129
XVII. — SLAVERY 130-138
XVIII. — SECESSION , . i39~I53
XIX. AT YORKTOWN AND WlLLIAMSBURG 154-161
XX.— SEVEN PINES 162-174
XXI. — GAINES'S MILL 175-186
XXII. — FRAZIER'S FARM 187-190
XXIII. — SECOND MANASSAS 191-194
XXIV. — ANTIETAM 195-204
XXV. — REORGANIZATION 205-211
XXVI. — PICKETT'S GENERALS 212-218
XXVII.— FREDERICKSBURG 219-232
XXVIII.— " DOGS OF WAR" IN LEASH 233-235
XXIX. — FORAGING EXPEDITION — SUFFOLK 236-239
XXX. — CHANCELLORSVILLE 240-249
XXXI. — THE HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY . «, . . 250-256
XXXII.— PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN 257-266
CONTENTS.
XXXIII. — GETTYSBURG — FIRST DAY . . . . *. . 267-279
XXXIV. — GETTYSBURG — SECOND DAY 280-292
XXXV. — GETTYSBURG — THIRD DAY 293-309
XXXVI.— WHERE WERE THE GUNS? 310-314
XXXVII. — DETAILED FOR SPECIAL DUTY 3*5-323
XXXVIII. — TWICE TEARS TO SMILES 324-329
XXXIX. — NEWBERN 330-336
XL. — PICKETT'S VOLUNTARY DEFENSE OF PETERSBURG . 337-344 XLI. — A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION .... 345-351
XLII. — COLD HARBOR 352-356
XLIII. — "LEE'S MISERABLES " 357-361
XLIV. — THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES 362-370
XLV. — THE PEACE COMMISSION — THE LAST REVIEW OF
PICKETT'S DIVISION 371-378
XLVI. — ON TO DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE 379-384
XLVII.— FIVE FORKS . . 385-398
XLVIII. — SAILOR'S CREEK 399-407
XLIX. — THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 408-422
APPENDIX 425-429
INDEX 431-439
INTRODUCTION.
The distinguished subject of these memoirs I first met as a cadet at West Point in the heyday of his bright young manhood, in 1842. Upon graduating he was as signed to the regiment to which I had been promoted, the Eighth United States Infantry, and Lieutenant Pickett served gallantly with us continuously until, for merito rious service, he was promoted captain in 1856. He served with distinguished valor in all the battles of General Scott in Mexico, including the siege of Vera Cruz, and was always conspicuous for gallantry. He was the first to scale the parapets of Chapultepec on the I3th of Septem ber, 1847, and was the brave American who unfurled our flag over the castle, as the enemy's troops retreated, firing at the splendid Pickett as he floated our victorious colors.
In memory I can see him, of medium height, of grace ful build, dark, glossy hair, worn almost to his shoulders in curly waves, of wondrous pulchritude and magnetic pres ence, as he gallantly rode from me on that memorable 3d day of July, 1863, saying in obedience to the impera tive order to which I could only bow assent, "I will lead my division forward, General Longstreet." He was de voted to his martial profession, tolerating no rival near the throne, except the beautiful, charming and talented lady, whose bright genius and loyal heart have penned these memoirs to her noble soldier husband, and who, since he left her, has fought, single-handed and alone, the battle of life. Of her and other ex-Confederate widows it can be said that they have, since the war between the
XI
XII INTRODUCTION.
States, fought as fierce battles as ever their wjirrior hus bands waged, for in the silent passages of the heart many severer battles are waged than were ever fought at Get tysburg.
George E. Pickett's greatest battle was really at Five Forks, April I, 1865, where his plans and operations were masterful and skilful, and if they had been executed as he designed them, there might have been no Appomat- tox, and despite the disparity of overwhelming numbers, a brilliant victory would have been his, if reinforcements which he had every reason to expect had opportunely reached him; but they were not ordered in season and did not join the hard-pressed Pickett until night, when his position had long since been attacked by vastly su perior numbers with repeating rifles.
He was of an open, frank and genial temperament, but he felt very keenly the distressing calamities entailed upon his beloved Sunny South by the results of the war, yet with the characteristic fortitude of a soldier, he bowed with resignation to the inevitable, gracefully accepted the situation, recognized the duty of the unfortunate to ac cept the results in no querulous spirit, and felt his obliga tion to share its effects.
No word of blame, or censure even, of his superior offi cers ever escaped Pickett's lips, but he nevertheless felt profoundly the sacrifice of his gallant soldiers whom he so loved. At Five Forks he had a desperate but a fight ing chance, and if any soldier could have snatched victory from defeat, it was the intrepid Pickett, and it was cruel to leave that brilliant and heroic leader and his Spartan band to the same hard straits they so nobly met at Gettys burg. At Five Forks Pickett lost more men in thirty minutes than we lost, all told, in the recent Spanish- American war from bullets, wounds, sickness or any
INTRO D UCTION.
other casualty, showing the unsurpassed bravery with which Pickett fought, and the tremendous odds and in superable disadvantages under and against which this in comparable soldier so bravely contended; but with George E. Pickett, whether fighting under the stars and stripes at Chapultepec, or under the stars and bars at Gettysburg, duty was his polar star, and with him duty was above con sequences, and, at a crisis, he would throw them over board. Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus.
11 Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. "
JAMES LONGSTREET.
GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA,
October 12, 1898.
PICKETTAND HIS MEN.
CHAPTER I.
' j J / ^ O O 0 .» > '
THE FALL OF RICHMOND.
When some one applied to President Lincoln for a pass to go into Richmond, he gravely replied:
" I don't know about that; I have given passes to about two hundred and fifty thousand men to go there during the last two years, and not one of them has got there yet/'
Some of those passes had been used and their bearers had arrived at last, having made the slowest time on rec ord since the first camel bore the pioneer traveler over an Oriental desert. The queen city of the South had fallen. The story of the great nation which had hovered upon the horizon of our visions had been written out to its last sorrowful word.
On the morning of Sunday, April 2, in the holy calm of St. Paul's Church, we had assembled to ask the great Father of heaven and earth to guard our loved ones and give victory to the cause so dear to us. Sud denly the glorious sunlight was dimmed by the heavy cloud of disappointment, and the peace of God was broken by the deep-voiced bells tolling the death-knell of our hopes.
There was mad haste to flee from the doomed city. President Davis and his Cabinet officers were in the
2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
41
church, and to them the news first came. They hurried to the State-house to secure the Confederate archives and retreat with them to some place of safety.
Fear and dread fell over us all. We were cut off from our friends and communication with them was impossible. Oyr/sqldierS might have fallen into the hands of the eheiny^we'knew not. They might have poured out their Kffi-'bJoo'd An tfre battle-field — we knew not. In our help less, 6!eserte"a!' condition, all the world seemed to have been struck with sudden darkness.
The records having been secured, an order was issued to General Ewell to destroy the public buildings. The one thing which could intensify the horrors of our posi tion — fire — was added to our misfortunes. General J. C. Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, with a wider hu manity and a deeper sense of the rights of his people, tried in vain to have this order countermanded, knowing that its execution could in no way injure or impede the victorious army, while it would result in the ruin of many of our own people. The order was carried out with even a greater scope than was intended.
The Shockoe warehouse was the first fired, it being re garded as a public building because it contained certain stores belonging to France and England. A breeze springing up suddenly from the south fanned the slowly flickering flames into a blaze and they mounted upward until they enwrapped the whole great building. On the wings of the south wind they were carried to the next building, and the next, until when the noon hour struck all the city between Seventh and Fifteenth streets and Main street and the river was a heap of ashes.
Still the flames raged on. They leaped from house to house in mad revel. They stretched out great burning arms on all sides and embraced in deadly clasp the
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 3
stately mansions which had stood in lofty grandeur from the olden days of colonial pride. Soon they became tow ering masses of fire, fluttering immense banners of flame wildly against the wind, and fell, sending up myriads of fiery points into the air, sparkling like blazing stars against the dark curtain that shut out the sky.
A stormy sea of smoke, wave upon wave, surged over the town — here a billow of blackness that seemed of suf focating density — there a brilliant cloud, shot through and through with arrows of crimson fire. The cruel wind swept on, and the magnificent ocean of smoke and flame rolled before it in surges of destruction over the once fair and beautiful city of Richmond.
The terrified cries of women and children arose in agony above the roaring of the flames, the crashing of falling buildings, and the trampling of countless feet.
Piles of furniture and wares lay in the streets, as if the city had struck one great moving-day, when every thing was taken into the highways, and left there to be trampled to pieces or buried in the mud.
The government stores were thrown out to be de stroyed, and a mob gathered around to catch the liquors as they ran in fiery rivers down the streets. Very soon was drunkenness added to the confusion and uproar which reigned over all. The officers of the law, terror- stricken before the reckless crowd, fled for their lives. The firemen dared not make any effort to subdue the flames, fearing an attack from the soldiers who had exe cuted the order to burn the buildings.
Through the night the fire raged, the sea of darkness rolled over the town, and crowds of men, women and chil dren went about the streets laden with what plunder they could rescue from the flames. The drunken rabble shat tered the plate-glass windows of the stores and wrecked
4 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
everything upon which they could seize. The populace had become a frenzied mob, and the kingdom of Satan seemed to have been transferred to the streets of Rich mond.
About nine o'clock Monday morning a series of terrific explosions startled even ears which would seem to have endured every possible vnriety of painful sounds. Every window in our home was shattered, and the old plate-glass mirrors built into the walls were broken. It seemed as if we were called upon to undergo a bombardment, in addi tion to all our other misfortunes, but it was soon ascer tained that the explosions were from the government arsenal and laboratory, which had now been caught by the flames. Fort Darling and the rams were blown up.
Every bank was destroyed, the flour-mills had caught fire, the War Department was in ruins, the offices of the Enquirer and Dispatch had been reduced to ashes, the county court-house, the American Hotel, and most of the finest stores of the city were ruined. The Presbyterian church had escaped. The flames seemed instinctively to have avoided Libby Prison, as if not even fire could add to the horrors of that gloomy place.
While the flames were raging in full force the colored troops of General Weitzel, who had been stationed on the north side of the James, a few miles from Richmond, en tered the city. As I saw th^ir black faces shining through the gloom of the smoke-environed town, I could not help thinking that they added the one feature needed, if any there were, to complete the demoniacal character of the scene. They were the first colored troops I had ever seen, and the weird effect produced by their black faces in that in fernal environment was indelibly impressed upon my mind.
General Weitzel sent Major A. H. Stevens, of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and Major E. E. Graves,
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 5
of his staff, at the head of a hundred mounted men, to reconnoiter the Richmond roads and works. At the forti fications beyond the junction of the Osborne turnpike and New Market road they were met by a flag of truce waved from a dilapidated old-fashioned carriage drawn by a pair of skeleton-like horses. The truce party con sisted of the Mayor of Richmond, Colonel Mayo; Judge Meredith, of the Supreme Court; Judge Lyons, a representative man of Virginia, and at one time minister to England; and a fourth, whom I do not now recall.
The carriage was probably in the early part of the century what might have been called, if the modern clas sic style of phraseology had prevailed at that time, a "tony rig." At the period of which I write, it had made so many journeys over the famous Virginia roads that it had become a sepulchral wreck of its former self.
There may have been a time when the reminiscences of animals that dragged out from the burning capital the ruins of the stately chariot were a span of gay and gal lant steeds, arching their necks in graceful pride, champing their bits in scorn of the idea that harness made by man could trammel their lofty spirits, pawing the earth in dis dain of its commonplace coarseness. If so, the lapse of years and an extended term of Confederate fare had re duced those noble coursers to shambling memories.
This dignified body, thus borne in impressive man ner along the highway, had in custody a piece of — parchment, shall I say? Yes, if I wish to preserve the historic dignities, after the manner of my good friend, Judge Lyons. Should I yield to the mandates of historic truth,! should be compelled to state that it was a frag ment of — wall-paper.
What of it? The chariot of state might be the wreck of former grandeur, the horses might be the dimmest of
0 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
(tt)
recollections, the official parchment might be but a torn bit of wall-paper, turned wrong side out for convenience in writing. Was not Judge Lyons still Judge Lyons — a member of Old Dominion aristocracy — a former minister to the court of St. James? With all the cold and stately formality with which he might once have presented to the Queen of England a representative of 1'ie wealth and culture of his nation, he "had the honor" to introduce his companions to Major Stevens, and if there was any lack of dignity in the manner in which the aforesaid slip of wall-paper was conveyed to that probably astonished officer, it was from no failure of duty on the part of him upon whom yet rested some shadow of the royal glory which pervaded the court of St. James. Upon the un adorned side of the wall-paper were inscribed these words:
It is proper to formally surrender to the Federal authorities the city of Richmond, hitherto capital of the Confederate States of America, and the defenses protecting it up to this time.
Major Stevens courteously accepted the surrender on behalf of his commanding general, to whom the docu ment was transmitted, and proceeded to reduce the newly acquired property to possession by valiantly fighting the flames which were sturdily disputing ownership with him.
Having utilized to good effect what little remnant of the fire department he could find, he ordered the stars and stripes to be raised over the Capitol. Two soldiers of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, one from Company E and one from Company H, mounted to the summit of the Capitol and in a few moments, for the first time in more than four years, the national flag fluttered unmo lested in the breezes of the South. The stars of the Union were saluted, while our "warrior's banner took its flight to meet the warrior's soul."
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. J
That flag which almost a century before had risen from the clouds of war, like a star gleaming out through the darkness of a stormy night, with its design accredited to both Washington and John Adams, was raised over Virginia by Massachusetts, in place of the one whose kinship and likeness to the old banner had never been entirely destroyed.
In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress adopted the stars and bars — three horizontal bars of equal width, the middle one white, the others red, with a blue union of nine stars in a circle. This was so like the national flag as to cause confusion. In 1863 this flag was replaced by a banner with a white field, having the battle-flag (a red field charged with a blue saltier on which were thirteen stars) for a union. It was feared that this might be mistaken for a flag of truce, and was changed by cov ering the outer half of the field with a vertical red bar. This was finally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
Richmond will testify that the soldiers of Massachu setts were worthy of the honor of first raising the United States flag over the Capitol of the Confederacy, and will also bear witness to the unvarying courtesy of Major Stevens, and the fidelity with which he kept his trust.
It has seemed appropriate that I should begin my story with the burning city, for fire has followed me all my life. My story, I say? Semmes has said: "To write history we must be a part of that history," My story has been so closely allied with that of Pickett and his division that it does not seem quite an in trusive interpolation for me to appear in the record of that warrior band. How could I tell the story, and the way in which that story was written, and not be a part of it?
5 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
Kindled by the vandal hand of General Butler, in re taliation for the telegram which General GTrant sent to President Lincoln — "Pickett has bottled up Butler at Bermuda Hundred" — fire destroyed our beautiful colo nial home on the James. The good old hero of Ap- pomattox was my husband's very dear friend, and he would have been more economical with his telegrams had he known that his friend must pay so heavy a toll upon them. The United States government was also charged enormously heavy rates upon that message, for the ancestral home stood very far away from the line of war, and Butler, coming from City Point at an expense of many millions, made a draft on the war fund out of all proportion to any beneficent result accomplished by the gratification of his personal spite.
In the burning of Richmond all my bridal presents and my household furniture were consumed.
When the General was made president of Southern agencies for the Washington Life Insurance Company, we shut up our little cottage home on Turkey Island and took apartments at the Spotswood Hotel in Richmond. The following Christmas we went to spend the sacred season with our dear grandmother — her last Christmas- tide on earth. On our return the next night, the General ordered the driver to take us to the Spotswood. " Lawd! Lawd! Marse Gawge, 'deed an' 'deed, suh, ef I wuz to do dat I'd be 'bleeged to dribe you smack down ter destruck- shunment, fer 'fo' de Lawd, suh, de po' ole Spotserd is dun an' bu'nt up smack down ter de groun' las' night; yas, suh, dat she did." The occupants of that part of the building where our rooms were located were burned to death. Though fire had again robbed us of our effects, through a merciful Providence our lives had been spared.
To my home in Washington late one night came a
THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 9
poor man who asked for help. He said that he was one of " Pickett's men" — that he had come to the end of his rope and had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. I went back to my son's room to get some money, and thought I smelled something burning. Opening the door leading down into the basement just beneath my son's room, a puff of smoke struck me in the face. Hur rying back to the porch where I had left the man stand ing, I sent him to the nearest drug-store to give the alarm. The engines came in time, and for once, by what seemed a mere accident, I escaped the fate which has fol lowed me with such unwavering persistence.
A flame of gas, lit by a careless servant, destroyed the oil portrait of the General, given me by " Pickett's men." It hung upon my wall, guarded on one side by the beautiful Confederate flag presented to me by the " Phila delphia Brigade" and on the other by a handsome United States flag, a treasured gift from my loved Southland. The two banners for which so much blood and treas ure had been sacrificed were fastened together by a scarf of Confederate gray and Union blue, the design of a deaf and dumb boy, a son of one of Pickett's men, and met above the pictured head of the soldier who had fought so bravely under them both. When the flames were ex tinguished, the portrait was a charred ruin, and flags and scarf were a heap of ashes on the floor.
Fire destroyed the first manuscript of the story of Pickett and his men, in the preparation of which thirteen years of labor had been spent. Let me hope that the only fire which will attach to my present effort to record the history of those gallant soldiers is the long-ago-burnt- out flames which surged over the unfortunate capital of the Confederacy.
CHAPTER II.
ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS.
The fire revealed many things which I would like never to have seen and, having seen, would fain forget.
One of the most revolting sights was the amount of provisions and shoes and clothing which had been accu mulated by the speculators who hovered like vultures over the scene of death and desolation. Taking advan tage of their possession of money and their lack of both patriotism and humanity, they had, by an early corner in the market and by successful blockade-running, bought up all the available supplies with an eye to future gain, while our soldiers and women and children were abso lutely in rags and barefoot and starving.
Not even war, with its horrors and helplessness, can divert such harpies from their accustomed methods of accumulating wealth at the expense of those of their fel low men who have spent their lives in less self-seeking ways.
All my own little store was a small quantity of flour and meal and a bag of beans; no salt even to season them; and I an officer's wife. How much worse it must have been for those less favored than I.
The General had left me in Richmond when he went away to fight the battle of Five Forks, telling me to stay until he returned or sent for me. "I shall surely come," he said. So, like Casabianca, I waited, and not even " the flames that lit the battle's wreck " should frighten me away.
ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 1 1
Though my husband's friend, General Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, had, in his thoughtfulness, offered me the opportunity of leaving our dear old Confederate capital with him and his family, I remembered that Gen eral Pickett had left me here, and obediently determined to remain until he should come or send for me. I grate fully thanked General Breckenridge for his kindness, but said:
" I am like the boy who stood on the burning deck. I can not go until the one voice calls me."
So my husband's good friend was regretfully forced to leave me.
The days were made up of fears and anguish unspeak able. The clock struck only midnight hours for me.
Rumors of the death of the General were credited (I saw by the look in everybody's face), though no word was said, and I would not ask a question nor let anybody speak to me of him. The last letter I had received from him had been dated the 30th of March, at Hatcher's Run, the extreme right of the Confederate line at that time. Most of the letter was written in Chinook. This is a quotation from it:
Heavy rains; roads and streams almost impassable. While Gen eral Lee was holding a conference with his chiefs this morning a mes sage came from General Fitz Lee, stating that through a prisoner he had learned that the Federal cavalry, fifteen thousand strong, supported by heavy infantry, were at or near Dinwiddie Court-House. This decided the General's plans, and he has placed General Fitz Lee in command of the whole cavalry, Rosser's, W. H. F. Lee's, and his own, with orders to march upon Five Forks. I am to support with my small force of artillery and infantry this movement and take command of the whole force.
The letter was in full faith of a short separation and that all would be well, that he would surely return, and
12 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
implored me not to listen to or credit any Tumors to the contrary, and urged' me in an added line to be brave and of good cheer — to keep up a " skookum turn-turn." This letter was brought to me by Jaccheri, a daring, fearless Italian in my husband's employ as a headquarters post master. He was sagacious and loyal, perfectly devoted to my husband and his cause, and was trusted with letters of the strictest confidence and importance all through the war.
As 1 said before, our people were on the verge of star vation. The army had been living on rations of corn and beans, with " seasonings " of meat, for weeks before we left camp. A rat even had been considered a bonne bouche for months past. The game had been trapped and killed throughout the whole country, and my breakfast that morning had consisted of a few beans cooked in water; no salt; for salt had been a luxury for a long time in the Confederacy. All the old smokehouses had been moved, that the earth might be dug up and boiled down to get the salt which in the many years it had absorbed.
John Theophelas, my dear little brother, nine years old, was a great comfort to me in these days of trial. He had just brought up my beans and was lovingly coaxing me to eat them when Jaccheri came. A plate was filled for Jaccheri, and after he had finished his meager break fast, seasoned with his adventures in getting to me, swim ming the river at one place with his clothes tied up in a bundle on his head, etc., he said he must go. I added a few lines to my diary of all my acts, which I always kept for the General, and gave it to our faithful letter-carrier to take back to him.
"Ina da days to come," said Jaccheri, in his soft Ital ian voice, "ina all landa, no matter, mucha people — mucha gloly, nadia money, no matter, you find Jaccheri
ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 13
here — and here — " first putting his hand over his heart and then drawing from his boot and gracefully brandish ing a shining blade. " Gooda-by."
At the door he turned back and, untying his cravat, wiggled out five pieces of money, three gold dollars and two ninepences. He walked over on tiptoe to where our baby was sleeping, crossed himself, and, kneeling by the cradle, slipped into baby's little closed hand two of the gold dollars and around his neck a much worn and soiled scapula.
" Da mon — Confed — noa mucha good, noa now much accountable — youa mighta want some; want her vely bad before you nota get her. Gooda-by, some moa."
Dear, faithful old Jaccheri, — he would take no refusal, so I let baby keep the money and used it to buy milk for him, for I had not a penny in the world.
I was reading aloud, lovingly and reverently, the torn words on the ragged red-flannel scapula which Jaccheri had given to baby: " Cease, the heart of Jesus is with me," when baby opened his sweet eyes and crowed over the little fortune which had come to him in his dreams, and just then my little brother, who had gone down-stairs with Jaccheri, came rushing back, his eyes wide open, all excitement, exclaiming:
"Sister, sister! There's a Yankee down-stairs! Come to see you, but don't you go; hide, hide, sister! I'll stand by the door, and he daresen't pass by me. Quick, sister, hide! He said he was one of brother George's friends, but don't you believe him, sister! He has killed brother George, and now he wants to kill you! "
" Oh, no, no, my child," I said reassuringly, trying to soothe and calm him. " No, no; don't be such a little cow ard, dear. If he is one of your brother George's friends he is mine, too, and he would do me no hurt. I am not
14 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
in the least afraid, and I will go down right ^.way and see him."
" You are not afraid of anything, sister, and. you will get killed yet, as sure as you are born, and brother George told me to take care of you. What will he say when he comes back and finds you dead and gone and nobody to bury you? 'Course I'll nurse the poor baby for you if you will go, but, sister, please marm, don't go. I shall be scared to death till you come back."
"That's a sweet boy; take care of the baby," I said, and, kissing them both, closed the door behind me.
As I entered the parlor a tall, thin gentleman with the sweetest of smiles and the kindest of voices, dressed in the uniform of a United States surgeon, arose and said as he bowed, holding his hat against his breast, thus avoiding offering me his hand:
"My name is George Suckley, madam. I am one of George Pickett's friends, although, as soldiers, we have been enemies in the field for more than three years. That, however, does not interfere with us when we are not on duty. I have heard that you Southern women were very bitter, and I did not know how you, his wife — you are Pickett's wife, are you not, madam? — would take a visit from me, but I came, nevertheless. Knowing Pickett as well as I do, I know he would appreciate my motive in coming."
"Your name is a very familiar one, Dr. Suckley," I said. "I have often heard the General speak of you, and remember many stories of your adventures — your love for bugs and beetles — for all natural history, in fact." I wished him to know that I remembered him and had not mistaken him for another, and also that I had reason to wonder at seeing him in his present position. "He often spoke of your having been with him at Fort Bel-
ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 1 5
lingham Bay, and knowing how you felt when he left the old army, he has often wondered at your remaining, and going to the front."
" I am a surgeon in Grant's army," said Dr. Suckley, proudly, ignoring and, by his manner, almost resenting my reference to his former sympathy with the South. " I love Pickett, and came, as he would have come had our positions been reversed, to see his wife and offer her my services."
I thanked this kind-hearted gentleman and distin guished officer, but was too bitter to accept the smallest courtesy at his hands, even in my husband's name, and though offered for love's sake — so bitter that suffering was preferable to such obligation. He bowed and was going, when I said:
"Doctor, is there any news of the army — ours, I mean? "
"The war is over, madam. You have my address, if you should change your mind and will show me how I can serve you."
He bowed and left. He, too, had heard that the Gen eral had been killed, and believed it, and I hated him worse because of his belief.
On the evening of the 3d of April I was walking the floor. Baby was asleep, and my little brother was walk ing behind me, when I heard:
"Grand victory at Five Forks! Pickett killed, and his whole division captured!"
It seemed very strange to me that in the streets of Richmond, my dear old home, the capital of the Confed eracy, the death of Pickett and the capture of his whole division should be heralded as a "grand victory." How great a change had come in so short a time! Even the newsboys had gone over to the enemy.
1 6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
" 'Tisn't so, sister; 'tisn't so! Don't you believe him!" said my little brother. "Hush, sir; hush!" he excitedly called out of the window to the newsboy. "Hush this minute, hallooing your big stories out loud and scaring everybody to death. I'd like to stick those five forks through your old black gizzard, for you haven't got any heart, I know. Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you good- for-nothing old scalawag, you! There ain't a word of truth in brother George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I'll go down and mash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister — poor sister! Yes, I'd just like to kill that boy, sister, 'deed I would; but it isn't so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn't get killed."
" No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! — he will come back! He said he would, and he will."
I thanked God then, and I thank God now, for the sweet comfort of that precious little brother, John T. Corbell — my little confidant and friend — and for his loy alty and love in all the succeeding years.
Oh, the sleepless nights that followed each other after that in monotonous successionl
CHAPTER III
"WHOA,
One morning I had mechanically dressed baby George and had taken him to the window to hear the spring sounds and breathe the spring balm and catch the sun shine's dripping gold wreathing the top of the quivering blossoms of the magnolia- and tulip-trees.
It was the time when the orchestra of the year is in perfect accord, when all the world is vocal — when the birds sing of love, the buds and blossoms of joy, the grains and grasses of hope and faith, and when each rustle of wind makes a chime of vital resonance.
Through the quiver and curl of leaves and perfume of flowers and soft undertone of dawn-winds came the words, " Whoa, Lucy; whoa, little girl!"
Oh, those tones, those words, that voice thrilled my heart so that I wonder it did not burst from very glad ness! Such joy, such gratitude as flooded my soul only the Giver of all good can know! All the privation and starvation and blood-stains of the past four years, and the woes and trials, griefs and fears, of those last dreadful days were swept away by those blessed, precious words, "Whoa, Lucy!" spoken in my husband's tender tones.
How I £ot down the stairs I do not know; I do not remember. With baby in my arms, we were both of us in my husband's almost before Lucy had been given into the hands of the hostler. I do not know how to describe the peace, the bliss of that moment — it is too deep and too sacred to be translated into words. I think that it 2 17
1 8 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
is akin to the feeling that will come to me in the here after, when I have gone through all these dark days of privation and of starvation of heart and soul here, victo rious, and at last am safe within the golden gates and, waiting and listening, shall hear again the voice that said, "Whoa, Lucy!" here, bidding me welcome there.
All through the war Lucy had brought the General to me. Spirited and beautiful, she had many times car ried him twenty miles in an evening to see me, often through dangers greater than battle. Lucy was not the General's war-horse. She was the little thoroughbred chestnut mare he always rode when he came to see me. His "peace-saddle," his "love-pony," he called her, and Bob, the General's valet, referring to her would say: " Dat hoss Lucy she Marse George's co'tin'-filly; an' you daresent projick wid dat hoss needer, 'kaze Marse George iz mos' ez 'especkful to her ez ef she wuz sho'-'nuff real folks." The horse the General used in battle he called " Old Black," a steady, sure-footed, strong, fearless animal that, while obedient to the General's slightest touch or command, allowed no one else, on peril of death, to mount her.
My father's home was in Chuckatuck, Nansemond County, Virginia, about thirty miles from Norfolk, diago nally opposite Newport News. After the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate forces all that part of the country was neutral ground, being occupied one day by Federal troops, and another by the Confederates. Lying thus between the two lines, a constant warfare was car ried on by the scouts of both armies.
I had not been to my father's home since I was mar ried, and was not prepared for the changes war had made. Our own home on the James had been burned to ashes at the command of Butler, and for awhile we had nowhere
"WHOA, LUCY." IQ
to go but to my father's. We had nothing. We both knew, however, that a loving welcome awaited us there in my father's home. We knew that he had an abundance to eat. Nature's great larder, the Chuckatuck, ran but a stone's throw from the back door, supplying with but lit tle labor terrapin, fish, oysters and crabs in abundance, and bait was plentiful. It was there, then, to my childhood's home, that the General decided we should go. But, how? There was no way of getting there, no steamers running, and the railroad was derailed for miles around. Then again, there was no money; my husband had not a penny in the world, and our friends were no better off.
On the afternoon of the second day after the General's return, while we were planning about going, my little brother Johnny came running in, saying:
" Sister, I saw riding by the door just now that same Yankee who came here to see you the other day, and who said he was brother George's friend. He knew me, and asked how you were, and how's the baby."
"Oh, I forgot; I must tell you all about it," I said, and I then told the General of the visitor I had had be fore he came back. When I had told him all, his gray eyes filled with tears, and looking down he said, tenderly:
"Dear old Suckley! God bless him! That's just like him. Where is his card? Find it for me, please, little one. Dear old Suckley — dear old fellow — so true!" he said, looking at the card.
I stooped down and took the General's dear head in both my hands, and raising it up looked down search- ingly into his earnest, loving eyes to see how he could possibly speak so kindly and so affectionately of a Yankee.
" So you have that same kind of ' off-duty ' feeling, too, I see, that this Yankee doctor spoke of having," I said
20 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
with surprise, and rather disrespectfully fof me, too, I am afraid.
" I must find the dear old fellow," the General said, graciously overlooking my smallness of spirit, and excus ing himself and taking leave of baby and me, he went out at once. In a little while he came back, saying:
" It is very fortunate for us, little one, that I went out when I did. Suckley goes down the river to-morrow to Norfolk in the surgeon-general's steamer, and he has kindly invited us to go with him, dear old big-hearted bug-catcher! Come, let us lose no time. Let us hurry and get our little traps together and be ready. We will not say anything about our plans to any one till to-morrow morning, when we can announce our intentions and say our good-bys simultaneously."
Not only had this Yankee officer, in his "off-duty" feeling for the General, kindly volunteered to transport us to our home, but to carry our trunks and horses, in fact, all we had, which, alas! was very, very little. Most of our worldly possessions — all of our bridal presents, linen, library, pictures, silver, furniture, harp, piano, china, —everything except a few clothes, had been stored at Kent, Payne & Co.'s, and had been burned in the awful fire the night of the evacuation of Richmond.
The General's staff had, one by one, come in during the day from the field and camp, and all breakfasted with us for the last time next morning in the old Pickett home at the corner of Sixth and Leigh streets. The military family had broken up at Appomattox after Lee's surren der, and the dear old headquarters Confederate flag the General himself unstaffed, tore into strips and divided among them. Such a happy family they had been.
The second social parting was sad, too, for they had taken me, "the child wife," into their lives twenty months
"WHOA, LUCY." 21
oefore, and they all loved me and called me " sister." Their pride in each other and in their command, the perils that together they had endured, the varied experiences of good times and bad, had bound them together in links stronger than steel.
Spite of the partings, the loss of our cause, our dis appointment and poverty, there was to me a sweet, restful, peaceful feeling of thankfulness in my heart and gratitude to God that the war was over, that my husband had been spared and belonged now only to me, that we were going home, and together, free from intrusion, could rest under the shade of our own trees.
CHAPTER IV.
GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK.
The next morning at ten o'clock Dr. Suckley called in his headquarters ambulance to take us to the steamer. Just at the close of breakfast we had announced our in tention of going. There was to be a sudden breaking up and severing of old associations. The staff were all en route to their respective homes except the adjutant- general, Major Charles Pickett. He and Mrs. Dr. Bur- well, only brother and sister of my husband, were to remain with their families for a time in the old Pickett home.
We said our sad good-by in the great fruit- and flower- garden at the rear of the house, and passing all alone through the large parlors and wide halls, crept quietly out and softly closed the door behind us. The only evi dence of life in the dear old home as we looked back was Dr. Burwell's big dog which, having escaped from the back yard, howled mournfully within the gates. The blinds and window-shades had not been opened or raised since the Federal forces had occupied the city.
As we boarded the steamer that morning I realized for the first time that our cause was lost. Never before in all the days of my dear married life but cheer after cheer had greeted us wherever we had gone — salute from sol dier or sailor, whether on or off duty. This morning these honors were replaced by stares of surprise, of mingled curiosity and hate. Dr. Suckley recognized this feeling at once, and, with a quizzical smile at my caged-tigress
22
GE OR GE JUNIOR ' S FIRS T GREENE A CK. 2 3
expression of rage, put his arm in that of the General, and with a haughty glance at the men, walked boldly on board. I was shown into the surgeon-general's stateroom, in which there were many evidences of thoughtful care for my comfort. We were soon under way.
The General and Dr. Suckley called each other by their given names and laughed and talked as cordially as if they had loved the same dear cause and fought for it side by side. At the table they drank to each other's health and to the friends and memories of olden times. A stranger could not have told which of the two soldiers had furled his banner.
They chatted of Texas, and the great annexation strife which had changed the political complexion of the nation away back in what seemed to my youthful view a remote antiquity. They talked of Mexico, and the General re called reminiscences of the battles in which he had fought in that wonderful tropical country. They dis cussed the wild, free, fresh, novel life of the far-off Pacific coast, the wealth of the gold-mines of California, its luscious and abundant fruits, and the friends they had known there. They talked of the great Northwest, that was like a mythologic region to me, of the Chinook In dians, and of San Juan Island and the English officers who had occupied the island conjointly with the General. I found myself wondering if it had been a dream, and there had been no internecine strife.
Just before reaching City Point, which is a few hours' distance from Richmond, Dr. Suckley came up to me and said:
"We are going to stop for General Ingalls, who wishes to come on board to pay his respects to you and George. I don't suppose there is any one in the wide world Rufus Ingalls loves more than he does your hus-
24 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
band, and I hope, madam, you will meet him with more cordiality than you did another of your husband's friends. At least, for the sake of their lifelong friendship, you will not hurt him."
He turned for sympathy to my husband, who looked acquiescingly at him and beseechingly at me. Presently the General drew me to one side and whispered:
" Suckley voiced my wishes, my little wife, and I want ycu to meet my old friend just as cordially as you can. Put your little hand in his and forget everything except that he is one of your husband's oldest and dearest friends."
I promised my husband with all my heart to do what he asked, and I really meant to do it. I loved to do every thing he bade me. I liked him to make things hard for me sometimes, that I might show him how sincere and loving my obedience was. But when General Ingalls came on board, was given a salute and received, as became his rank, with the honors the absence of which I had marked when my own General came, I slipped my hand out of my husband's and ran back to my stateroom as fast as I could.
There I burst out crying and shook our baby, waking him, and told him how papa had been treated — that poor papa had not had any honors paid him at all, and that a dreadful old bad Yankee general had come on board and taken them all, and that when he grew up and was a big man he must fight and fight and fight, and never sur render, and never forgive the Yankees; no, not even if his poor, dethroned papa asked him to do so. I told him how his papa had asked me to shake hands with this Yankee general, because he was his friend, and that I was going to do it because papa wanted me to; that I tried and could not, and that he never must, either — never, never.
GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK. 2$
I did not know there was a witness to all my bitter ness till I heard a smothered chuckle and, looking up, saw my husband and his friend, General Rufus Ingalls, standing over me. With a twinkle in his eye, and in a voice full of suppressed laughter, General Ingalls said, as he patted me on the head:
"I don't blame you one bit, little woman — not a damn bit. I should feel just as terrible about it as you do if I were in your place. It's all different with Pickett and me, you see. We don't mind. Why, do you know, child, we have slept under the same blanket, fought under the same flag, eaten out of the same mess- pan, dodged the same bullets, scalped the same Indians, made love to the same girls — aye, Pickett, it won't do, by Jove, to tell her all we have done together — no, no — come, shake hands. I am dreadful sorrywe have had this terrible kick-up in the family, and all this row and blood shed, but we are all Americans, damn it, anyhow, and your fellows have been mighty plucky to hold out as they have. Come, that's a good child; shake hands. May I kiss her, Pickett? No — damn it, I shan't ask you. There, there! Here is a basket of trash I had the orderly rake together. I don't know what it all is, but I told the man to do the best he could. Here, Mr. George junior — with your bright eyes and your won't-cry mouth — here is a green chip for a pair of red shoes."
General Ingalls put into our baby's hands his first greenback, and it was the only money we had, too — every cent. Baby and I said good-by, and he and the Gen eral went out on deck. While I was peeping into the basket "Mr. George junior" tore the note in two. I caught the pieces and stuck my bonnet-pin through them till I could paste them together. One of the officers brought me some glue, and I cut a hundred-dollar Con-
26 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
federate note in two to mend it with. Poor*Con federate money! —
* Representing nothing in God's earth now,
And naught in the waters below it; As the pledge of a nation that passed away,
Keep it, dear friend, and show it. Show it to those who will lend an ear
To a tale this trifle will tell — Of Liberty born of a patriot's dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.
Too poor to possess the precious ores,
And too much of a stranger to borrow, We issued to-day our promise to pay,
And hoped to redeem on the morrow. The days rolled on, and weeks became years,
But our coffers were empty still; Coin was so scarce that the treasury quaked
When a dollar should drop in the till.
But the faith that was in us was strong, indeed,
Though our poverty well we discerned; And this little check represents the pay
That our suffering veterans earned. They knew it had hardly a value in gold,
Yet as gold our soldiers received it; It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And every true soldier believed it.
But our boys thought little of price or pay,
Or of bills that were overdue — We knew if it brought us our bread to-day
' Twas the best our poor country could do. Keep it! It tells all our history over,
From the birth of our dream till its last; Modest, and born of the angel Hope,
Like our visions 6f glory, it passed.
* These verses v/cre written on the back of a Confederate note, and for a time were ascribed to John Esten Cooke, and to Colonel Wythe Mumford. They were afterwards attributed to Colonel Jonas.
GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK. 2/
Baby's first greenback was put up to dry, and then I turned my attention to the big covered basket the sailor had brought in. What an Aladdin treat it was! Raisins — the first I had seen in years and years — coffee, real "sho'-'nuff" coffee — sugar, crushed sugar — how nice! (we had had nothing but sorghum-juice sugar and sweet- potato coffee for so long) — rice and prunes, Jamaica rum and candy — French brandy and sherry and port — oh, me! and figs — nothing ever had tasted so good as that first fig — and well — the Yankee general who gave them all to me — the tones of his voice made more peace than his words. Eating the figs, I repeated them over to baby, saying:
" Never mind, baby, about hating this Yankee. He said papa and he had trailed after the same Indians and smoked their venison at the same camp-fire and had drunk from the same flask. He said you looked like your papa, and he said you were a beautiful boy. So you need not mind about hating just this one. He said geography and politics had forced your papa and him to take opposite courses and it took four years to settle for their hot-head- edness and ambitions. You must never be a politician, and — you may love this o?ie Yankee a tiny bit, and may suck a piece of his beautiful candy."
Dr. Suckley not only took us to Norfolk, which was the end of his route, but he took us up the Nansemond River, thirty miles, and up Chuckatuck Creek, to my fa ther's wharf. No one was expecting us. They thought, of course, it was the " Yankees come again," and had all run off and hidden, except my father who came down to catch the boat-line and welcome the travelers, whoever they might be. Oh, the joyful welcome of my great big- hearted father!
Soldiers and sailors, one and all, came and shook hands with us. Baby and my little brother, Johnny, had
23 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
made friends of them all for us. Baby kneV no differ ence between those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray, and some of them had little ones at home. We said good-by, with many a regret, to our kind friend and benefactor, Dr. Suckley, and to the sail ors and officers, and this time cheer after cheer went up for my noble hero husband, as the little steamer hauled in the lines and puffed away, and more names were added to the list of Yankees for baby not to hate.
CHAPTER V.
"SKOOKUM TUM-TUM."
The General did not like to fight his battles over. He said that the memories they revived were too bitter to be cherished. The faces of the dead and dying sol diers on the field of battle were never forgotten. The sor row of widows and orphans shadowed all the glory for him. In the presence of memory he was silent. The deepest sorrow, like the deepest joy, is dumb.
"We are both too worn and weary now for aught else but to rest and comfort each other," he said. "We will lock out of our lives everything but its joys. From adversity, defeat and mourning, shall spring calmness for the past, strength for the present, courage for the future. Now that, in obedience to the command of General Lee, I have finished and sent off the report of the last fight of the old division, the closing days of our dear lost cause, we will put up the pen for awhile, and lay aside our war thoughts. We will rest and plan for peace, and then after a time we will take up the pen again and write down our memories for our children and perhaps for the children of the old division. We will build us a nest over the ashes of our once grand old colonial home on the James, and plant a new grove in the place of the sturdy old oaks cut down."
The General possessed the greatest capacity for hap piness, and such dauntless courage and self-control that, to all appearances, he could as cheerfully and buoyantly steer his way over the angry, menacing, tumultuous surges
29
3O PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
of life as over the waves that glide in tranquil smooth ness and sparkle in the sunlight of a calm, clear sky.
This sweet rest which we had planned for ourselves, however, was of but short duration. We had been at my father's home only a few days, when a private messenger brought letters of warning from some of the General's old army friends. Two officers high in authority, solicitous for his welfare, advised that, in the existing uncertain, in cendiary, seditious condition of things, he should absent himself for a while, until calm reflection should take the place of wild impulse, and time bring healing on its wings, and make peace secure.
Butler, who had not yet recovered from the "bottling- up" experience, had instigated a movement to indict the General for treason, and was making bitter speeches against him in Congress. The people everywhere, in censed and furious over the assassination of their beloved, martyred President, cried aloud for vengeance and blood and the revival of the law of Moses.
The nation had gone mad with grief and rage. The waves of passion rose mountain-high, and from the awful storm the angels of justice, mercy and peace took flight. All that was bad in the hearts of men arose to the sur face; all that was good sank to the depths. The first per son who could be seized upon was regarded as the proper victim to the national fury. The weakest and most de fenseless was made the target of popular wrath, because rage could thereby most quickly spend itself in ven geance. Mrs. Surratt was imprisoned, and the whole coun try was in a state of frenzy and on the verge of revolution.
The strictest secrecy was enjoined upon us. Only my father and mother were taken into our confidence. Lucy was bridled, saddled and brought to the door. I walked with my husband, he holding the bridle, to the
' ' SKO OKUM TUM- TUM. " 31
upper gate. It was ten o'clock; the moon was shining brightly, and all was quiet and still.
The General's plan for me was that I should go next day to Norfolk, take the steamer to Baltimore, and visit his aunt, whose husband had been in the old army, and who had not left it to join the Southern Confederacy, though his sons had fought on that side, one of them hav ing been detailed on duty at my husband's headquarters.
"My aunt will welcome you," he said, "and you will remain with her until a telegram shall come to you, say ing, 'Edwards is better.'" (Edward was my husband's middle name.)
That telegram would mean that he was safe and that I was to join him, starting on the next train. I was to telegraph to "Edwards" from Albany, on my way to him, sending the message to the point from which his telegram had been dated. If his telegram should say, "There is still danger of contagion," I was not to start, but remain with his aunt until another message came.
"Cheer up, the shadows will scatter soon. Already bright visions and happy day-dreams flit through my brain and thrill my heart; so keep up a 'skookum turn- turn,' little one, and take care of yourself. Watch for the telegram, ' Edwards is better,' for it will surely come. Now, keep up your courage and have faith; for it will surely come. God bless you."
I smiled up at him as he repeated the familiar old say ing, "Keep up a 'skookuoi turn-turn' (a brave heart), little one."
He had learned the phrase from an old Chinook war rior on the Pacific coast, and in the darkest days of the ill-fated struggle, when hope died in the heart and the sun seemed to have left the sky forever, he ivould lift my face upward, look down upon it with his kind tyesf
32 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
smile gently, and say in a cheerful voice,- "Keep up a skookum turn-turn, dear one."
I listened to the sound of the footsteps of the horse, (his "co'tin'-filly " — dear old Lucy) away in the dis tance, long after he was out of sight. Then I remem bered a trick of my childhood, which had been taught me by a half-Indian, half-negress, and, putting my ear to the ground, I listened for the steps until the last echo was lost.
The night-wind sighed with me as I walked back, re peating " Keep up a skookum turn-turn." My pathway lay parallel with the Chuckatuck Creek, a stone's throw to the left. The tide was high and still coming in. The surg ing of its waves seemed to call out to me, "Skookum turn-turn! Skookum turn-turn!" I could not be all deso late, when the most beautiful forces of nature, echoing his words, called to me, "Keep up a brave heart — brave heart!"
My precious old father had waited to have us say good-by alone, and was now coming forward to meet me. Our baby awakened just as we got in. I confided to baby the secret of the telegram, and told him papa said it would surely come, and papa always said what was true.
The stars were burning brightly in the midnight sky to light the traveler on his way as he went afar off. Could there be light on the pathway that led him from me? Had his face been turned southward, with his eyes fixed joyfully upon the loved home where he would be welcomed when his journey1 was over, what radiant glory would have flooded the way!
Far up in the zenith I could see "our star" gleaming brilliantly, seeming to reach out fingers of light to touch me in loving caress. It was a pure white star, that sent down floods of silvery radiance. Near it was a red star,
' ' SKO OKUM TUM- TUM. " 33
gleaming and beautiful, but I did not love it. It seemed to glow with the baleful fires of war. My great loving, tender, white star was like a symbol of peace looking down with serenest compassion.
" Our star," he had said, as we stood together only one little evening before — how long ago it seemed — and gazed upward to find what comfort we might in its soft radiance. " Wherever we may be, we will look aloft into the night sky, where it shines with steady light, and feel that our thoughts and hearts are together."
I fell asleep, saying softly in my heart, " God's lights to guide him."
There were no steamers and no railroads from my home to Norfolk, but my father secured a pungy — a lit tle oyster-boat — and the following day we, baby and I, started off. My father's heart was almost broken at parting from me so soon again. I was going, he knew not where, but knowing that "what God hath joined to gether, no man should put asunder," he could not say one word to keep me.
A storm came up just after we had gotten out of Chuckatuck Creek, and we were delayed in arriving at Norfolk. We had hoped to be there some hours before the departure of the Baltimore steamer, but reached the wharf as the plank was about to be taken in, so that my father barely had time to say good-by to me and put me on board.
CHAPTER VI.
CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY.
Alone, except for baby George, for the first time in all my seventeen years! Perhaps no timid little waif thrown out upon the deep sea of life ever felt more utterly desolate.
I stepped on board the Baltimore steamer and was piloted into the saloon by a porter whose look and man ner showed that he was perfectly cognizant of my igno rance and inexperience. In the midst of my loneliness and the consciousness of my awkwardness and my real sorrows, sympathy for myself revived my olden-time compassion for poor David Copperfield, whom Steerforth's servant had made to feel so "young and green."
So little did I know of traveling and the modes and manners of travelers, that I sent for the captain of the steamer to buy my ticket and arrange for my stateroom and supper. I wondered a little, as I waited for him, what he would think of my childishness, and if he often had such helpless passengers, and if he had, what he did with them, and if life was not sometimes made a burden to him because of them. There was always an undercur rent, though, of realization of my position, and of dread because of it. I had one comforting reflection, however — the captain could not take me for a conspirator. My innocence was too genuine and embarrassing to be mis taken for assumed guilelessness.
I had been told on leaving my home that the slightest jmprudence or careless word from me might cause
34
CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 35
my arrest, and that, in any event, if it were known who I was, it was more than possible that I might be held as a hostage for my husband. After consideration it had been decided that I should travel, not under my own name, but under my maiden name. The more I studied the subject the more bewildered I became. How could I keep my precious secret? I determined to be very silent and guard my tongue closely and answer in mono syllables that would discourage intimacies. I began to draw my face down and look serious and wise and assume an expression of profound abstraction. Then it occurred to me that this attitude would never do. In the few novels I had read, the people who had secrets were al ways silent and mysterious. Their demeanor said more plainly than words could have expressed:
" Behold, the modern Sphinx, whose riddle can never be read!"
Every one would recognize immediately the fact that my mind was the repository of something dangerous.
Then I thought I would cultivate a light and chatty style, more in accordance with my natural character. So I was soon, in my thought, in conversation with some im aginary person on home scenes and pleasures, assuming an animation that ought to remove from the mind of the most suspicious person the fancy that I could possibly have anything to conceal. I found that my mental allusions to what the General said and did were quite too frequent and enthusiastic to be in accordance with my as sumed character of an unknown little wife and mother, traveling for the innocent purpose of spending a few days with relations, expecting her obscure husband to come for her after awhile from a little farm that he was industriously tilling. If I could neither talk nor be silent, what could I do?
$6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
While I wrestled with these perplexities my train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of a bell and a loud voice shouting:
" Passengers will please walk into the custom-house office and show their passports!"
The laws were so strict that no one could leave any city in the South without a passport from the military authorities stationed there. My grandmother had given me her " oath of allegiance," which everybody in those dread days immediately after the surrender of the army was compelled to take, in order to purchase medicine, food or clothing of any sort, or for the transaction of any kind of business whatsoever. It was a rare occurrence that a man was found who would take this iron-clad oath, for, no matter how great the exigencies might be, he was branded as a traitor if he yielded to them. Consequently, the women, who were most bitter, too, in their feelings, were obliged to make a sacrifice of their convictions and prin ciples, and take this oath in order to alleviate or prevent the absolute suffering of their loved ones. Illness in the family and the urgent necessity for quinine and salt left my unselfish little grandmother no alternative, and hav ing taken this oath herself she found in it a kind of safety. It had, at any rate, brought her relief, and she wanted that I should have it with me, as a sort of "mascot" or safeguard.
With carpet-bag, basket and baby, I started into the custom-house office and explained to the officer in charge:
" I am very sorry, sir, that I have no passport. The steamer was about to sail as I reached Norfolk. I came from a little village thirty miles beyond, where passports are not given. I have an oath of allegiance, if that will answer in its place."
The officer, laughing, said:
CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BAB Y. 3 7
" No; never mind. It is all right. Only register your name. I remember you did come on board just as the whistle blew; but was there not another passenger who came on with you — a gentleman?"
"Yes, sir," I said. " It was my precious father, and he went back home on the little sail-boat."
There must have been something to excite suspicion in the way I wrote my name, or else in my manner. I boldly wrote out my given name, and then as I started to write my last name, I looked all around me, confused, and changed the letter "P" to "C," writing "Corbell." Then I began to erase " Corbell " and write " Phillips," the name in my oath of allegiance. While there was really nothing very false in what I did, I felt guilty and was frightened, for I had been brought up to be strictly truth ful, and to keep faithfully even the word of promise.
I had not been long in the saloon when baby became restless and fretful. I was impatiently awaiting the com ing of the captain, whom I had sent for, when a man ap peared. He had short, curly hair, deep, heavy eyebrows, eyes sunken and close together, as if they had to be focused by his big, hooked nose or they would not be able to see. He was chewing alternately one end of his crinkly moustache and one side of his thick, red lip, and was making a sucking noise with his tongue, as he said:
" Madam, you sent for the captain of the boat, I be lieve."
"Yes, sir."
"What do you wish?"
" I want you to be kind enough to get my ticket and stateroom, please. My father had not time to see after me. He barely had time to put me on board."
"Certainly; with pleasure. You stop in Baltimore long?"
38 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
"I don't know," I said.
"You have been there before, I suppose?"
"Oh, no; never. I have been nowhere outside of Virginia and North Carolina. Most of my traveling be fore my marriage was in going to and from Lynchburg, where I was at school.
" Lynchburg is a hilly city. It was founded by an Irish emigrant, John Lynch, whose brother, Colonel Charles Lynch, of Revolutionary fame, instituted the lynch-law. Colonel Lynch was a great Whig, and too impatient to wait for the superfluous ceremony of legally administering justice upon the lawless Tories.
" Once I rode on horseback to the Peaks of Otter, which are among the highest mountains of the South. You can't imagine how glorious it was to be up there so far away from the earth. When I first looked down from their lofty heights the sky and the earth seemed to be touching, and presently the rain began to pour. I could see the glimmering, glittering drops, but could not hear them fall. I was above the clouds and the rain — up in the sunshine and stillness, the only audible sound a strange supernatural flapping. It was the hawks and buzzards flapping their wings. Suddenly the rain ceased, the haze vanished, and I saw below the rugged moun tains and what seemed in the distance a vast ocean. It was the level country below.
"The words of John Randolph echoed in my heart with this infinite mystery of nature. He with only a servant had spent the night on those mighty rocks, and in the morning as he was watching the glory of the sun rise, having no one else to whom to express his thought, he pointed upward with his long, slender hand and charged his servant never from that time to believe any one who said there was no God.
CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BAB Y. 39
'"No, sah, Marse John; no, sah,' said the awe-stricken servant. ' I ain't a-gwine ter, sah. I neber had no notion er bedoutin' sich a stronagin fack ez dat w'at you jes' say, nohow, but I 'clar ter gracious now, Marse John, atter d:s, I ain't gwine ter let none er Marse Thomas Didy- muses' tempshus bedoutin' tricks cotch no holt 'pun dis nigger, fum dis day forward fereber no mo.'
"Once, too, I-
"You have relatives in Baltimore?" said the gentle man, abruptly interrupting me; otherwise, feeling that geography and history were safe subjects, I should have rattled on till I had told him all I knew.
"Yes, sir," said I. " I am going to visit them."
"Where were you from this morning?"
"I came from a little country village about thirty miles from Norfolk — Chuckatuck, a village in Nanse- mond County. It used to be the capital city of a tribe of Indians called the Nansemums."
" I saw your father as he was leaving the steamer. I was attracted to him because he made an appeal to all Masons, asking of them — poor man — with his hands raised to God, their protection and care for his child and grandchild. He thus was making himself known to any of us, his brothers, who might be aboard, when he was lost sight of by the turn of the boat. So, you see, you can safely confide in me, and I will help you in any way I can/'
"Thank you," I said. "I know my dear, dear papa is a Mason. I know he was anxious about me; but I have nothing to confide — nothing. I only want a stateroom and my tickets and some milk for the baby. I do not wish for any supper myself. I am so lonesome I could not eat. It is wicked to feel blue and down-hearted, with baby and all the kind friends to watch over me, as you say; and then, too, God is always near."
40 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
"Yes, that is true. Did you lose your husband in the war?"
"No, sir."
" He was in the war, though, was he not?"
"Yes, sir."
A fear came into my heart that I was talking too much. I did not want him to know anything concerning my husband, whose rank I especially desired to keep se cret. I encouraged myself with the reflection that the end justified the means, even though I might deviate slightly from the truth, and said:
"You could not have heard of him, and he was not of sufficient rank to have made an impression upon you, even if you had."
"Where is he now?"
"In the country."
"And you are leaving him?"
" For a little while, only."
Then he talked of how much the Southerners had lost, and how much they had to forgive; how easy it was to bear victory and how hard to bear defeat, and said that if he had been born South he would have been a rebel, and that his sympathies even now were with the Southern people.
Then a sudden suspicion came to me, and I said:
" I wish there had never been any rebels at all; no, not even the first rebel, George Washington; and, now, sir, please, 1 do not want to talk about the war. I am very weary and sleepy, and would like to retire. If you please, sir, will you get me my stateroom and ticket? I am so tired — so very tired."
Baby was lying asleep on my lap, hypnotized by the chandeliers. The man looked down on him for a mo ment, and then said, "Of course, I will get them for you," and was going, when an ex-Confederate officer, one of my
CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BABY. 41
husband's old comrades and friends, came up and, cor dially reaching out his hand, said:
" How do you do, Mrs. Pickett? Where is the General? What are you doing here, and where are you going?"
He himself was returning to his home in the far South, but had been called back to Baltimore on business.
" Thank you, General B ," I said. " My husband has
gone to farming. He has turned his sword into a plow share, and 1 am going to visit his aunt, whom I have never seen. He is to come to us after a little while; could not leave conveniently just now. He is very well, I thank you."
" I am so glad to have seen you," he said. " Will see you later on," andwas hobblingaway on his crutches. He saw by my manner that he had said something to embar rass me, something hurtful to me, and left with a pained look. He was dressed in his old Confederate gray. The brass buttons had all been cut off, in obedience to the order at the custom-house office.
For several moments not a word was spoken. Then I looked up and said:
" My tickets and stateroom, please."
" I thought you said your name was Corbell," said he of the hooked nose, as he held my money shaking in his hand. " I thought you said your husband's rank was not sufficient to have made an impression; that in all proba bility I had never heard of him."
Oh, that smacking sound of jaw and tongue, and that beak of a nose, and those little black eyes which grew into Siamese twins as they glared at me like a snake! He did not move, but said, while an undefined fear of him made me tremble and grow cold:
" Your name was Corbell, and your husband was in the country. He was an officer of low rank."
42 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
He repeated this, more to himself than \o me.
"Did I say that?" I said, and, with a face all hon esty and truth, I looked straight into those eyes, divided by that vulture feature, and told, without blushing, with out a tremor in my voice, the first deliberate falsehood I had ever told:
"Did I say so? Well, my mind has been unbalanced, my friends think, by the way the war has ended, and they are sending me from home to new scenes and new asso ciations to divert me, with the hope of making me well and strong again. Corbell was my maiden name, but I do not know how I happened to say that my husband's rank was low, for I was so proud of it. I could not have been thinking. Won't you please be so good as to get my ticket? I am so tired I don't know what I am saying."
He went away, and the stateroom keys were brought to me by a waitress. She unlocked the door for me. I went in, too frightened now to think of supper, too frightened to sleep, and wondering if, in my imprudence, I had hurt my husband and what would happen if I had.
All night long the noise of the wheel was to me the ax of the executioner. All night long it rose and fell through seas, not of water, but of blood — the heart's blood of valiant men, of devoted women, of innocent little children. All night long it went up and down, dripping from the awful sea — dripping with my hus band's blood, with my father's, with the blood of all the friends I had known and loved. Then it seemed as if all the world but me had been slain to make that dread sea, and I was doomed to move over it forever, with the sound of the crushing wheels grinding my heart to powder and never consuming me. Why had I, of the whole human race, been left alone to go always up and down in that horrible waste of blood? Near morning I fell asleep and
CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 43
dreamed that it was I who had destroyed all that world of people whose life-blood surged around me with a mad dening roar, and that I was destined to an eternity of remorse.
When I awoke the boat had landed. I got up and dressed hurriedly. Starting to go out, I found that the door was locked on the outside. The chambermaid not answering my repeated call, I beckoned to a sailor passing the window and begged that he would tell the chambermaid that I was locked in and ask her to come and let me out. She came to the door and said:
"You can not get out."
"I do not understand," I said. "Are we not at Bal timore?"
An officer was with her, who answered:
"Yes, but you can not get off, madam. You are to be detained upon the boat until the authorities come and either release or imprison you. You are supposed to be a suspicious character."
On a slip of paper I wrote:
"A Master Mason's wife and daughter in distress de mands in their name that you will come to her."
I said to the chambermaid:
"Will you give this to the captain?"
On her hesitating, the officer said:
"You might as well."
She went. In a little while — a very little while — be fore I thought she could possibly have reached the cap tain, while I was trying to hush the baby, who was hungry, a voice as kind and gentle as the benevolent face into which I looked, said:
"What can I do for you, madam? You sent for me."
" No, sir," I said, " I sent for the captain of the boat,
44 PICK'S TT AND HIS MEN.
but I am glad you came; you seem so kind, and may help me in some way in my trouble."
"I am the captain of the boat," he said. "What can I do for you?"
"You are not the gentleman who represented himself as the captain of the boat last night, sir, and bought for me my ticket. He was short and dark —
As I was describing the pseudo-captain the gentleman interrupted me with:
" He is a Federal detective, madam, and has advised that you be detained on the steamer until his return with the authorities and warrant."
" But," I said, " he told me he had seen my father, as he left the steamer, make the sign of a Master Mason in distress, placing me in the care, not only of himself, but of all Masons on this steamer, and he told me I was safe and protected in their care, and he asked my confidence, but I had none to give him. He suspects me of what?"
The captain said:
"Your father did make that sign; your father did place you in our care. His appeal was to all Masons, and in their protection he did leave you. Come; I am cap tain of this steamer, and a captain is king on his own boat. Where did you say you wished to go? Stand aside," he said to the officer in charge.
Giving me his arm, he placed me and baby, carpet bag and basket, in a carriage and the driver was told to drive to 97 Brenton street.
"Yis, sor," said the Irishman. "97 Brinton strate, shure."
"God bless you and watch over you! Good-by, lit tle baby."
After driving some time, the Irishman impatiently told me there was no street by that name and I would
CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 45
have to get out, but not until I had paid him for the two hours he had been hunting "for the same."
" I will pay you the money," said I, " but there must be such a place. Come, here is the letter and the instructions."
"There's no place of the koind, an' the letther is all wrong," he said, spelling it out, "an" phat's to be done, an' where am I to be laving you? It's to the daypo I've got to be afther going to now."
" Oh, I don't know," I said. " Why did you not tell the captain of the steamer you did not know, and have him tell you where to go?"
"Shure, I thought you would be afther knowin' yure own moind, an' there's no one knows the place betther 'an the loikes of me an' it's there to be a-finding."
I did not know enough to get out and go to a drug store and hunt in the directory. I was at my wits' end, if I had ever had any wits. There was not a soul in the city that I knew. I thought of the captain of the boat, the only friend I had, yet I was afraid to go back to seek him for fear the power he had would not be strong enough to protect me, once I had left his boat. I could think of no one else, nowhere else to go, and there was that in the captain's voice and manner of daring and strength that made me willing to trust myself with him, so I said:
" Drive me back to the captain of the boat, please. I don't know what else to do."
When I went on board the captain was not yet gone, which was an unusual thing. He had waited to see the officers before leaving. I answered the smile that came into his face, in spite of his kind heart, by handing him my aunt's letter, who wrote not only a very peculiar hand, but a very illegible one, saying:
"Read, captain, and see if this is not Brenton street, the place my aunt has written me I must come."
46 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
" ' Go to 97 Brenton street, where my niece^ Mrs. C
will bring you to my house,' " he read. " It might be any thing else as well as Brenton," he said. "It looks like 'Brenton,' but I have lived here all my life and have never heard of such a street. I'll get my directory, how ever, and look. No," he said, " but it may be Preston ; let's
look, but there are no C s living there. You might try
this house, at any rate, 97 Preston street, and if you do not find your friends living there then come to this number, where my wife and I will be happy to have you as our guest, you and the little lost bird, till you can write to your friends and find out where they do want you to come."
Off again I started with the Irishman, who had become interested in me by this time, and had forgotten all about the depot.
" Here you are, marm, 97 Priston strate, an' a nice house it is, marm. Shall I take yure things in, marm?"
" No; first take up my card, if your horses will stand."
"Av coorse, marm, an' they will."
I wrote on my card:
"Does Mrs. C • live here — a niece of Mrs. S ?"
In a moment there were two or three faces at the windows, and in another moment as many voices at the carriage-door, asking, "Is this George Pickett's wife and child?" and I was so thankful to be once more where they knew George Pickett's wife and child.
Besides the lovely people whose home it was, there was with them, on her way to her mother's, a daughter of Mrs.
S , Mrs. General B , who was one of the most
charming women I ever met. She had just returned from the South. Her husband, too, was in the Confederate army. The next day we both went out to her mother's, my husband's aunt's home.
CHAPTER VII.
The week I spent in Hartford County, Maryland, at the General's aunt's reminded me of my childhood, when I used to play that I was a " Princess or a Beggar," or " Morgiana of the Forty Thieves," or "The White Cat," or whatever character it would please me to select to play, for my heart and soul were separated from my body. I was not what I pretended to be. My body went to parties and receptions and dinners, and re ceived people and drove and paid calls, while my soul waited with intense longing for the telegram, " Edwards is better."
One day I had been_ out to dine and, coming home, found awaiting me the message for which eyes and heart had been looking for a time that seemed almost eternal.
That night I took the train for New York, starting out all alone again, baby and I. I was tired and sleepy, but there was such joy and gladness in my heart as I thought of so soon seeing my husband that I did not think of my discomforts. I repeated the telegram, " Edwards is better, Edwards is better, " over and over again. I sang it as a lullaby, putting baby to sleep to the measure of the happy words, " Edwards is better. " I crooned it softly with shut lips, lest some stranger should hear the precious words, " Edwards is better. " Only for baby and me was that sweet refrain. When baby slept I leaned back and closed my eyes and saw a world of beauty and bloom as the glad words went dancing through my heart. Was
47
48 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
there ever so sweet a slumber-song since babies were first invented to awaken the deepest melody of mother hearts?
I went to sleep with baby in my arms. I had not money enough to get a berth — just barely enough to buy my ticket and pay my expenses through to Montreal, Canada, from which point the telegram was dated.
When I awakened later I found that a homespun shawl had been placed under my head. I never thought about who had been so kind, nor why the shawl was there. All my life long every one had been thoughtful of me; things had been done for me, courtesies had been extended to me, and I had learned to accept kindnesses as only what I had a right to expect from the human race. Murmuring softly the comforting words, "Edwards is better," I turned my face over and went to sleep again on the shawl. I slept until my baby became restless from the jolting.
We took the steamer up the Hudson from New York to Albany. Something made poor little baby sick. I censured myself for having allowed him to catch cold on the train while I was sleeping. He was teething, and was very fretful. He had been used, too, to his nurse, his black mammy. He missed her customary care and atten tion, his cradle and rocking, and was unhappy and could not understand it. She used to give him his bath, to sing to him her negro melodies, and to dance him up and down in her strong arms, only bringing him to me for his daily nourishment and kisses and my own enjoyment of him, or when sometimes she wanted to go to her meals before Thomas was ready to put him in his little wagon. So, in his discomfort, he would reach out his hands and nod to anybody to take him. He was tired of me, and thought that I must, in some way, be the cause of all these privations and the pain and suffering he was then under going.
' ' ED WARDS IS BE TTER. ' ' 49
The philanthropic ladies on board the steamer seemed very much concerned, and at a loss to understand why he was so unhappy with me, and, apparently, preferred any body and everybody else.
" Nurse, why do you not take the child to its mother?" one would say, and a look of incredulity would follow my assertion that I was its mother. "Then, why don't you quiet the child, if you are, and find out what is the matter with it?" and so on.
How indignant I was! Something in my manner must have made them believe that it was not all right with me and the child, for they followed me about, asking many intrusive questions and making many offensive remarks.
The crying of the baby was as disagreeable to them as it was distressing to me, and I was walking the deck, try ing to quiet him, all tired and worn out as I was, when a gentleman came up to me. On his shoulder I recognized the shawl that had been put under my head on the cars the night before. It introduced "one of the least of these." He said:
" Madam, excuse me, but I do not think you have had any dinner, and you must be worn out with hunger and fatigue from fasting and carrying the baby. Won't you let me hold him while you go down and eat something?"
Even though he carried the shawl which bespoke my faith, I was afraid to trust him with so precious a treasure as my baby, and would rather have starved than have per mitted it to go out of my sight.
"Thank you, very much, but I could not think of troubling you, " I said. "No — oh, no."
Then said he:
" May I order something for you here? "
I was hungry, and was so glad for the open way he had found for me, and said, " Yes, " handing him twenty-five
4
SO PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
cents. It was all I could afford to pay for dinner, but as I looked at the tray when it was brought to me, I thought, "How cheap things must be in New York," for there was soup and fish — a kind of yellow fish I had never seen before, salmon, I afterward learned it was — stewed with green peas, a bird, some asparagus and pota toes, ice-cream, a cup of coffee and a glass of sherry.
Upon his insisting that perhaps it would be restful to the baby, I let him hold it while I ate my dinner. I did not know how hungry I was, nor how much I was in need of nourishment. Baby immediately became quiet in his arms. Whether it was the change or not, I do not know, but in a little while he was fast asleep. I covered him up with the shawl to which the gentleman pointed, finished eating my delicious dinner, taking my time and enjoying it, while he read his book and held my baby. When the servant came and took away the tray, I arose and, thank ing the stranger for his kindness, said:
" I will take the, baby now, if you please."
" If you would rather," he said, " yes, but I think he will be more comfortable with me for awhile. Then, too, you might awaken him if you moved him. Let me hold him while you rest. Here is a sweet little book, if you would like to read it. I think, however, it would be better for you to rest; to sleep, if you could. You look really fagged out."
The book he gave me was a child's book — it may have been "Fern Leaves." I can't remember the name, but written on the fly-leaf, in a child's irregular hand, were these words:
For my dear darly popsy who is gon to fite the war fum his little darly dorter little mary
Dear popsy don kill the por yangees and don let the yangees kill you my por popsy little mary
Dear popsy com back soon to me an mama an grandad thats all I says your prayers popsy ebry day fum little mary
"EDWARDS IS BETTER." 51
Beneath little Mary's name was this line:
Little Mary died on the i6th of May, 1864 — her fifth birthday.
1 rested, but thought of little Mary as I watched my own baby who was sleeping so sweetly in this childless stranger's arms — till presently the waves brought back to me the days of my childhood — the story of the sailor with his stolen mill, grinding out salt, forever and forever, and the lost talisman lost still — back to my grandmother's knee, listening with wonder-eyes to " Why the sea is salt," the while my soul anon chanted to music those all- healing, blissful words, " Edwards is better," gaining strength for the o'erhanging trial I least dreamed of — and the shadows rose to make place for one darker still.
CHAPTER VIII.
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL.
My attention was attracted by a man in close con versation with the conductor. I was evidently the object of it, for they would look carefully over the paper they held and then at me, as if comparing me with something therein described. Had I been a hardened criminal, they would probably not have taken the risk of thus warning me of the fact that I was under suspicion. As my ap pearance would seem to indicate that, if a law-breaker, I was a mere tyro in vice, they supposed they could safely take notes of me. I was absolutely sure that I was the subject of the conversation, and trembled with a pre sentiment of coming evil. I tried in vain to turn my face toward the window, but my eyes seemed fascinated. A thousand preposterous fears passed in review through my mind, though the real one never suggested itself. I endeavored to dispel them each in turn, arguing that the scrutiny of the men foreboded nothing, because I seemed an object of curiosity to everybody, and now, as I recall my appearance, I don't wonder, for I was very odd-looking.
In the first place, I was dressed so quaintly and looked so entirely unlike those around me, and was all uncon scious of any peculiarity or deficiency in my apparel — being garmented in my very best, the traveling-gown, etc., in which I had been married, and which had been bought and made under such difficulties, and kept after ward with such scrupulous care. So I was perfectly well satisfied with myself.
52
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 53
I wore a long, loose-fitting black silk mantilla with three ruffles at the bottom, while those around me were dressed in tight-fitting, short cloth jackets. My bonnet was of gray straw, plaited and dyed by the servants on the plantation at home, and sewed into shape by our fash ionable village milliner; a poke shape, extending far over the face, a wreath of pink moss-rosebuds on the inside, tangled in with my dark-brown hair, while it was trimmed on the outside with several clusters and bunches of grapes of a lighter shade of gray, also hand-made. The grapes were formed of picked cotton, covered with fleek-skin* and then tinted. My collar was one of my bridal presents — from our pastor's wife — made of tat ting and embroidery, about five inches wide, and was pinned in front with a lava breast-pin. The prevailing collar worn by the fashionable world was made of linen, very narrow, only an edge of it showing, while very small, jaunty hats, worn back on the head, were the style.
The conductor seemed to be arguing with this man as I caught his eye, and just then my baby sprang forward and snatched the newspaper from an old gentleman who was sitting, reading it, in front of me, and shrieked when it was loosened from his baby hands, while the old gen tleman looked daggers in answer to my apologies; but, thank heaven! when I looked again after this diversion, the two men were gone.
I had just settled back, a little unnerved and weak, however, when from behind me came a touch on my shoulder, and, turning around, I saw the officer and the conductor. The former said, " I have a warrant for your arrest, madam," and forthwith served it upon me.
There on the cars, all alone, miles away from home and friends, two dollars and ten cents all my little store,
* Fleek-skin is the thin covering of leaf lard.
54 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
I was arrested for — stealing! Stealing my own child! I could not read the warrant as it trembled in my hands — I had never seen one before. Baby thought it was a compromise for the old gentleman's paper, and it was with difficulty rescued from him.
As soon as my confused wits grasped the meaning of this I said:
"This baby? This baby, sir? It is mine — mine — it is named after its father — it is mine! I can prove it by everybody in the world, and "
"Well, well," said the conductor kindly, as his voice trembled, "that's all he wants, lady. You will only have to be detained, in all probability, till the next train."
" But I must go on," I said, " for my husband is looking for me, and I could not stand staying away another min ute longer than the time at which he expects me. Please, everybody, help me."
Some were too refined even to look toward me; others merely glanced over their glasses or looked up from their books and went on reading. Some kept their faces care fully turned toward the landscape; and a few, just as heartless and more vulgar, gazed in open-mouthed curi osity.
One woman's good heart, thank God, redeemed them all. She came forward, her tender blue eyes moist with sympathy, her black crepe veil thrown back from her lovely face and her waving hair with the silver threads among the gold all too soon, and said, in a voice so sweet that it might have come from the hearts of the lilies of the valley that she wore bunched at her swan- white throat:
" Come, I will stop off with you if it must be. Let me see the paper."
Simultaneously with her, the gentleman of the home-
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 55
spun shawl came from I don't know where, and asked, too, to see the paper, and both got off the train with me.
I was so weak I could hardly hold or carry my baby, for all at once there came over me the sense of my utter helplessness to prove that my child was my own. There was no one I could telegraph to without exposing who and what I was, and where, and perhaps why, I was going. A telegram to my friends at home not only might betray me, but would alarm them. A telegram to my husband would jeopardize his safety, for he would surely come to me at once.
"Look! Look!" I said to the magistrate and officers, as they read aloud the suspicions and accusations of the philanthropic ladies who were with me on board the Albany steamer, and who, in their zeal to secure a right and correct a wrong, without understanding the causes of my child's discomfort and unhappiness with me, or the reasons for my rather suspicious manner and embarrass ment, had caused my arrest.
Thus do the pure and holy ever keep guard over the sins of the world and throw the cable-cord of justice around the unregenerate to drag them perforce into the path of rectitude. May they reap the reward to which their virtues entitle them!
" Look at its eyes and look at mine," holding his little face up against my own. " Can't you every one see that it is my child — my very own child?"
" That may be, but give us the name of some one to whom we may telegraph — some tangible proof. If it is all right, there must be some one who knows you and who can testify in your behalf."
" No, no," I said, "there is no one. I have nobody to help me, and if God does not show you all some way, and
$6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
your own hearts do not convince you, I dort't know what I shall do."
My poor, little, half-starved, in-litigation baby refused to be comforted. The kind gentleman with the shawl could amuse him no longer. He had dashed from him the keys, and pushed the watch from his ear, and de manded impatiently of me the rights of sustenance. The dear, good woman beside me, with the smile of the re deemed lighting up her face, touched mine, whispering in my ear while I held baby's hands to prevent him in his im patience from tearing apart my mantle and untying my bonnet-strings:
"Do you nurse your baby?"
11 Yes," I said, "and he is so hungry — poor little thing."
Then she stood up, leaning on her cane, for she was slightly lame, and said in a voice clear and sweet:
"Gentlemen, I have a witness" —my heart almost stood still — " here, in the child who can not speak. It is not always a proof of motherhood, but with the circum stantial evidence and the youth of this mother, this be yond peradventure is proof convincing. The child is still nourished from her own body," and she opened my mantle.
I, who had never nursed my baby in the presence of even my most intimate friends, bared my bosom before all those strange men and v/omen and nursed him as proof that I was his mother, while tears of gratitude to the sweet friend and to God flowed down my cheeks and dropped on baby's face as he wonderingly looked up, trying to pick off the tears with his little dimpled fingers, and thank fully enjoyed the proof ". The men turned aside and tears flowed down more than one rugged face. The kind stranger with the shawl lifted his eyes heavenward as if in thanksgiving, and then turned them earthward and breathed a bitter curse, deep and heartfelt. Perhaps the
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. tf
recording angel jotted down the curse on the credit side of the ledger with as great alacrity as he registered there the prayer of thanks.
I trust that the philanthropic ladies, when the evidence was sent them, were as surely convinced as all these peo ple were, that I had not stolen my child. I hope they were pleased by this indication of the existence of some degree of innocence in the world, outside of their own virtuous hearts, but — I don't know.
" Take thy fledgling, poor mother dove, under thy trembling wings, back to its nest and the father bird's care. I shall go a few miles further where I stop to see my baby," said my new friend. " This little boy who brought me back to life is older than yours. He is the child of my only son, whose young life ebbed out on the battle-field of Gettysburg, and whose sweet spirit has joined that of his noble father, my husband, which, in his very first battle, was freed. This baby blesses our lives — the young mother's and the old mother's."
The train due twenty minutes before was signaled; baby finished his " proof" on the car which was taking me faster and faster to the loving heart and protecting care that even this kind stranger saw how sadly I needed. The friend so kind to me on the steamer succeeded in getting us seats, though apart.
The cars were crowded with soldiers returning home after the war; disbanded soldiers, soldiers on furlough, and the released prisoners, with their pale, cadaverous, unshaven faces and their long, unkempt hair. One from Andersonville, more emaciated and ragged than the others, was selling his pictures and describing the horrors of his prison life, and, as he told of his sufferings and torture, amid the groans of sympathy, maledictions and curses were hurled against my people; and once his long, bony
5§ PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
arm and hand seemed to be stretched menacingly toward me as he drew the picture of " the martyred Lincoln, whose blood," said he, " cries out for vengeance. We follow his hearse; let us swear a hatred to these people against whom he warred, and as the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression, renew with each sound unappeasable hatred.'*
I crouched back into my seat, almost holding my breath as I pressed my baby against my beating heart. The sweet new friend touched my brow with her lips, leaving there a kiss and a prayer, put the lilies in my hand, and was gone. The cars moved on, leaving a great void in my heart as I thought of my God-given friend, so lately found, so swiftly lost.
All this was more than thirty years ago, but one of the lilies yet lies in my prayer-book, glorifying with the halo of a precious memory the page on which it rests.
A man, not a soldier, I think, for brave soldiers are magnanimous and generous always, stood up in a seat almost opposite mine and said:
"When I think of the horrors of Libby and Anderson- ville and look at these poor sufferers, I not only want to invoke the vengeance of a just God, but I want to take a hand in it myself. Quarter should be shown to none — every man, woman and child of this accursed Southern race should be made the bondsman of his own slave for a specified length of time, that they might know the curse of serfdom. Their lands should be confiscated and given to those whom they have so long and so cruelly wronged."
As he in detail related the story of their scanty allow ance, the filth and darkness of their cells, I longed to get up and plead for my people, and tell how they, too, were without soap, food or clothes; that we had no medicines even, except what were smuggled through the lines, and that our own poor soldiers were barefooted and starving;
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 5Q
and that all the suffering of prisoners on both sides could have been avoided by carrying out the terms of the cartel proposed by the Confederate government. If I had only dared to raise the veil and reveal the truth, sympathy would have tempered their bitterness; the flame of divine kinship smoldering in their veins, hidden as in a tomb, would have miraged over the gulf of wrongs a bridge of holier feelings. Yet the memory of the woman whose son had been killed on the field of Gettys burg, and whose lily, now browned and withered with the years, I cherish with such tender care, softened the words that were like blows to my ear and heart. Thus the power of one pure heart radiating its love upon the world as an odorous flower, diffuses fragrance on the surrounding atmosphere, uplifts the sorrowful spirit and strengthens it to withstand the rude assaults of a vin dictive world.
The official figures of Secretary of War Stanton and Surgeon-General Barnes show that over three per cent, more Confederates perished in Northern prisons than Federals in Southern prisons. The report of Mr. Stanton, July 19, 1866, says: " Of the Federal prisoners in Confed erate prisons during the war, 22,576 died. Of Confeder ate prisoners in Federal prisons, 26,436 died. Surgeon- General Barnes said that the Confederate prisoners num bered 220,000; the Federal prisoners, 270,000. Out of 270,000 Federals more than 22,000 died; of 220,000 Confederates more than 26,000 died.*
General Grant, in his letter to General Butler from City
* Mr. Elaine accounts for the greater mortality of Southern prison ers by saying that the Southern men were "ill-clad, ill-fed and diseased, so that they died of disease they brought with them. " That being true, how then could the South provide any better for Northern prisoners than for her own soldiers?
60 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
Point, July 19, 1864, thus bespeaks his acffcord with his government in opposing the exchange of prisoners:
It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole, or otherwise, becomes an active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold on to those caught, they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to re lease all rebel prisoners North would ensure Sherman's defeat and would compromise our safety here. ,, Q p
Lieutenant-General.
General Grant further said, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, February, 1865: " Exchanges of prisoners having been suspended by reason of disagreement on the part of agents of exchange on both sides before I came into command of the armies of the United States, and it then being near the opening of the spring campaign, I did not deem it advisable or just to the men who had to fight our battles to reiriforce the enemy with thirty or forty thousand disciplined troops at that time. An immediate resumption of exchanges would have had that effect without giving us corresponding benefits. The suf fering said to exist among our prisoners South was a pow erful argument against the course pursued, and so I felt it."
In the light of historic facts, the right entry will be made of the suffering of the prisoners, North and South.
CHAPTER IX.
A FAMILIAR FACE.
Owing to the delay, all the staterooms in the Lake Champlain steamer had been taken, and my little sick baby and its poor tired mother were very thankful when, after the long, dreary night, they welcomed the dawn of day which counted them many miles nearer to their Mecca.
I have forgotten the name of the place from which we took the train for Montreal after leaving the steamer, but I remember a fact of more consequence concerning it — that it was the wrong place.
I received my first tariff lesson on reaching the Canada side, when the passengers were summoned to the custom house office to have their baggage examined, and I, with my carpet-bag, basket and baby, followed my fellow voy agers. When my turn came I handed the officer my keys and checks, which, after a glance, he gave back to me, saying with haste and indifference, as if it might have been the most trivial of matters:
"Your luggage has been left on the States side. Your checks were not exchanged."
This was "the last straw." The camel's back had been broken by no clothes. Heroically I had borne up under dangers and hardships, accusations and imminent trage dies, but the loss of my wardrobe, that greatest calamity which has ever been known to darken the career of mortal woman, was too much, and I wept aloud. Not that I had so large and so valuable an array of personal adornments. The few clothes I had were intrinsically worthless except,
61
62 PICKETT AND HIS MEN-
perhaps, as so many curios. There were gowns remodeled and refashioned from court dresses over a hundred years old. There were others entirely new as to texture, and grotesquely original as to style, woven on our crude looms, made streaked and striped with our natural dyes, trimmed with an improvised passementerie made of canteloupe and other seeds, and laces knit from fine-spun flax, with buttons of carved and ornamented peach-stones. Then there was my wedding-robe, constructed after approved models, somewhere in the unknown regions of the frozen North, and basely smuggled across the lines to me, an un- regenerate reprobate, who wickedly ( but artistically, be it known) put it on and went, an unrepentant receiver of smuggled goods, proudly to the altar, positively glorying in villainy. In the Confederacy a new wedding-dress was a rare and precious feature in costumery. Its intro duction into a community was a social event of great importance. Its possession was a distinction which ren dered its fortunate owner especially subject to the gra cious law of noblesse oblige. My bridal-robe had draped the form of more than one fair maid since it had first eluded the vigilant eyes which guarded the Federal line. It was last worn by one of the most beautiful girls of the Confederacy when she became the wife of a distin guished officer, and was put away forever when, a few hours later, the groom was brought back to his bride, wrapped in the white shroud of death. The purity of the bridal-robe gave place to the sombreness of the widow's weeds, which for many years were faithfully worn in memory of her fallen hero.
My genuine grief for the loss of all my clothes touched the heart of the sturdy Englishman into vouchsafing the information that I would better return the checks for exchange and I would receive my luggage on the next
A FAMILIAR FACE. 63
train. The delight consequent upon this information, taken in connection with my previous grief, may have im pressed the British mind with the conviction that the missing trunks contained an entire outfit just from Worth, Felix being at that time yet in the realm of the unevolved.
Taking the wrong train at the wrong point put me into Montreal later than I was expected, but I religiously fol lowed instructions to remain on the train which stopped over at Montreal, until I should be claimed, like a general- delivery letter.
Every passenger had left the coach, and baby and I were alone. I was waiting and watching breathlessly for my claimant, when my hungry eyes caught sight of three gentlemen coming straight toward me. It was with but a languid interest that I regarded them, for I had pre conceived convictions as to the appearance of the one who should assert proprietary rights over me, and neither of these newcomers seemed at first glance adapted to re spond to those convictions. The face of one seemed rather familiar, but I was not sure, so I drew my little baby closer to me and looked the other way. I felt them com ing, and felt them stop right by my side.
"What will you have of me?" I asked.
There were tears in the eyes of the gentleman whose face had seemed a familiar one, and the next minute baby and I were in his great strong arms, and his tender voice was reproachfully asking:
"Don't you know your husband, little one?"
I was looking for my General as I had been used to seeing him — dressed in the dear old Confederate uniform, and with his hair long and curling. The beautiful hair had been trimmed, and while he was not subject to the limitations of Samson in the matter of personal strength, a critical observer might have detected variations in per-
64 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
sonal beauty. An English civilian suit of* rough brown cloth took the place of the old Confederate gray.
The two gentlemen with him were Mr. Corse, a banker, a brother of one of the General's brigadiers, and Mr. Symington, of Baltimore, a refugee. I noticed that these gentlemen called the General "Mr. Edwards" and me " Mrs. Edwards," which made me feel somewhat strange and unnatural, but I reflected that I was in a foreign country, and very far north of our old home, and perhaps even people's names were affected by political and cli matic conditions.
Knowing our poverty, I had expected the General to take us to a quiet little room in some unpretentious board ing-house, but was too tired to voice my surprise when we were driven in a handsome carriage to a palatial home. I remember the beautiful grounds, the fountain, and flow ers; the big English butler with side-whiskers who opened the large carved doors; and the pretty girl in a cap who took baby from my arms.
After that I remember only being tired — so tired — so very tired. When I had rested enough to remember again, 1 was on a sofa dressed in a pretty, soft, silken robe, and I heard a kind voice saying:
"The lady is better; she will be all right. Let her sleep."
Glancing up, I saw a benevolent-looking old gentleman and a pair of spectacles. I closed my eyes and heard the gentleman with the familiar face say such beautiful, such sweet, pleasant things, and his voice and touch thrilled my heart so that I kept my eyes shut and never wanted to open them again; and presently the pretty girl with the cap on came in and baby was in her arms, dressed in a beautiful robe.
"Ze petite enfant — very much no hungry now — he eat
A FAMILIAR FACE. 6$
tres much pap — he sleep — he wash — he dress — he eat tres much. He no hungry; he eat some more tres much again. He smile; he now no very much hungry again some more."
Was I in the land of fairies, and was the gentleman with the familiar face the prince of fairies, as he was the prince of lovers? Our baby's outstretched arms and cry for me as he recognized me dispelled any such delusion, but I was too tired to hold out my hands to him. I soon felt his little face, however, nestling close against my own, and felt, too, the touch of yet another face, and heard the same voice which had made my heart thrill with bliss whisper again more things like unto those other things it had whispered, but I was too tired and too happy to speak, and my blessings seemed too sacred to open my eyes upon, so I kept them closed. When the old English physician came in the next day he said:
"Ah, ha! Ah, ha! The lady is most well. Keep on feeding her and sleeping her. She is half-starved, poor lady, and half-dazed, too, by sleeplessness. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! Poor lady! That will do — feed her and sleep her; feed her and sleep her. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! That's all."
When the old doctor was gone I remember listening for the tread of the sentinel outside — confusing the "ah, ha! ah, ha!" with the tramp, tramp, tramp — and as I asked, the question brought back the memory that the war was over, the guns were stacked, the camp was broken, and the General was all my very own. I looked around inquiringly and up into the familiar face for an swer, and he, my General, explained our pleasant sur roundings.
His old friends, Mr. and Mrs. James Hutton, he said, had been suddenly summoned to England, and had prayed him, as a great favor to them, to be their guest until their
66 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
return, as otherwise the delay to make the necessary ar rangements for their going would prevent their catching the first steamer. Thus we had a beautiful home in which to rest, to grow well and strong, to forget all that could be forgotten of the past, and to enjoy the present.
CHAPTER X.
VISITORS, SHILLING A DOZEN. — OUR LEFT-HANDERS.
The first week in June the French maid came to our room with a telegram for Mr. Edwards, announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Hutton would sail for home from England the following week.
My husband calculated about what time they would arrive, and how soon we would be forced to give up the comforts of their beautiful and luxurious home, which we were then enjoying. We began to hunt for a place to live, commencing with the hotels and larger boarding-houses, and v/inding up with the smaller ones. After a week of varied, and some very funny, experiences, we decided at last upon one house, principally because of its attractive court and the pleasant verandas overlooking it.
"With its glistening fountain and pretty shrubbery and flowers, how nice for our baby," I said. " How cool and refreshing the sound of the water, and the glimpse of green."
So, for baby's sake, the selection was made and our rooms engaged. Our landlady was a very dark bru nette, and prided herself upon being a French Canadian, but—
"That man of mine," she sorrowfully said, "is a soggy Englishman, and you would hardly believe it possible he could be the father of our two beautiful daughters. Both of them are going to do well, but they don't take after their pa. The oldest is engaged to be married to a Stateser with nine businesses!"
67
68 PIC 'ICE TT AND HIS MEN.
• By the "nine businesses" and "Stateser" I gathered,
from her explanation, which she volunteered in answer to my puzzled look, that the fortunate son-in-law-to-be was a Yankee living in a small town in the State of Ver mont, and owning a little country store where woolen and cotton goods, silks and flannels, pottery, queensware, hardware, groceries, grain, and so forth, were sold. In her admiration of him, after each alleged "business" she affixed the, to her, high-sounding title of "merchant."
The second daughter, she told me, was learning to sing.
"She has a sweet voice, but she don't take after her pa," she said, "and the young preacher student in the next room to the right of the one you have chosen is very much taken with her, and it looks like I'd get both girls off my hands before long."
She said she could not give me the use of the parlors when the girls wanted them.
"The Stateser comes a long ways, you know, and has to have it all to himself when he is here."
But she generously suggested that if none "of them" were using the parlor at the time when my "company came," she would let me entertain my visitors in it at the rate of a " shilling a dozen" which arrangement I con sidered a very good one for me, as I did not expect to have more than a shilling's worth of visitors perhaps, in six months.
Our meals were to be served in our own room, except on Sundays, when we would have to dine in the public dining-room and do our own "waiting," like the others. We did not exactly understand what that meant, but one day's experience proved it to be anything but comfort able. The dinner had all been cooked on Saturday and was cut up and piled on the table in the center of the
' ' A SHILLING A D OZEN. "—OUR LEFT-HANDERS. 69
room, and we each had to serve ourselves. I could not help thinking of the time when my General had been served by butlers and waiters, each anxious to be the first to anticipate his wishes, and all feeling amply rewarded for every effort by a pleasant word or an appreciative smile. I wondered how any one of those obsequious at tendants would feel to see us now.
The following menu was about the average dinner (with the exception, of course, that on week-days it was warm): Corned beef, mutton pie, potato salad, pickled snap-beans, gooseberry tarts, and milk. Our breakfast was always cold; the first one was cold bread, preserves, a baked partridge (which is the same as our pheasant), and delicious coffee and butter.
Our rooms had one discomfort: we were awakened every morning by the young lady making love to the bird of her preacher beau while she arranged his room.
"Dear 'ittle birdie! — birdie dot a Dod? — birdie dot a soul? — 'ittle birdie sings praises to Doddie? Dear 'ittle birdie dot a dear 'ittle papa, and dear 'ittle papa must det him a dear, dood 'ittle wifey — dood 'ittle Tistian wifey, who will take tare of birdie and help him to make hi*, people dood Tistians, and help birdie and birdie's papa to sing praises, too; tiss again, 'ittle birdie —
A sound as of the door opening, a rustling and a confused "Oh, dear!" and then "Good-morning" was fol lowed by the invariable excuse for not having finished tidying up the room and cage before he came, "because birdie and I are such friends — ain't we, birdie — and time slips so quickly — don't it, birdie?"
I would know she was being forgiven, though I could hear only the sounds of his deep, low tones between the chirping to — birdie, of course. Neither my husband nor I meant to listen to these chirpings to — birdie, of course,
7O PICKETT AND HIS MEN,
and I always put my fingers in his ears at the sound of them.
After our breakfast was over and baby had been made comfortable, I usually sent him out with Annie for his walk, and she was delighted at having him all to herself.
"Shure, and I'll not be having the interfarence of so many others whose rasponsability I don't be a-wanting; for the bairn, God save him, was afther being that kissed, his dinner wouldn't agray with him at all, at all. There was the cook and John's wife and John and the coach man and that ugly French Lizette (sorra a bit am I t6 be rid of her, the vain prig) would be all afther kissing him until he'd be that sick his milk would curdle in him, and for the loife of me I couldn't be kaping the clothes clane on him with all their crumpling and handling; and it's glad that I am entirely, the saints save us, having him to mesilf, the blissed child!"
The rooms were comfortable, and we found the long veranda, where we spent our evenings and most of our mornings, not only a very pleasant change, but a source of amusement as well. My curiosity was greatly excited concerning our neighbors on the left. I was uncertain how many there were of them, though I put them down in my mind as not less than half a dozen.
The first morning these " Left-handers," as I called them, were as silent as the grave till about noon, when, all at once, without any premonitory noises, they com menced a most animated conversation, interspersed with laughter, mirthful and scornful. Then the tones of their voices would change from anger to reproach and then to grief, so that at one time I was so full of sympathy with the poor man who was being driven out into the cold world that it was all I could do not to go in and plead for him; but while I was hesitating all became quiet. I sup-
' ' A SHILLING A D OZEN. "—OUR LEFT-HANDERS, J I
posed he was gone and all was over with him, and invol untarily I offered up a prayer — all the help I could give.
Imagine, if you can, my surprise when the next morn ing at a little later hour I heard a repetition of the same painful scene. The poor man had returned, I reasoned. Taking them all together, I thought they certainly were a most curious family, and I determined to enlist my hus band's interest as soon as he came in. Something had prevented my telling him the day before. That evening as we were sitting on the veranda I carried my resolution into effect and, though he listened with his usual sweet patience, my description of the disturbance, to my sur prise, excited in him more mirth than sympathy.
Just as I had finished telling him, our baby was brought in to be enjoyed and put to sleep. "The little pig went to market," "the mouse ran up the clock," "the cock horse" was ridden "to Banbury Cross," and after innum erable " Hobble-de-gees," baby was ready, and so were we, for his "Bye Baby Bunting."
When his sweet little "ah-ah-ah" accompanying ours grew fainter and fainter, we began to sing in the Chinook jargon the Lord's Prayer, which my husband had taught to so many of the Indians on the Pacific coast, and which we always sang at the last to make baby's sleep sound. At the words, " Kloshe mika tumtum kopa illahie, kahkwa kopa saghalie" (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven), from through the open door of the room to our left a voice clear and sweet joined in the same jargon with ours to "Our Father," and as the last invocation was chanted, " Mahsh siah kopa nesika konaway massachie — Kloshe kahkwa " (Send away far from us all evil — Amen), a handsome stranger stepped out and, with outstretched hand, said to the General, with great cordiality, " Klahowya sikhs, potlatch lemah" (How do you do, friend; give me
72 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
your good hand). Then followed a conversation between them about the Pacific coast, Fort Vancouver, San Juan Island, Puget Sound, the Snohomish tribe and their many mutual friends of the Salmon Illehe.
All the while I was wondering what could have become of the other family — if they could have gone — and yet now and then I caught a tone in his voice as he talked to my husband, that sounded very similar to the tones of the man in trouble belonging to them, though I did not see how it would be possible for any one to drive, or wish to drive, him out of their home. When, after awhile, 1 came in for the compliments of the season, my astonish ment knew no bounds when I learned that he had been the sole occupant of that room since Sunday night.
The clock in the court struck seven. Rising hastily, and with many apologies, this strange-family man wrote something on his card, and handing it to my husband, said, "I am playing at the theater here, to-night — come and see me," and was gone.
To this kind stranger, William Florence, I was in debted for my first taste of the pleasures of the theater. Almost every evening he, with our permission, joined us on the veranda, shared our play with baby, cheered and entertained the General, and kindly took us afterward to seethe play. Yet, during the whole of his stay — four days — he never once, in the most remote way, intruded himself upon our confidence; and though he knew there was some mystery, in his innate delicacy he made no allusion to it.
On Saturday evening, when his engagement was over and he came to say good-by, after lingering over the pleasant evenings we had passed together, and putting great stress upon the benefit they had been to him, he stopped abruptly, saying:
1 ' A SHILLING A D OZEN. "—OUR LEFT-HANDERS, ?$
"Confound it all! Forgive me, if I put my foot in it — but here is something to buy a rattle for the youngster. I swear I absolutely have no use for it. In fact, I never had so much money at one time before in my whole life, and it belongs by rights to the young rascal; for, if it had not been for the 'cat's in the fiddle,' the 'cow jumping over the moon,' 'getting the poor dog a bone,' and 'Our Father who art in heaven,' I should have spent every red cent of it on the fellows. Please — I insist," he said, as my husband refused. " I know you have had more money than you seem to be bothered with now; take this/'
Though we were both very much touched by the kind generosity of this stranger in a strange land, the General was firm in his refusal.
" Well, good-by, and good luck to you," he said. " You are as obstinate as an 'allegory on the banks of the Nile.' Here it goes," putting the fifty dollars back into his pocket, and turning to me, with a tone I so well remem bered, he wished me happiness.
"Good-by, "I said; "may 'Our Father' who art in heaven and his little ones whom he says 'suffer to come unto me,' keep your heart thoughtful for others, and gen tle and kind all through this life. Believe in soul and be very sure of God."
In all the years that came afterward, the friendship formed then between my husband and our first "Left hander" was never broken — and to me it was a legacy.
The following week I noticed his rooms were taken by a very strangely acting lady and gentleman. I saw there were two of them this time. The second evening, as I was putting baby, who was unusually restless and fretful and would not be amused or comforted, to sleep, the queer lady, with a " Banquo-is-buried-and-can-not-come- out-of-his-grave " tone and manner, said, "The child — is't
74 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
ill, or doth it need the rod withal?" Whether the child needed "the rod with all" or Mrs. Winslow's soothing- syrup, he stopped crying at once, and while she talked on, never took his startled eyes from her face till he wearily closed them, hypnotized to sleep.
"Hast thou a nurse — one that thou call'st trust worthy?" she asked, after I had put baby in his little bed.
"Yes, madam," I answered — "one whose love makes her so."
"It is well," she said, "and if thou dost not fear to leave the watch with her, wilt thou and thy husband come as our guests to see our Hamlet as we have conceived him to be?"
It was the first of Shakespeare 'splays I had ever seen, and my blood ran cold as I breathlessly watched the portrayal of it by these, the most celebrated actors of their day (Charles Kean and his wife, Ellen Tree), and with talents so versatile that I cried over the tragedy as if my heart would break, and laughed with equal heartiness over "Toodles," the farce which followed.
At the close of the play the actress brought her hus band into the box and introduced him. Unlike her, he did all his acting on the stage, while she stabbed her po tatoes and said, "What! no b-e-a-n-s?"
We accepted their kind invitation to share their car riage back to the house, and enjoyed, too, some of the delicious supper prepared for them. It was their last year on the stage, and I never saw them again, though I treasure their little keepsake, given me in exchange for one not half so pretty, and gratefully remember the pleasure they put into our lives during the days they were our "Left-handers."
Among others, there came in time that king of come dians, noble in mind as he was perfect in art, Joe Jeffer-
• ' A SHILLING A D OZEN. "—OUR LEFT-HANDERS. 7 5
son. He was accompanied by his wife, a fascinating, motherly little woman.
The second morning after meeting them, I, in compli ment to her inquiries about my baby, asked after their lit tle dog, to whom I had heard her husband talking as if it had been a child.
She laughed and explained "Schneider," and told me the story which has since become the property of the newspapers, about how the great comedian had been identified to the entire satisfaction of the bank-teller by means of this same "Schneider," the most wonderful dog that ever existed in the human mind.
Nor did this pleasant acquaintance end with our Canadian experience. The next time we saw Joe Jeffer son was in Richmond, where he gave a performance and turned over the whole proceeds to a war-ruined Confeder ate, and all in such a quiet manner as to fulfill the spirit of the Scriptural injunction regarding the right and left hands. The kindness which was shown by the wealthy tobacconist — the seeming favorite of fortune — to the poor lad in the beginning of that career the distinction of which, even then, one could foretell, was thus gracefully repaid a thousand times by the successful actor.
Our landlady made a tour of inspection of all the rooms every Friday, but to us she made her visits longer each time, showing a growing interest in our affairs. She could not solve the mystery of our having come from such a palatial home to her boarding-house. Then, too, one of my "shilling visitors" happening to be the Gov ernor-General, and another an English officer, they were also a cause of wonder. She was so insistent in this un bounded curiosity that we were compelled to seek a larger house where we should be more lost sight of, espe cially as just at. this time two prominent Southern gen-
/6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
tlemen, Mr. Beverly Tucker and Mr. Beverly Saunders, had been gagged and taken through the lines, though their release was immediately demanded by the English government.
Much to my husband's relief, I volunteered to assume the disagreeable task of notifying her, which notice she seemed intuitively to have anticipated and determined to thwart by telling of her troubles, all of which she laid at "that Johnson's" (her husband's) door.
" He is got so high-minded now," she said, " he refuses to blacken all the boots at night — leaves the top floor ones till morning. Wants to set up-stairs with me and the girls, instead of staying down in the kitchen, looking for chaws and to be handy; expects us to hunt tins to shine and mend, and nails to drive; won't eat the board ers' leavings; reads the Stateser's newspaper that he sends to his girl; sets on it when he hears us coming; took money from Stateser, too, and was that sly he was going to spend it on himself, and I giving him all he needs."
Taking advantage of her pause for sympathy, I edged in my notice. She immediately put all the blame of our going on "that Johnson," and, though I assured her that he had nothing whatever to do with it, wailed:
"You can't fool us, you can't fool us — he drives every boarder out of the house."
Our next rooms opened on the Champs de Mars, the attractions of which in part made up for the loss of the veranda, but not for that of our " Left-handers," who had come and gone, making oases in our lives.
CHAPTER XL
BORN WITH EMERALDS — NEMO NOCETUR.
"Cast away this cloudy care — come, look at the sol diers," I said, as I saw a shadow in the General's smile and heard a sigh, when the music, almost under our very windows, signaled the hour for dress-parade.
The shapeless, senseless ghost of despair vanished with my entreaties, as we stood at the window and watched the soldiers, keeping time with them to step and tune outwardly, while hiding the muffled sound within, each playing we were enjoying it, without one marring thought of the crumpled-browed past, trying to fool each other till we really fooled ourselves. It was with thank fulness that I saw the General watch with unfeigned in terest the maneuvers of the soldiers, day after day, and pleasantly welcome reveille and tattoo. Our baby learned to march almost before he walked.
While we were enjoying our congenial surroundings and each other, spite of poverty, fears for the future, and grief for the past, my husband became very ill. In the crisis of his illness, while he required all my attention, our baby was seized with croup. The kind old English man, recommended by my good friends, was very at tentive, but failed to inspire me with my wonted faith. The chief reason, I think, must have been that he was not called "Doctor," but "Mister." For two weeks he came once, and sometimes twice, a day, going first to* see and bring me news of baby, who had been kindly taken by our friends to their home to be cared for. I
77
7§ PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
^|
was a source of unending amusement, an unsolvable mystery, to the English doctor, though we were very good friends.
During all this long illness I never once stopped to consider the cost of anything, whether it were food, medi cines or delicacies of any kind, if prescribed or sug gested, but purchased regardless of expense. When the danger was past, and our board bill was sent up, I counted over our little store and found there was not enough left to meet it.
My husband was still too ill to be annoyed or troubled about anything, and with the bill hidden away in my pocket, I was making a plan of battle and maneuvering how I could fight my way out of the intrenchments, when he noticed that I was looking pale, and suggested that I go out for a little fresh air.
Eagerly taking advantage of the excuse thus offered, I put on my bonnet and went down to the office and took from my box in the safe an old-fashioned set of emeralds and, asking the proprietor to direct me to the most reliable jeweler and to send some one to sit with my husband until my return, I went out.
I had had very little experience in buying of mer chants, and none whatever in selling to them, but I feigned great wisdom and dignity as I told the young man who stepped forward to wait upon me that my busi ness was with the head of the firm. He took me back to an inner office, where an old man with grizzly-gray hair and a very moist countenance was looking intently through something, which very much resembled a napkin-ring screwed into his right eye, at some jewels lying on a tray before him. He wore his teeth on the outside of his mouth, and his upper lip was so drawn, in the intensity of his look, as to be almost hidden under his overreach-
B ORN WITH EMERALDS — NEMO NO CE TUR. 79
ing nose. His face, too, was wrinkled up into a thou sand gullies in his concentration upon his work.
''We don't hemploy young women 'ere," he said, looking up and frowning as he suddenly became aware of my presence.
"I came," I explained, taking out my emeralds and handing them to him, "to ask you if you would not, please, sir, kindly buy some of these stones from me, or, at least, advance me some money on them."
"This is not a pawnbroker's shop, heither, mum," he replied, as he carefully examined the jewels, and then, suddenly popping the napkin-ring out of his eye, turned both of the piercing little gray twinklers upon me and said:
"Where did you get these hemeralds from, miss?"
"I was born with them, sir," I said, indignantly.
Either from my appearance, or for some other cause, he became suddenly suspicious, and not only would not purchase them of me, but refused to let me have them till I could prove my right to them. I was too young and inexperienced to be anything but furious, and the bitter, scalding tears that anger sometimes unlocks to re lieve poor woman's outraged feelings, were still falling fast when I reached the hotel with the clerk whom the jeweler had sent back with me that I might prove by the proprietor my ownership of the jewels with which I was born.
He, in his sympathy, shared my anger and, after ex pressing his sincere regret that I should have been sub jected to such an indignity, advised, as he snatched the case from the clerk with a withering look of scorn trans lated into more emphatic language, that I should look carefully over them to be sure that neither this hireling nor his master had abstracted any of the stones, for his experience had been that suspicion was born of guilt.
80 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
As he again locked up my emeralds irf his safe he kindly asked how much money I needed, and begged that in the future I would permit him to advance for me if I should need any, and furthermore, "as to the board and expenses here," he said, " Mr. Edwards and I will ar range all that when he is well — entirely well."
Through the goodness of God and the skill of my kind physician, my loved ones were spared to me, and one day, some time after they were well, as I was reading the paper to my husband, I chanced across an advertise ment for a teacher of Latin in Miss Mclntosh's school. The professor was going abroad and wanted some one to take his place during his absence. The chuckle of de light which I involuntarily gave as I read it, provoked from the General the remark that I was keeping some thing very good all to myself. I slyly determined that this little suspicion should be verified and that I would make an application at once for the position; then, if I should fail, I alone would suffer from the disappointment. So, just as soon as I could arrange it, I donned my best clothes, assumed a most dignified mien, went to the num ber advertised and asked to see the professor.
I was shown into the primmest of parlors — the kind of room one feels so utterly alone in, without even the suspicion of a spirit around to keep your own spirit com pany. Each piece of furniture was placed with mathe matical precision, and all was ghost-proof. The proprie tress, who came in response to my call, seemed put up in much the same order. She was tall and angular, and her grizzly-red hair was arranged in three large puffs (like fortifications, I thought) on each side of her long, thin face, high cheek-bones, Roman nose, and eyes crowded up together under gold-rimmed spectacles. As she held my card in her hand and looked at me with a narrow-gauge
BORN WITH EMERALDS— NEMO NOCETUR. 8 1
gaze, piercing my inmost thoughts, and with that dis couraging " Well !-what-can-I-do~for-you?" expression, I felt all my courage going. My necessities aroused me from my cowardice, and I said as bravely as I could:
" I have had the good fortune to read your advertise ment, madam, in the paper this morning, and have come in answer to it. May I see the professor?"
Looking curiously at my card and then over her glasses at me, she said, in a voice like an animated telephone through which some one was speaking at the other end:
"The advertisement was for a teacher, not for a pupil."
"I am perfectly aware of that," I answered, "and came in response, to offer my services to the professor."
A most quizzical expression bunched up the corners of her mouth and wiggled across her little colorless eyes, as she said:
"I will send the professor down to you."
Looking over her spectacles again, as if for a verifica tion of her first impression of me, she was gone.
Returning after a little while, she said:
"The professor requested me to ask if you would be so good as to come up into the recitation-room."
I saw as soon as I had entered that a description of me had preceded my coming, and not a very flattering one, either, I judged, from the faces of the professor and the pupils.
The class consisted of fourteen young ladies, all of them apparently older than I was. The professor fin ished the sentence he was translating on the board, rubbed it out, wiped his hands on the cloth, replaced it, came forward and was duly presented by Miss Mclntosh, who remained in the room. He had a pleasant, round, smooth face, a bald head and large gray eyes, was short and stout, with a sympathetic, cultured voice and manner.
82 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
" Miss Mclntosh tells me you came in reply to my ad vertisement. I have been forced to advertise in order to save time, as my going abroad is unexpected and brooks no delay."
" I am very glad you had no option but to advertise, else it might not have been my good fortune to know of, and respond to, your wants, sir."
" And you have really come to apply for the position ? " he asked.
" I have, sir."
The expression on Miss Mclntosh's face, the nudging and suppressed titter among the pupils which this an swer brought forth was not calculated to lessen my em barrassment.
" Have you had any experience in teaching?"
"No, sir," I said.
" May I ask where you were educated."
" At home, except for two years, sir," I answered. <( Then I went to Lynchburg College, where I was graduated."
"Is that in England?"
"Oh, no, sir," said I, with astonishment at his igno rance, and then recollecting myself just as I was about to inform him that Lynchburg was the fifth town in popu lation in Virginia, was on the south bank of the James River, one hundred and sixteen miles from the capital of the State, and within view of the Blue Ridge mountains and Peaks of Otter, I stopped short, embarrassed by my imprudence. The professor, taking no notice of my con fusion, went on to say:
"And so you were graduated there? My class here has just finished Caesar. Do you remember how Caesar commences? "
" Yes, sir," I said, and repeated: " Gallia est omnis di- visa in partes ires"
BORN WITH EMERALDS— NEMO NOCETUR. 83
"You have the Continental pronunciation, I see."
He gave me several sentences to translate; then an ode from Horace and some selections from Catullus and Tibullus. By this time the pupils were silent, and Miss Mclntosh's expression was changed.
He then asked me to write and parse a sentence, which I did, saying sotto voce as he took the chalk from me:
"That was a catch question."
" Please translate and parse this," said he, without noticing my aside, and he wrote in Latin, "The President of the United States said * nobody is hurt —
" Before he wrote any further, instead of translating, I looked up at him and said:
" But, oh, sir! somebody was hurt."
Quickly he cleared the board, put down the cloth, wiped his hands, turned his face to me and offering his hand, said, not to my surprise, because I had faith in prayer, but rather to that of Miss Mclntosh and the young ladies:
" I will engage you, Mrs. Edwards, and will be respon sible for you."
We then went down to the parlor, and I gave him the names of the only friends I had in Montreal of whom he could make inquiries regarding me. The next day I gave my first lesson to the class. I became very fond of them all and, after my embarrassment of the first few days, got along very well with them.
The General was very curious to know where I went every day, but, knowing it gave me great pleasure to be thus mysterious, humored me and asked no questions.
My first month's salary was spent in part payment on an overcoat for him, and only Our Father and the angels know what joy filled my heart, that with the work of my hands I could give him comfort. Then my secret was out.
84
PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
I was sorry when the cold weather came. The snows not only put an end to the military reviews, but covered up the beautiful green. There were very few diversions for us, but I was just as happy as it was possible for me to be. Indeed, those were the very happiest days of my whole life, and I was almost sorry when General Rufus Ingalls wrote a letter to my husband, inclosing a kind personal letter from General Grant, together with the fol lowing official assurance of his safety:
cml $nnrtcis
BORN WITH EMERALDS— NEMO NOCETUR. 85
General Grant also wrote that it had not been at all necessary for us to go away in the first place, and that the terms of his cartel should have been respected, even though it had necessitated another declaration of war.
We stopped in New York en route to Virginia, ex pecting to remain there only three or four days, but we found that our board had been paid in advance for two weeks, that a carriage had been put at our service for that length of time, and that in our box was a pack of wine- cards marked "Paid." To this day I do not know how many people's guests we were, for a great many of Gen eral Pickett's old army friends were there at the time, and they all vied with each oth.r in making it pleasant and happy for us.
CHAPTER XII.
TURKEY ISLAND.
As soon as we could make our plans we went down to Turkey Island, our plantation on the banks of the James River. A rough cottage, hastily built, stood on the site of the grand old colonial mansion burned by Butler. Around it were the great melancholy stumps of the old oaks and elms which Butler had seen fit to cut down.
Turkey Island, called by the Federal soldiers Turkey Bend, is in Henrico County, which is one of the original shires into which Virginia was divided in 1634.
Historic Richmond, the State capital, a town estab lished in the reign of George II., on land belonging to Colonel Byrd, is its county-seat. Brandon, the home of the Harrisons; Shirley, the home of the Carters; and Westover, the home of the Byrds, where Arnold landed on the 4th of January, 1781, and proceeded on his march toward Richmond, are neighboring plantations; and Mal- vern Hill, where one of our internecine battles was fought, adjoins Turkey Island.
Not far distant is the famous Dutch Gap canal, the useful legacy which Butler left to the State of Virginia, and which, in the advantages it gave the commonwealth, to some extent atoned to my General for the destruction of the Pickett home.
Diverting his troops for a time from wanton spolia tion, Butler set them to digging a canal at Dutch Gap to connect the James and Appomattox, thereby shortening
86
TURKE Y ISLAND. 8 J
by seven miles the road to Richmond, and placing the State traffic under a permanent obligation to his memory. To protect his men while they worked, he stationed his prisoners in the trench beside them, in order that the Confederates might not yield to the otherwise irresistible temptation to fire upon them.
Butler may not have been gifted with that fascinating suavity of demeanor which is necessary to render a man an ever-sparkling ornament to society, but, from a prac tical, business point of view, he was not wholly destitute of commendable qualities. His Dutch Gap canal is not only a lasting monument to his progressive spirit, but a benefit to commerce, and an interesting feature which has attracted visitors from many nations.
Out on a point of the plantation, back from the river in a clump of trees — the beginning of the big woods — is still standing a most interesting monument. The top of it was broken off by Butler's troops in a search for hid den treasure. It was erected by William and Mary Ran dolph in 1771. The following is a copy of the inscription on one of its sides:
The foundation of this pillar was laid in 1771, when all the great rivers of this country were swept by inundations never before experi enced; which changed the face of nature and left traces of their violence that will remain for ages.
My first visit to this monument is one of the sweetest memories of my Turkey Island life. I had gone with my husband to hunt rabbits and birds — a hunt more for the meat than for the sport in those poverty-stricken days, when our larders were greatly dependent upon the water and the woods.
The day was fine, and the dew was yet glistening as we came suddenly and without warning within touch of
00 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
the gray, broken monument shut in and surrounded by the great forest trees. In silence and solemn awe, in the strange light and sudden cool beneath the shadows my hero-soldier stacked his gun and, raising his cap, he gently and silently reached for my hand. I slipped it into his and drew close to him. A bird was singing in the distance.
"God's choir," he said, and in his beautiful voice sang his favorite hymn, "Guide me, O, thou great Jehovah." Then he taught me these lines:
The groves are God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them — ere he framed
The lofty vault to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication.
" Is not that monument one of the oldest in Virginia?"
1 asked of my General, who, I believed, knew everything.
" No," he said. " There are many older, but the oldest one in the United States, I believe, is one erected to a poor fellow who died on your birthday. It is on the banks of Neabsco Creek in Fairfax County. Once when I was on furlough Snelling and I came across it and copied it down. The poor fellow was a companion of John Smith. The inscription on the monument simply said:
"'Here lies ye body of Lieut. William Herris, who died May 16, 1608, aged 65 years; by birth a Briton; a good soldier, a good husband and neighbor.'"
These rambles over the fields and woods, through the clover and sweetbrier, keeping step and chitting with my General where he, as a boy, had often tramped with his
TURKEY ISLAND. 89
father, are among the blessedest of my blessed memories. My husband's classic taste and perfect harmony and sim ple, pure heart made him a great lover of nature, and the trees and the plants, the stones, the sod, the ground, the waters, the sky, and all living animals, were his kin.
Though my warrior was a lion in battle, he was gentle, amiable, good-humored, affectionate, and hospitable in his home. The same exuberant and hopeful spirit which cheered and encouraged his soldiers in the field was felt in his home life. All the world are witnesses of his pa triotism and unselfishness, as he offered his life for the success of the cause in which he had faith. He was never disheartened by the most complicated difficulties. Un spoiled by fame, just and loyal, he deserved the love he received — for he was worshiped by his family, idolized by his soldiers, honored by all parties and all nations — my brave warrior, as simple as a child, as high-minded as he of whom the word-magician said:
Every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man.
It was here, on the site of the old home, beautiful still, though so sadly changed, among the dead stumps where once waved the foliage of the magnificent ancestral trees, we began to write our story for our children and, as the General said, " for the children of the old division, if it is good enough."
Far away from our dear old Turkey Island and the sweet old days I finish the task which we, in happy mood, set for ourselves.
CHAPTER XIII.
MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS.
" Right or wrong, my country." Statesmen may argue — soldiers must fight.
When in 1819 the United States, in the exuberance of her territorial wealth, voluntarily threw Texas into the hands of Spain as a bonus for the cession of Florida, for which adequate compensation had been already given, it would have taken a far-sighted statesman to foretell that the lavish extravagance would sometime furnish occasion for an unjust war of aggression.
The seeds were sown then with spendthrift hand, to be reaped in a harvest of darkness little more than a quarter of a century later and, whatever a soldier may have thought of the justice of the cause, his duty was to follow his flag.
The West Point class of 1846 probably held that all that "pomp and circumstance of glorious war" was set upon the stage especially for their instruction and em ployment. Whether it was or not, that fortunate class was ushered upon the scene just in time to get the full benefit of the situation.
Thus it happened that when General Scott led to the siege of Vera Cruz his devoted band of warriors, accompanied by a pontoon-train, " to cross rivers," in a region conspicuously devoid of those picturesque physical features, Lieutenant George E. Pickett, just from West Point, was one of the number. I quote from a letter just received from Major Edwin A. Sherman,
90
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rJS.
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which ai it would that the
occaso
o
. issation Had been* already g a far-sighted statesman to foretell extravagance would sometime furnish unjust war of aggression,
e sown then with sr ~> be
~st of darkness iiitle more -than *. <{*&rtef ter and, whatever a tidier s*a« h»vc ^tice oi the cause, h
that "p upon t] ployme
us it ii'iij iege of V'
icd b
int class of 1846 probably held tital all circumstance of glorious wa* " wns set especially for their instruction and em 2th"er it was or not, that fortunate class n the scene just in time to get the full
>n.
tijcd that *hcn General Scott Ie<l U»
«a CTM» J«^ $e#oted band ol w^flhNW%
i t " to cro- ir
/
MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. QI
of California, a comrade of Lieutenant Pickett in those early days:
I knew the gallant George E. Pickett when he first received his commission as second lieutenant in the United States army and joined his regiment, the Eighth United States Infantry, Colonel and Brevet Major-General William J. Worth, soon after the battle of Monterey; and at Saltillo, Mexico, under General Zachary Taylor; and under Gen eral Winfield Scott from Vera Cruz to the capture of the City of Mexico.
He was in the first line in order of landing on the beach of Collado on the gth of March, 1847, when the setting sun was reflected from the silvery crown of Ori zaba, the batteries of San Juan de Ulloa frowning down upon the intruders and giving them grim welcome with a menacing salute of heavy guns.
On March 22 General Scott summoned the city of Vera Cruz and the castle to surrender, an invitation which was declined with that distinguished politeness which marks the bearing of the Spaniard, whether in the sunny land of the ancient Castilian, or the more rugged sur roundings which environ the inhabitants of the Spanish regions of the New World.
Unfortunately for the gallant little city of Vera Cruz, revolutions do not stop in Spanish- American countries for a slight circumstance like a foreign invasion. Invasions are, in a manner, accidental and epidemic in character — revo lutions are endemic, perennial, and necessary to civic and aesthetic existence. The only time that a Spanish-Ameri can may be said to be in danger of falling into melan cholia and contracting hypochondriac dyspepsia is in the accidental interlude that may once in a very great while intervene between revolutions.
One of these festivities was at that time prevailing in the City of Mexico, and the brave little town of Vera Cruz, with its garrison of thirty-three hundred and sixty
92 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
men, counting the castle force, was left to cht>ose between death and the eternal stain of infamy which would blot her honor if she tamely surrendered. She chose death.
The sister city of Puebla, having a vacation between revolutions, sent twenty thousand dollars to assist in pre paring for the siege, and medical and surgical supplies were procured with money gained by the ladies of Vera Cruz by means of amateur theatrical performances. Per haps it is well for the race that the human mind does not lose its interest in the mimic stage even in the presence of the most solemn and impressive tragedy of real life.
With a thorough knowledge of the fact that the city could not be successfully defended by an inside force, even though it had been much larger than it actually was, heroic little Vera Cruz shut herself up within her old Spanish walls to die for honor.
For seven days the doomed city endured a combined assault of Scott's army and a terrific tempest of wind and sand which nature had precipitated upon the unfortunate little town. On the morning of the 2Qth of March the garrison marched out with all the honors of war through the Gate of Mercy, stacked arms in the Plain of Cocos, the lowered colors saluted by a conqueror whose respect and admiration could withhold no honor which might be granted to a vanquished but not inglorious foe.
It may be interesting to the reader of subsequent his tory to note that the batteries turned with such telling effect against the courageous little garrison of Vera Cruz were arranged by Robert E. Lee, captain of engineers, a member of General Scott's military staff, with the assist ance of Lieutenant Beauregard.
Plucky little Vera Cruz having been disposed of, Gen eral Scott started on a northwest march, his object being the City of Mexico, two hundred miles away. Santa Anna
MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. 93
had some days the start of him, and when the division of General Twiggs reached the pass of Cerro Gordo he found there a battery and a hostile line crossing the road.
Captain Joseph E. Johnston, topographical engineer, discovered these obstacles to comfortable progress, hav ing the misfortune, while prospecting for them, to arrest two musket-balls proceeding on their lively way. Some of us may be impressed by the fact that Joseph E. early formed the habit of stopping musket-balls, and that it lingered with him uncomfortably until a much later period in his military career.
Santa Anna, being aware of these explorations on the part of the invader, spent the I2th of August in examin ing his lines and preparing for an attack the next day. Having attended to his military duties, he dined with his staff and high officers, enjoying the patriotic music of his fine band, and congratulating himself and his friends upon the prospect of having yellow fever as a valuable ally in fighting the enemy, a pious aspiration which has since been known to bring solace to the Spanish mind.
The longed-for ally did not appear in time to be of service, and the next day the crags of Cerro Gordo, through which Santa Anna had said "not even a goat could pick his way," were overrun with the soldiers of General Shields. Santa Anna's chief of cuirassiers, Velasco, fell at the foot of Telegrafo; and Vasquez, the central hero of the Mexican army, the admiration of friend and foe alike, surrounded by the guns of his bat tery, had the happiness to meet a soldier's glorious death.
In the rocky cliffs of the Telegrafo, Captain John B. Magruder gave evidence of those fighting qualities which were afterward to be used against the flag for which he was now doing such valiant battle.
94 PICK'S TT AND HIS MEN.
The way to Mexico was opened on the igth and 20th of August by the battle of Contreras, in which our young Second-Lieutenant Pickett received his first wound in the service of his country. This experience, however, did not prevent his doing good work at the battle of Churubusco, he being in one of the two regiments which crossed the Rio Churubusco and held the causeway which led to the city. The historian says:
Brevet-Major George Wright, Captains Bumford and Larkin Smith, First Lieutenant and Adjutant James Longstreet, Second Lieutenants James G. S. Snelling and George E. Pickett, of the Eighth Infantry, were all distinguished at this point.
There is more than one name in that list of the glorious old Eighth which will be seen again in the record of the nation's history. The brevet which Lieutenant Pickett received for distinguished gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco must have had as much influence as the min istrations of the surgeons in healing all his wounds.
He was more fortunate in the battle of El Molino del Rey from which, though he was one of the storming party that Worth sent against the mill in this most bloody of the battles of the Mexican war, he emerged without a scratch. His brother lieutenant, J. G. S. Snelling, was less happy, being severely wounded in the charge.
After this battle, which resulted in the complete rout of the Mexican army, Santa Anna, to revive the sinking spirits of his people, proclaimed that he had won a great victory. This circumstance may serve to recall to the mind of the reader of recent events the old adage, " His tory repeats itself."
East of Molino del Rey was a magnificent grove of cypress trees planted by the kings away back in the days of Aztec glory. Here Montezuma had his villa, Chapul-
MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. Q5
tepee, "the hill of the grasshopper," and here, on the morning of July 13, 1847, ^e^ the last descendant of that brave old monarch, fighting with the usurpers under whose cruel hand had sunk the glory of his great ancestor.
Chapultepec was the key to the City of Mexico and, as it stood in sullen strength, crowned by batteries, sur rounded by breastworks and defended by mines, it must have seemed to the observer that the capital was securely locked and bolted.
Fourteen hours of steady fire on the I2th of Septem ber prepared the way for the grand assault of the I3th. In this attack Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. Johnston led one column. Lieutenant Lewis A. Armistead, of the Sixth Infantry, was the first to leap into the great ditch sur rounding the fortress.
Ascending the hill to the castle, Lieutenant James Longstreet was severely wounded, and was carried off the field by Captain Bumford. As he fell Lieutenant Pickett sprang to his place and led on the men. The colors of the regiment were borne by Corporal McCauly of Company I, who fell wounded, being the sixth color-bearer to be shot within five days. Lieutenant Pickett seized the flag, carried it as he charged up the height, and, while the battle raged below, took down the Mexican standard and planted the colors of the Eighth Regiment with the national flag in triumph on the summit of the castle of Chapultepec. For this act of gallantry he was brevetted captain.
Mr. Sherman says of Lieutenant Pickett at this time:
In all the battles from the siege of Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Chu- rubusco, and Molino del Rey, when he was the first to plant the American flag and the colors of his regiment upon the parapet of the castle of Chapultepec, to the surrender of the City of Mexico, he carved a path way of glory and fame in the years of his younger manhood, that com manded the admiration and pride of all who had the honor to serve with and under him to the entrance of the Halls of the Montezumas. His ex-
g PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
ample inspired the rank and file of his regiment to the highest pitch of courage and valor, that warranted the promotion of some of them from the ranks to commissioned officers in the army for gallantry upon the field of battle.
Lieutenant Jackson, later known to fame as "Stone wall," led a section of Magruder's artillery, and was bre- vetted major for skill and bravery.
The battle of Chapultepec was pervaded with a literary atmosphere by the presence of Captain Mayne Reid.
Having successfully turned the key, the American army proceeded to march on to the citadel by the way of the gates Belen and San Cosme. Over the Belen gate Quitman, after a fierce contest, waved the flag of the Palmetto regiment in token of victory.
The gallant Eighth was a part of the column led by Worth against the gate of San Cosme. In the fierce struggle which resulted in the surrender of the last bar rier to the Mexican capital, Lieutenant Pickett did valiant service, for which he has received honorable mention in history. On the night of the I3th Santa Anna evacuated the City of Mexico, and on the morning of the I4th Scott's army took possession of the Halls of the Monte- zumas.
Thus the curtain fell on the first act in the drama of the military career of the youthful warrior who was des tined to lead the greatest charge known to history.
After the close of the Mexican war Lieutenant Pickett served for a number of years in Texas and upon the southern frontier.
He commanded a company in the Ninth Infantry, which was recruited and organized at Old Point Comfort in the summer of 1855. Early in December the regiment was ordered to the Pacific coast by way of the Isthmus, and left Fortress Monroe on the St. Louis. Before it
MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. 97
reached the Isthmus it was divided, six companies under Colonel Wright being placed on one of the Pacific steam ers. Four companies, one of which was Captain Pick- ett's, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, set sail on another steamer.
The voyage to San Francisco, where the first stop was made, consumed between three and four weeks. Here the regiment was ordered to Oregon and Washington Territories, six companies going to Fort Vancouver, and four to Puget Sound.
Captain Pickett's company was one of those which went to the Sound, and was soon after stationed at Bel- lingham Bay, where their captain remained as command ing officer.
An Indian war was then raging, the tribes in all the region from California to British America, numbering about forty-two thousand warriors, having risen against the northwestern settlers. Opposed to this formidable array were fourteen hundred regulars and two thousand volunteers. Two years of warfare reduced the Indians to such a degree of submission that no tribe among them, except the Modocs, ever again made war.
Captain Pickett was greatly distinguished in this war, not only as a soldier, but as a promoter of the arts of peace. He made friends even of his enemies, learning the dialects of the different tribes, that he might be able to teach them better principles of life than any they had known.
Over them he exerted an almost mesmeric influence. The red men were all his friends, but the most devoted among them were the Nootkams and Chinooks, who greeted and spoke of him always as "Hyas Tyee," "Hyas Kloshe Tyee," "Nesika Tyee," "Great Chief," "Great Good Chief," "Our Chief." He translated into their own
98 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
tp jargon, and taught them to say, and to sing, some of our
most beautiful hymns and national airs, and the Lord's Prayer:
Nesika Papa klaksta mitlite kopa saghalie, tik-egh pee kloshe kopa nesika turn-turn Mika nem; Kloshe pee Kloshe Mika hyas Saghalie Tyee kopa konaway tilikum: Klosha kwah-ne-sum Mika turn-turn kopa illahie, kakwa kopa Mika saghalie. Potlatch konaway sun nesika muck- amuck pee chuck pee itl-wil-lie. Spose nesika mamook masachie, wake Mika hyas Saghalie Tyee hyas solleks, pee spose klaksta massachie kopa nesika, klaksta mitlite kee-kwi-he, nesika solleks kopa klaska. Mam-ook tip- shin nesika kok-shut. Mahsh siah kopa nesika kon-away massachie. Nesika turn-turn pee tik-egh. Wah-ne-sun. Kloshe kahkwa.
Our Father who lives in the far above, beloved and hallowed in our hearts [be] Thy name; Great and good Thou great The above Chief among all people: Good always Thy will upon earth as in Thy far above. Give every day our food and water and meat. If we do ill, [be] not Thou [the] great far above Chief very angry, and if any one evil towards us, not we angry towards them. Mend up our broken ways. Send away far from us all evil. Thine is the great strength and love. For all the suns. Good so.
When Captain Pickett quitted the Pacific coast he left no truer mourners than these simple aborigines, whose hearts had yielded to kindness as the flower opens to the gentle rays of the sun.
CHAPTER XIV.
SAN JUAN.
When Charles II., on the i6th of May, 1670, granted a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, composed of Prince Rupert and seventeen other enterprising spirits, with the primary object of "the discovery of a new pas sage into the South Sea," as the Pacific Ocean was then known, and the secondary purpose of trade with foreign countries, he did not look forward to the complications which would arise therefrom for future generations to un ravel. It was not a characteristic of the Stuarts to take thought of the morrow. They followed their own sweet will to-day, happy if on the morrow some other head came off instead of their own. In the case of the Hud son's Bay Company, in addition to other disadvantages, a nice piece of other people's property was lost to the English crown, an experience which is regarded as dele terious to the British constitution.
Charles II., like some other men, had come into the world nearly a century too late for the full perfection of his plans; that is, if he ever had any plans except for the extraction of as much amusement as possible out of the passing moment, and the murder of the unfortunate peo ple who had been most loyal to him in his exile. If his schemes included any permanent designs upon the north west coast of America, Alexander VI., Pope of Rome, had thwarted them by preceding the royal robber and making the most of the advantage which accrues to the man who is first upon the field, if he has the wit to
99
100 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
•I
comprehend his privileges and the force to seize upon them.
Under the papal bull of 1493, Spain claimed by dis covery the entire Pacific coast from Panama to Nootka Sound on Vancouver's Island, including harbors, islands and fisheries, and extending indefinitely inland, covering the original Oregon Territory, which contained Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia, up to fifty-four forty. Spain has never fallen behind the most enterpris ing regions of the world in the matter of claiming things. Her weakness lies mainly in respect to holding them.
In 1513, when, from a promontory, the delighted vision of Balboa first rested upon the peaceful waves of the Pacific, which by their gentle movement gave to the great sea its reposeful name, the discoverer of this majestic ocean took possession of it for his king as a private sea.
In 1558 that most distinguished pirate, Sir Francis Drake, visited the northwestern coast, and in 1579 he erected a monument there to signify the fact that he had graciously accepted the sovereignty of that region for his queen, who occasionally turned from her amiable vocation of cutting off the heads of her lovers and otherwise bringing those devoted victims to discomfiture, to the truly royal British diversion of accepting her neighbor's lands.
The first attempt of the English to open traffic on the northwestern coast met with opposition from the Spanish government, and for nearly two centuries the rival nations enjoyed the privilege, so dear to regal souls, of carrying on a desultory warfare over the territory occupied by beasts clothed in furs worth far more in the markets of the world than the human beings who, tortured by the greed and oppression of despotic European powers, might have found a refuge here.' It is not alone in the
SAN JUAN. JP1
nineteenth century that man has fallen below par in the market-place.
England claimed the right to the trade accruing from the facilities so lavishly afforded by nature on the north western coast, but when she attempted to enforce that al leged right Spain captured and confiscated her vessels. This action brought the question into the tangled web of diplomacy, wherein verbal niceties are skilfully made to do service instead of batteries and bayonets, as being safer and better adapted to the gradually deteriorating physiques of men.
In 1789 the issue was made at Nootka Sound. The younger Pitt, actuated by an inherited hatred of Spain, shaped the policy which ended in the Nootka treaty of 1790. There is no doubt as to the strength of Pitt's ani mosity to the rival country, but the power of his diplo macy may be questioned, in view of the fact that Great Britain failed in her effort to secure the coveted division of territory, and was granted only the right to navigate, trade and fish on the northwestern coast. The treaty was exclusively commercial, and in nowise territorial. Spain retained her sovereignty over all the land. Four years later Spain, without formally relinquishing her rights, withdrew from Nootka Sound and fixed her boundary at the present northern limit of California. This removed from the situation Spain as an actual claimant. This treaty was abrogated in 1796 by the war between England and Spain.
As a result of the fall of the French power in North America on the Plains of Abraham one sad September day in 1759, France transferred to Spain all her territorial possessions on the west of the Mississippi, being impelled thereto by the necessities of war and by the fear that her remaining American possessions might fall into British
PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
%
hands. She never recovered from this blow to her inter ests and her pride, and in 1800 was quite ready to accept the offer of the King of Spain to exchange Louisiana for Tuscany, in order to secure a bridal present for his daughter, who, having married too small a fraction of the earth for a royal potato-patch, must be provided with a piece of ground worth reigning over. This Spanish territory of Louisiana included the former territory of Oregon, and by this barter passed over to France.
Failing in his ambition to restore a grand new France in America, and fearing the growing encroachments of the English, Napoleon, in 1803, sold the territory to the United States, who, by this purchase, acquired all that Spain had ever held in the Northwest above the forty- second parallel, which Spain claimed extended to fifty- four forty. The claim to all the coast up to the forty-ninth parallel is made absolute by the fact that the treaty of Utrecht fixed the limit of the French possessions at that point, and when France yielded to Spain in 1762 all her possessions west of the Mississippi, Spain had constantly affirmed her title up to fifty-four forty. Subsequently she conveyed to France all her claim to the forty-ninth paral lel and it was afterward conveyed to the United States by France. In 1814 a new commercial treaty was made between Great Britain and Spain, reaffirming the Nootka treaty, which was a virtual concession by Great Britain of the claim of Spain to fifty-four forty. Anything that Spain owned beyond this was ceded to the United States by the Florida treaty of 1819, which transferred all the Spanish possessions north of forty-two.
These transactions left the question of boundary which followed the old Spanish claim to be settled by England, Russia and the United States, Russia's claim being based on the discoveries of Bering. Later Russia put forth a
SAN JUAN. 103
claim to all the northwest coast and islands north of lati tude fifty-one. John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, denied that Russia had any claim south of fifty-five. Great Britain also protested. The American objections were emphasized in 1823 by the Monroe Doctrine, which provided that the American continents were not to be considered subjects of colonization by any European power. It was finally agreed that the United States should not make claims north of fifty-four forty, nor the Russians south of that line. A like agreement was made with Great Britain, and the two were to continue ten years, with the privilege of navigation and trade where they had previously existed. At the end of the stipulated decade Russia served notice on the other two governments of the discontinuance of British and American trade and navi gation north of fifty-four forty.
Russia had previously established two posts in Cali fornia, the existence of which was an annoyance to Eng land, and after various devices for ridding the lower coast of the unwelcome intrusion, Russia agreed, at the re quest of the United States, to withdraw from California and relinquish all claim south of fifty-four forty. This removed Russia from the competition for Oregon, and left England and the United States to adjust the quarrel be tween themselves.
Among the claims made by Great Britain was that of the Columbia River, a claim based upon " original dis covery." There were other "original" things connected with this subject besides the "discovery"; in fact, much more "original" than the discovery.
Captain Robert Gray, of the American ship Columbia, found the river and gave it the name of his vessel. He afterward told Vancouver of the existence and location of the stream, whereupon Vancouver, with true British en-
IO4 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
terprise, went to the point designated and proceeded to discover the river with scientific precision and phenome nal keenness. It is possible that, to the obscure vision of an unenlightened world, such a "discovery" might not come strictly under the descriptive title of "original," but the English government promptly invested it with novelty by inventing a phase of "original discovery" henceforth to be known as "progressive." In the fine art of diplomatic verbiage England has always held the position of past master.
From this time Oregon furnished a subject of con tention for the statesmen of England and the United States. It lay like a smoldering fire, half darkened under its ashes until a little wind of excitement would blow suddenly against it and fan it into a vivid flame to burn brightly till the breeze shifted to some other quarter and the flame would sink again into a fitful slumber.
It was claimed by the United States that the Oregon country between forty-two and fifty-four forty was part of the Louisiana cession made by Napoleon in 1803. England refusing to recognize this claim, the question re mained unsettled until 1818, when a treaty of joint occu pancy was agreed upon, and renewed in 1827. The con ditions of this treaty were that there should be equality between the two nations in their occupancy of this terri tory. It is unnecessary to state that the equality, if it ever existed, soon disappeared. There may come a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb on some other condition than the one predicted by a modern prophet, that the lamb will be inside of the lion, but the lion in the case will not be of that species known as the British lion.
This situation, with all its discomforts, continued until the Presidential campaign of 1844, when the Democratic
SAN JUAN. IO5
platform sent the war-cry of " fifty-four forty or fight," resounding throughout the land.
This belligerent alternative was averted by the treaty of June 15, 1846, which drew the line of division south ward in such a way as to give the whole of Vancouver's Island to the English and reserve to the United States the archipelago of which San Juan Island is a part. This concession was made by the United States to avoid cut ting through Vancouver's and thus depriving the British of a part of the island. A few months later Great Britain manifested a desire to claim a line through Rosario Strait, near the continent, as the boundary, thus throwing all the islands of the Haro Archipelago within British juris diction. This attempt was promptly met by Mr. Ban croft, then minister to England, and for a time it was apparently abandoned.
In January, 1848, Mr. Crampton, the British minister to the United States, submitted a proposition which in volved the transference to Great Britain of all the islands in the Haro Archipelago.
In 1852 the Territory of Oregon included the Haro Archipelago in one of its counties. After this the Hud son's Bay Company, always the rival and enemy of the United States in the Northwest, established a post on San Juan.
This company had for nearly two centuries been the obstacle in the way of peace and progress in the North west. Prince Rupert and his seventeen capitalists had developed into a corporation as fiercely opposed to civi lization as modern monopolies have proven themselves. The Hudson's Bay Company was the precursor in the New World of the oil monopoly, the harbinger of the sugar trust. Like them, it laid its heavy hand upon every enterprise that might benefit the race. The desert
106 PICKET 'T AND HIS MEN.
•
that might have been developed into a flower-garden must be kept in its barrenness lest the bloom of the roses should attract some human interest beside the monstrous one of greed. The wilderness that might have given way to happy homes and golden fields of grain must be kept in its pristine stage of gloomy silence — not for the sake of the glory of its stately trees and the solemn grandeur of its mystic twilight aisles, nor for the melody of its birds and the grace and beauty of its wild-beast life. Not for any of these must nature forever reign queen of the North Pacific coast, but only that the steel trap of the hunter might never lack a victim, and the pockets of Prince Rupert's worthy descendants never go empty.
Since the bird of unwisdom saved the queen city of the world, and two great nations fought a bloody war on ac count of an old bucket, subjects usually regarded as trivial have been known to play important parts in the history of nations. The story of San Juan was enlivened by the festive gambols of a cheerful pig belonging to the Hud son's Bay Company. This enterprising animal had a habit of pursuing his useful vocation of rooting, in a gar den pertaining to Mr. Lyman A. Cutlar, an American occupant of the island. The relations of Mr. Cutlar to the invaded premises prevented his appreciating to their full worth the frugal virtues which in other circumstances might have won high respect. He remonstrated with the company to no effect and, taking the matter into his own hands, the unfortunate pig fell a victim, like many another innocent creature, to the strained political relations of the two rival nations.
Having permanently removed the pig as an animated factor ofj.dissension, Mr. Cutlar offered to pay twice the value of it by way of establishing amicable relations with its former owners. Pork had experienced a sudden rise
SAN JUAN. ID/
in the British market, and the worth of this particular sample had risen into the realm of international ethics and was not to be computed in terms of filthy lucre. The next day the British steamer Beaver brought an officer ashore to arrest Cutlar and take him to Victoria for trial. Pointing his rifle at the officer, Cutlar replied that they might take him to Victoria, but they would have to kill him first. The officer, not feeling quite safe in precipitating a crisis just then, withdrew, and the porcine incident was diplomatically regarded as closed.
When the northern part of Oregon was separated into a new Territory called Washington, the islands of the Archipelago were included in Whatcom County. In 1855 the Hudson's Bay Company refused to pay the taxes as sessed upon its property, and that property was adver tised and sold to meet the demand. In the correspond ence which ensued between the governors of Vancouver's Island and Washington Territory, the governor of Van couver's asserted his instructions to regard the islands as a part of the British dominion. Crampton laid this corre spondence before the State Department with a renc vval of his proposition for a joint commission to determine the boundary-line, suggesting "the expediency of the adoption by both governments of the channel marked as the only known navigable channel by Vancouver as that desig nated in the treaty." This meant to run the line through Vancouver's Strait and give up to Great Britain the Haro Archipelago.
On the nth of August, 1856, an act was passed au thorizing a commission to unite with similar officers ap pointed by the British government, each commissioner being instructed as to the duties he was t<* perform. Archibald Campbell was appointed commissioner on the part of the United States, with John G. Parke, chief as-
108 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
• tronomer and surveyor; and Captain James G. Prevost,
first commissioner for the British government, and Cap tain Richards, chief astronomer and surveyor of the British commission, as second commissioner.
On the 27th of June, 1857, the first official meeting of the joint commission was held. The British commander stated that he could do nothing until the arrival of Cap tain Richards. Having waited until the close of Octo ber, Captain Prevost decided to accept the coast-survey charts as accurate, and consented to adopt them for the determination of the boundary. On the 26th of October the commission met at Esquimalt Harbor, Vancouver's Island, with the understanding that they were invested with full powers. The discussion of the boundary ques tion was had with this understanding on the part of the United States commissioner.
As was to be expected, the commissioners failed to agree on the subject of a satisfactory boundary, it being somewhat difficult to interpret satisfactorily a treaty with some one who has in advance made up his mind, and openly declared his intention, as had the British com missioners, to accept only that interpretation which will award to him the subject-matter of contention. A decision which shall in no way rffect the claim of one of the parties to the dispute is scarcely worth the trouble of making.
The United States claimed the Canal de Haro as the boundary, because it was the main channel south of the forty-ninth parallel leading into the Strait of Fuca, and it would secure the sole object for which the line was deflected south from the forty-ninth parallel, that is, to give the whole of Vancouver's Island to Great Britain.
The British commissioner claimed Rosario Strait as the boundary, on the ground that it coincided with what he called "the very peculiar wording" of the treaty. He
SAN JUAN. IO9
assumed that the Rosario Strait answered to the require ment of the language, "separates the continent from Van couver's Island," whereas Canal de Haro merely "sepa rates Vancouver's Island from the continent," an illustra tion of the importance of linguistic purism in the science of diplomacy. As his nation had drawn up the treaty, and was therefore responsible for the peculiar wording, it was scarcely becoming in him to set forth that claim, in violation of the law of nations which provides that a difficulty of construction shall not be decided in favor of the nation creating the obscurity.
Being unable to support his claim, he offered as a substitute a smaller channel which would include San Juan in the British possessions. The United States com missioner refused to accept this compromise. The British commissioner had received rigid instructions, and had no power to accept any line that would not give San Juan to Great Britain. He said, "beyond what I now offer I can no further go."
It was only reasonable to suppose that the nearest natural boundary which would avoid the necessity of cutting Vancouver's Island would be the one sought. This boundary was the Canal de Haro. In the communi cation by Mr. McLane, who had been sent specially to Great Britain to aid in the negotiations, to Mr. Buchanan, then Secretary of State, he specifically mentions the ex tension of the line by the Canal de Haro and the Strait of Fuca to the ocean, no reference being made to Rosario. He states that this proposition now made by Lord Aber deen was suggested by his (Mr. McLane's) immediate predecessor as one which his government might accept. Again he refers to the modified extension of the line as being adapted to avoid the southern cape of Vancouver's Island.
I IO PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
Mr. Benton, in a speech in the Senate fn favor of the treaty, mentioned the slight deflection of the line with the object of avoiding the cutting of the south end of Vancouver's Island. Again he spoke of the line through the Channel de Haro, and stated that it pre served for the United States that cluster of islands be tween the Channel de Haro and the continent. Even Mr. Crampton, the British minister, did not claim that Rosario was the channel meant, but thought that it must refer to Vancouver's Channel, erroneously supposing it to be the only one answering the description which had up to that time been surveyed and used.
It is a noticeable fact that the Strait of Rosario did not appear upon any map, south of the forty-ninth paral lel, until it was needed by the British government to cut off a piece of somebody else s land, when it was hastily moved southward and dated back to a period antedating the treaty.
CHAPTER XV.
SAN JUAN CONTINUED.
In 1853 the Hudson's Bay Company sent an agent with a flock of sheep to take possession of San Juan Island, a very peaceable purpose to which to devote a territory sur rounded by such warlike associations. As it turned out, however, not even the pastoral symphony of bleating lambs could infuse harmony into the situation.
On the night of the 26th of July, in 1859, General Harney, commander of the Department of Oregon, stationed troops on the island. Captain Pickett and a co'mmand of sixty-eight men were silently transferred from the mainland and when the morning came were in possession of the disputed territory. As the bold Britons, one thousand nine hundred and forty strong, looked from their five ships of war coastward through the dawn and beheld this slight force, comfortable in the re flection that they had a cannon for every interloper there except two, they must have experienced something of the prospective triumph which swelled the heart of the giant in sacred story as he hastened to meet the shepherd youth armed with but a helpless-looking sling and stone. Later in the game they had yet more reason to remember the experience of that famous champion, and draw dis couraging parallels.
To a proposition from the English commander for a joint military occupation of San Juan, Captain Pickett replied:
"As a matter of course, I, being here under orders from
112 PICKETT AND HIS MEN.
my government, can not allow any joint occupation until so ordered by my commanding general."
The English captain said, "I have one thousand men on board the ships ready to land to-night."
" Captain, you have the force to land, but if you under take it I will fight you as long as I have a man."
"Very well," answered Hornby, "I shall land them at once."
"If you will give me forty-eight hours," said Captain Pickett, "till I hear from my commanding officer, my orders may be countermanded. If you don't, you must be responsible for the bloodshed that will follow."
"Not one minute," was the English captain's reply.
Captain Pickett gave orders for the drawing up of his