Part 4 (1/2)

The music book was returned to me by his sister, but whatever the secret was that he had carried so many years, it died with him, for no one else knew it.

After his death his sister asked me to visit her. She said my name was so often on her brother's lips, and she only knew he wanted to communicate something of importance, but what it was he had never told her. He was a prominent man in the army. She sent me his photograph and the notice of his death.

You can imagine this incident brought back many memories. What could have been the dying soldier's communication that Captain Rife wished so much to tell me, and which he never intrusted to any other member of his family? And where had this very heavy, old music book, in his possession, been found? My sisters, when I met them, talked the matter over with me, and Agnes said: ”I remember putting a lot of books, among them some of yours, with my piano to pack it tightly.” When it was s.h.i.+pped North the book was found with the piano, as I have since ascertained.

We wondered that the music book had ever come back to me, its rightful owner, but since I have lived at the North, even family Bibles, which were taken from the old homes, have been returned to me. Looting was the order of the day during the Civil War, and wanton destruction followed.

I once went South with old Captain Berry, who for twenty years had charge of a steamer plying between Charleston and New York. Your mamma and myself were the only ladies on board, as the time was in July when the tide of travel was northward. The officers of the steamer were exceedingly kind to us, and told us many interesting stories of their seafaring lives.

Captain Berry told me of a trip he made from New Orleans to New York, when General Ben Butler was there in command. A division of the army was being transferred and Captain Berry said that besides soldiers the vessel was laden with all kinds of handsome furniture, with pictures, pianos, and trunks filled with women's clothing, from a lady's bonnet to slippers. That division of the army which Captain Berry was bringing North belonged to one of the generals under Butler's command.

The vessel was laden, the last soldier had stepped aboard, when just before the gangplank was lowered, a jet-black pony was hurried aboard, a perfect beauty. Then a lady was seen rapidly riding along the wharf; she quickly jumped from her horse, and went on board inquiring for the general; when he was pointed out to her she stepped up to him and said: ”General ----, you have taken my husband's last gift to his little boy, the pony; I have come to ask you to return him to me.” The general turned a deaf ear to her request, and as he did so, she drew her whip across his face with a stinging lash. Had he lifted his finger to her in return, Captain Berry said, the soldiers would have shot him dead.

During that trip North in the silence of the night, the soldiers went down into the hold of the vessel, opened every box, cut strings on pianos, ruined pictures and other things with ashes and water, then nailed up every box carefully and put it in place again. This was done by the Northern soldiers on board who knew of and resented the wrong done to the people of New Orleans. The poor little pony never reached his destination, for he was found dead the next morning; a mysterious death, but the soldiers knew, and had had a hand in his taking off.

Thus they avenged the lady to whom their sympathy had gone out.

Captain Berry was a Northern man, but his frequent visits to Charleston had thrown him into intimate relations with the Southern people and he admired them greatly.

We spent six months, from December, 1864, until June, 1865, at Darlington, our place of retreat. It was a hard winter; food was scarce, and little but the coa.r.s.est kind could be bought.

By spring we had grown hopeless, and well I remember that while walking in the garden some one called out to me, ”The war is over, Lee has surrendered.” My feelings were tumultuous; joy and sorrow strove with each other. Joy in the hope of having my husband and the brothers and friends who were left, return to me, but oh, such sorrow over our defeat!

In the course of time, the men of our family returned with the exception of your great-uncle Edward, my brother, who had gone through the war, but was finally killed in the last two weeks of fighting around Petersburg, Va.

As one after another of the family came back to us, worn out and dispirited, our thoughts turned to the dear old home on the Savannah River, and we longed to go back. Before yielding to our desires, it was considered wise for the men of the family to go first and investigate. They found only ashes and ruin everywhere in our neighborhood, and father's place, except a few negro cabins, was burned to the ground. There were thirty buildings destroyed.

The steam mill, blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, barns, and house--nothing was left standing except chimney and brick walls to mark the place of our once prosperous, happy home. There was but one fence paling to indicate the site of our little village. The church, too, was burned, and now negro cabins are standing where it once graced the landscape. Our beautiful lawns were plowed up and planted in potatoes and corn by the negroes, who were told we would never return.

Sherman left a track of fire for three hundred miles through the State. When you hear the war song ”Marching through Georgia,” which stirs the hearts of the Northerner, think of the scenes of desolation and heartbreak the song recalls to the Southerner.

When I left my own home in Robertville, I took the daguerreotypes of my old schoolmates, Northern girls, of whom I was fond, and opening the clasps I stood them all in a row on the mantel, hoping that should some commander find among them the face of a relative, he would spare the house for the sake of friends.h.i.+p. It was a vain hope, for my lovely house was destroyed with all the others. However, a soldier, brother of one of the girls, did find among the pictures the likeness of his sister and he wrote me after the war about thus seeing amid the roar of battle the likeness of his angel sister, for she was then dead.

You will often hear of the ”reconstruction period,” the period when the situation had to be faced by the beaten Southerner, and everything had to be managed on a new and strange basis. That period in my life had now come, for we all resolved to return home and do the best we could with what we had left.

Father had loaned the Confederate Government fifty horses and mules; twenty-five were returned to him, good, bad, and indifferent. We took the journey home by the aid of these animals, and our carriage was drawn by one large ”raw-boned” horse helped by a little pony. We camped out at night, and drove all day. Sometimes we were able to get shelter for our parents. It was very rough traveling; the roads were destroyed, and trees had been cut down blocking the way. We finally reached the only house left standing near our former home, at eleven o'clock at night, after ten days of travel. This house was far off from all plantations, situated in a pine forest. It was used by our family for a summer retreat. It had large airy rooms; one measuring twenty-five feet, and one fifty feet. In this house, bereft of all its furniture, our family gathered. We found our negroes scattered and completely demoralized.

Starvation seemed imminent. The men of our family went to work to cut timber, to be s.h.i.+pped to Savannah on rafts. In the meantime, before we could expect any monetary return from this industry, what else could we do to better our condition? was the question we asked one another.

One of my brother's former negroes came to me and said, ”I think you could make money by baking pies and bread for the colored Northern troops.”

Those soldiers were quartered on my father's plantation. My dear, war was nothing compared to the horrors of that reconstruction period. For six months we never went to bed without bidding one another good-by, not expecting to be alive the next morning. We sold our jewelry, all that was left, to the soldiers, and they would come to the house, march around it with bayonets drawn, and curse us with the vilest oaths. We would gather the little ones around us, bar the door, and wait, for we knew not what.

When you are old enough, Dorothy, dear, read ”The Leopard's Spots,”

which gives a better description of what we endured, than I ever can write.

However, we needed money to buy food with. I, therefore, set to work making bread, and any number of green-apple pies. Tom, a negro, built us a clay oven and we secured a negro's service for the baking; I got up at four o'clock in the morning, and by ten o'clock Tom was off with the pony and wagon, to sell articles for us. We had enough to live on, but no meat except bacon.

By request of every white person the Government removed the colored troops six months after the war, and sent white troops in their place.

Poor grandpa would sit all day with bowed head and say over and over, ”My poor daughters, my poor daughters.” We tried to appear brave and cheerful and would say in reply, ”Why we can manage; do not trouble about us.” But father's heart was broken and though he appeared well, he instinctively felt that his days were numbered and asked to have our former pastor called.