Part 5 (2/2)
”I saw a late article in the _Chicago Times_ in which the writer said: 'You had better be a poor man's dog than a Southerner now.' If our negroes are idle and impudent we are not allowed to send them away. If we have crops waiting in the fields for gathering, the hands are all given by the semi-military government 'pa.s.ses to _go_,' though we pay wages; and (weakly or humanely?) buy food, furnish doctors and wait on the sick, very much in the old way, simply because nature refuses to snap the ties of a lifetime on the authority of new conditions. I have it in mind to make Myrtle Grove a very disagreeable place to some of the most trifling, so that they will get into the humor to hunt a new home.
”General Price said: 'We played for the negro, and the Yankees fairly won the stake, with Cuffy's help.' Let them have him and _keep_ him! Your father has just had a settlement with his freedmen. They are extremely dissatisfied with the result. Though they acknowledge every item on their accounts, furnished at New Orleans wholesale prices, it is a disappointment not to have a large sum of money for their year's labor--that, too, after an extravagance of living we have not dared to allow ourselves, and an idleness for which we are like sufferers, as the crop was planted on shares. I am convinced the negroes are too much like children to understand or be content with the share system.
”I have a good cook, but she has a _cavaliere servente_, besides her own husband and children, to provide for out of my storeroom, which she does in my presence very often--though it is not in the bond. I _am_ impatient when she takes the b.u.t.ter given her for pastry and subst.i.tutes lard; yet I cannot withhold my admiration when I see her double the recipe in order that her own table may be graced with a soft-jumble as good as mine.
Somebody has said: 'By means of fire, blood, sword and sacrifice you have been separated from your black idol.' It looks to me as if he is hung around our necks like the Ancient Mariner's albatross. You ridicule President Johnson's idea of loaning us farming implements. You must not forget who burned ours. We need money, for we have to pay the four years'
taxes on our freed negroes!
”There is bad blood between the races. Those familiar with conditions here antic.i.p.ate that the future may witness a servile war--a race war--result of military drilling, arming and haranguing the negro for political ends.
Secession was a mistake for which you and I were not responsible. But even if our country was wrong, and we knew it at the time--which we did not--we were right in adhering to it. The best people in the South were true to our cause; only the worthless and unprincipled, with rare exceptions, went over to the enemy. We must bear our trials with what wisdom and patience we may be able to summon until our status is fully defined. I cannot but feel, however, that if war measures had ceased with the war, if United States officers on duty here, and the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, had shown a friendly desire to bury past animosities and to start out on a real basis of reunion, we should have become a revolutionized, reconstructed people by this time. But certain it is that the enemy--authorities and 'scalawag'-friends, who now cruelly oppress the whites and elevate the negro over us--are hated as the ravaging armies never were, and a true union seems farther off than ever.”
CHAPTER IX.
MISS VINE'S DINNER PARTY AND ITS ABRUPT CONCLUSION.
War is demoralizing, and ever since ”our army swore terribly in Flanders,”
profanity has been a military sin. In my neighborhood it extended to the women and children who had never before violated the third commandment. I knew a little girl who, having seen a regiment of Federal soldiers marching along the public highway, ran to her mother crying, ”The d.a.m.ned Yankees are coming!” She was exempt from reproof on account of the exciting nature of the news. She had doubtless heard the obnoxious word so often in this connection that she deemed it a correct term.
I tried to preserve my own household ”pure and peaceable and of good report,” and I plead with my five girls to avoid all looseness of expression. But Fannie Little asked: ”Mrs. Merrick, may I not even tell Rose to 'go to the devil' when she puts my nightgown where I can't find it, and makes me wait so long for hot water?”
”No, indeed, my child! Only Christian ministers can speak with propriety of the devil, and use his name on common occasions.”
As a social side-light on these disordered secession war-times the following sketch is a true picture. The characters and incidents are real, but the names are a.s.sumed. The endeavor to embalm the events in words diverted me in the midst of graver experience during those chaotic days.
Beechwood plantation has a frontage of two miles on the banks of a navigable river. The tall dwelling-house was so surrounded by other buildings, all well constructed and painted white, that the first glance suggested the idea of a village embowered in trees. The proprietors.h.i.+p of a n.o.ble estate implies a certain distinction, and in fact the owner of this property had for many years represented his district in Congress. In past as well as present times people manifest a disposition to bestow political honors upon men of prosperity and affluence.
Mr. Templeton, notwithstanding the fact that he possessed an uncommonly large amount of property in land and slaves, was not a giant either in body or in mind. He surely had spoken once in the national Capitol, for was he not known to have sent a printed copy of a speech to every one of the Democratic const.i.tuents in the State? In this pamphlet were set forth eloquent and powerful arguments against the unjust discrimination of the specific duties on silk, which he thought operated to the disadvantage and serious injustice of the poor man. He a.s.serted confidently that the poor people would purchase only the heavy, serviceable silken goods, while the rich preferred the lighter and flimsier fabrics, thus paying proportionately a much smaller revenue to the Government. This proved conclusively that Mr. Templeton never consulted his wife, whose rich dresses were always paid for as the tariff was arranged--ad valorem. His patriotic soul was harrowed and filled with sympathy and sorrow on account of the injustice and hards.h.i.+p thus dealt out to his needy and indigent const.i.tuents. We cannot follow this interesting man's public career, and probably it is customary for great statesmen ”to study the people's welfare” and to have the good of the poor men who vote for them very much upon their disinterested minds.
The Templeton family came originally from that State which furnished to the South, in the hour of trial, some brave soldiers and a good song--”Maryland, my Maryland.” Lavinia, Mr. Templeton's only daughter, had been educated at the Convent in Emmetsburg, and had returned home after Fort Sumter was fired upon and other disturbances were antic.i.p.ated. This slender, delicate, little creature was very graceful and pretty, timid as a fawn, and frisky as a young colt. At first she could not be induced to sit at table if there was a young man in the dining-room. She said she preferred to wait, and when she came in afterward for her dinner her brother Frank testified that she always ate an extra quant.i.ty to make up for the delay.
Old Miss Eliza thought Vine so lovely and good that she always allowed her to do as she pleased, only enjoining on her to ”be a lady.” Miss Eliza was an old-maid cousin who lived in the family, shared the cares and anxieties of the parents, and was greatly respected by everybody. She was not a particularly religious person--there not being a church within ten miles--but she was kind, courteous and gentle, and exhibited a great deal of deportment of the very finest quality--as might have been expected from her refined Virginia antecedents. She could not abide that the servants should call Lavinia Templeton ”Miss Vine,” but they called her so all the same.
Beaux far and near contended for Lavinia's regard, and in less than six months after leaving the convent she was married to a young captain newly enlisted in the artillery of the Confederate service. A grand wedding came off where many noteworthy men a.s.sembled. While the band played and the giddy dance went on, groups of these consulted about the portentous war clouds. One great man said: ”There will be no war; I will promise to drink every drop of blood shed in this quarrel!”
But soon there was a military uprising everywhere. As men enlisted they went into a camp situated less than an hour's drive from Beechwood. Vine and her lover-husband refused to be separated, so she virtually lived in the encampment. The spotless new tents, with bright flags flying, the young men thronging around the carriages which brought their mothers and sisters as daily visitors, made this camp in the woods a bewitching spot.
Every luxury the country afforded was poured out with lavish hands.
Friends, neighbors and loved ones at home skimmed the richest cream of the land for the delectation and refreshment of their dear soldier boys. A young schoolboy, who dined with his brother in camp on barbecued mutton and roast wild turkey with all the accompaniments, wrote to his father that he too was ready to enlist, having now had a perfect insight into soldier life. As this gallant veteran to-day looks at his empty, dangling coat-sleeve and is shown his boyish letter, he smiles a grim smile and says: ”Yes, I _was_ a fool in those days.” Vine's husband had a n.o.ble figure and was a picture of manly beauty in his new uniform with scarlet facings. To the horror of her woman friends the devoted little wife cut up a costly black velvet gown, and made it into a fatigue jacket for him to wear in camp.
Meanwhile the unexpected happened and we were in the midst of a real, terrible war. Federal military operations extended over the whole country; then appeared a gunboat with its formidable armament, striking a panic into all the white inhabitants. Soldiers advanced to the front, while citizens precipitately retreated to the rear. In trepidation and hot haste planters gathered up their possessions for departure. Slaves, always dearer and more precious to the average Southern heart than either silver or gold, were first collected and a.s.sembled with the owners and their families, and then formed large companies of refugees who went forth to look for a temporary home in some less exposed part of the country.
After much deliberation Mr. and Mrs. Templeton, with the little boys and their c.u.mbrous retinue of wagons, horses and slaves, went to Texas, leaving their daughter Vine, Miss Eliza and two faithful servants as sole tenants of Beechwood. The expected advance of Federal forces in the spring seemed to justify the reduction of the place to such slender equipment.
Meanwhile, Captain Paul had been through a campaign in Virginia. On the very day of the battle of Bethel, Vine clasped a new-born daughter in her arms, and the father requested that its name should be Bethel in commemoration of that engagement. This child was a year old before he saw its face. The time came when Louisiana soil was to be plowed up with military trenches and fortifications, and Captain Paul was ordered to Port Hudson. The siege of that place soon followed.
In the evenings Miss Eliza sat on the gallery holding Bethel in her arms, while Vine rocked little Dan, the baby of seven months, and they would all listen in wistful silence to the volleys of heavy guns sounding regularly and dolefully far down the river. The regular boom of the thundering volleys kept on day and night. The two servants, Becky and Monroe, would occasionally join the group; ”Never mind, Miss Vine, don't you fret,” they would say; ”sure, Captain Paul's all right.” After many weeks of painful suspense and anxiety the shocking news came that Captain Paul had been killed by the explosion of a sh.e.l.l. Vine's grief was wild. She wept and raved by turn, until Miss Eliza feared she would die. Becky with womanly instinct brought her the children and reminded her that she still had these. ”Take them away,” cried Vine, ”I loved them only for his sake; children are nothing! Take them out of my sight! Oh! Lord,” she cried, ”let us all die and be buried together! Why does anybody live when Paul is dead?--dead, dead, forever!”
<script>