Part 13 (1/2)
My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate his master's voice perfectly He would sometimes call out from the yard afterme my overcoat I see you there, sir, hurry up” When dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only Simon was visible, after several obsequious ”Yes, marster; just as marster pleases,” ht dick never forgave her laughing
Once in Su a law case, the ru up his fire Suddenly he heard, as it were, hi, ”the Hon S D Miller - Lawyer Miller,” as the colored gentleentleo away and leave a lawyer in peace to prepare his case for the next day My father said he could have sworn the sound was that of his own voice The crowd dispersed, but so, and upon the around in the dark, calling himself ”Lawyer Miller,” as deter that ”theot in a hundred yards of one of them”
At Portland, we e that in this poor, devoted land of ours, there are so our eht?”
Montgo on here from Portland there was no stateroo in armchairs, for the doors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too On the floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes could not be borne, lay a motley crew Black, white, and yellow disported themselves in promiscuous array Children and their nurses, bared to the vierapped in the profoundest slumber No caste prejudices were here Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Gerrit Smith ever dreamed of equality ro man waddled in every now and then to look after the laht of those figures on the floor did not make it uards
The next day was the very hottest I have ever known One supreme consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, and the ice A very handsome woman, whom I did not know, rehearsed all our disasters in the field And then, as if she heldmen?” ”Whom do you mean?” ”I
227 ht to look to to save us They got us into this scrape Let the men?” I syhtly, ”I do not know the exact size you want theomery, we have been so hospitably received Ye Gods! how those women talked! and all at the same time! They put me under the care of General dick Taylor's brother-in-law, a Mr Gordon, who ereeable with his New Orleans anecdotes On the first of last January all his servants left hiave free papers at once, that they ht by loyalty should the Confederates cos worked smoothly for some weeks One day his wife saw some Yankee officers' cards on a table, and said to her maid, ”I did not know any of these people had called?”
”Oh, Missis!” theto tell you It is too hard! I can not do it! I can not dance with those nice gentleht at our Union balls and then come here and be your servant the next day I can't!” ”So,” said Mr Gordon, ”freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality” One by one the faithful few slipped away and the family were left to their own devices Why not?
When General dick Taylor's place was sacked his negroes e near New Orleans An old woroes wanted hi of disease and starvation; thirty had died that day dick Taylor's help being out of the question, Mr Gordon applied to a Federal officer He found this one not a philanthropist, but a cynic, who said: ”All right; it is working out as I expected Iroes and Indians
228 off the continent Their strong men we put in the army The rest will disappear”
Joe Johnston can sulk As he is sent West, he says, ”Theywhere he sowed, he thinks, but then he was backing straight through Rich
229
XIV RICHMOND, VA
August 10, 1863 - Septeust 10, 1863 - To-day I had letter from my sister, rote to inquire about her old playmate, friend, and lover, Boykin McCaa It is nearly twenty years since each was rown ”To tell the truth,” she writes ”in these last dreadful years, with David in Florida, where I can not often hear fro, I had alht; he stood by my bedside and spoke to me kindly and affectionately, as if we had just parted I said, holding out my hand, 'Boykin, you are very pale' He answered, 'I have coood by,' and then seized both my hands His own hands were as cold and hard as ice; they froze the ain until roes fro shrieks This may have been a dream, but it haunts me
”Some one sent me an old paper with an account of his wounds and his recovery, but I know he is dead” ”Stop!” said my husband at this point, and then he read from that day's Examiner these words: ”Captain Burwell Boykin McCaa found dead upon the battle-field leading a cavalry charge at the head of his coh the head”
The famous colonel of the Fourth Texas, by name John
230 Bell Hood,1 is here - him we call Sam, because his classmates at West Point did so - for what cause is not known John Darby asked if he ed of him extensively; said he had won his three stars, etc, under Stonewall's eye, and that he was promoted by Stonewall's request When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader, who believed in his cause, his cross, and his croere not prepared for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans He is tall, thin, and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast a the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that of aard strength Soreat reserve of manner he carried only into the society of ladies Major Venable added that he had often heard of the light of battle shi+ning in a man's eyes He had seen it once - when he carried to Hood orders froht that the ht of Hood's eyes I can never forget
Hood came to ask us to a picnic next day at Drury's Bluff2 The naval heroes were to receive us and then ere to drive out to the Texan caated this unlooked-for festivity We were to have bands of ues to eat Next irls standing behind ready to folloith Johnny and the Infant Samuel (Captain Shannon by proper name), up rode John Darby in red-hot haste, threw his bridle to one of thethe horses, and ca his cavalry spurs with a despairing sound as he 1 Hood was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West Point
2 Drury's Bluff lies eight miles south of Richmond on the James River Here, on May 16, 1864, the Confederates under Beauregard repulsed the Federals under Butler
230a ANOTHER GROUP OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS
WADE HAMPTON ROBERT TOOMBS JOHN C PRESTON JOHN H MORGAN JOSEPH B KERSHAW JAMES CHESNUT, JR
231 cried: ”Stop! it's all up We are ordered back to the Rappahannock The brigade is h Richmond now” So we unpacked and unloaded, diso and see theestion was hailed with delight, and off we marched Johnny and the Infant were in citizens' clothes, and the Straggler - as Hood calls John Darby, since the Prestons have been in Richeon's array He never bated an inch of bullion or a feather; he was courting and he stalked ahead with Mary Preston, Buck, and Johnny The Infant and ed last They called back to us, as the Infant ca, ”Hurry up or ill leave you”
At the turnpike we stood on the sidewalk and saw ten thousandlike this before Hitherto we had seen only regi spick and span in their fresh, smart clothes, just fros asNothing was like anything else Most garments and arms were such as had been taken from the enemy Such shoes as they had on ”Oh, our brave boys!” moaned Buck Such tin pans and pots as were tied to their waists, with bread or bacon stuck on the ends of their bayonets Anything that could be spiked was bayoneted and held aloft
They did not seehed, shouted, and cheered as they ht as spoken, but they went for theto make themselves as small as possible in order to escape observation
Hood and his staff finally caave him a bouquet Thereupon he unwrapped a Bible, which he carried in his
232 pocket He said his iven it to hiested that he had not worn or used it at all, being fresh, new, and beautifully kept Every word of this the Texans heard as they hed and joked and h coet into the Confederacy until after the first battle of Manassas For so his little bell and sent hiet whether he was exchanged or escaped of his ownI heard of inia There were so hany Johnston
He had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant winking as soon as he becaitated In such ti one eye at you Heby it, and in point of fact did not know hi it In Mexico he had been wounded in the eye, and the nerve vibrates independently of his will During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was on crutches After a while he hobbled down Franklin Street with us, we proud to accoeneral His ankle continued stiff; so when he sat down another chair had to be put before hiht as a rairls waited on hiht I listened to two love-tales at once, in a distracted state of mind between the two William Porcher Miles, in a perfectly modulated voice, in cadenced accents and low tones, was narrating the happy end of his affair He had been engaged to sweet little Bettie Bierne, and I gave hiratulations with all ood for her, and
233 good for him I was deeply interested in Mr Miles's story, but there was din and discord on the other hand; old Edward, our pet general, sat diagonally across the rooht out like a poker, wrapped in red carpet leggings, as red as a turkey-cock in the face His head is strangely shaped, like a cone or an old-fashi+oned beehive; or, as Buck said, there are three tiers of it; it is like a pope's tiara
There he sat, with a loud voice and a thousand winks,It was impossible not to hear him I tried not to lose a word of Mr Miles's idyl as the despair of the veteran was thundered into my other ear I lent an ear to each conversationalist Mary can not altogether control her voice, and her shrill screaation, ”No, no, never,” etc, utterly failed to suppress her wounded lover's obstreperous asseverations of his undying affection for her
Buck said afterward: ”We heard every word of it on our side of the roo too loud Now, Mamie,” said we afterward, ”do you think it was kind to tell hie to say, the pet general, Edward, rehabilitated his love in a day; at least two days after he was heard to say that he was ”paying attentions now to his cousin, John Preston's second daughter; her name, Sally, but they called her Buck - Sally Buchanan Cairl” And with her he now drove, rode, and hobbled on his crutches, sent her his photograph, and in due time cannonaded her, from the same spot where he had courted Mary, with proposals to marry him
Buck was never so decided in her ”Nos” as Mary (”Not so loud, at least” - thus in amendment, says Buck, who always reads what I have written, and an to thunder in a woman's ears his tender passion As they rode down
234 Franklin Street, Buck says she knows the people on the sidewalk heard snatches of the conversation, though she rode as rapidly as she could, and she begged him not to talk so loud Finally, they dashed up to our door as if they had been running a race Unfortunate in love, but fortunate in war, our general is noinning new laurels with Ewell in the Valley or with the Army of the Potoently o'er ,” told of his successful love while General Edward Johnston roared unto anguish and disappointment over his failures Mr Miles spoke of sweet little Bettie Bierne as if she had been a French girl, just from a convent, kept far from the haunts of men wholly for him One would think to hear him that Bettie had never cast those innocent blue eyes of hers on a
Now, since I first knew Miss Bierne in 1857, when Pat Calhoun was to the fore, she has been followed by a tale of s, their father appeared in the ballroom a little before twelve and chased the three beautiful Biernes home before him in spite of all entreaties, and he was said to froay their too nuement was confided to me as a profound secret Of course, I did not mention it, even to an's adjutant, and George Deas called As Colonel Deas reloves, he said: ”Oh! the Miles and Bierne sensation - have you heard of it,” ”No, what is the row about?” ”They are engaged to be married; that's all” ”Who told you?” ”Miles himself, as alked down Franklin Street, this afternoon” ”And did he not beg you not to mention it, as Bettie did not wish it spoken of?” ”God bless ot that part entirely”
Colonel Alston begged the stout Carolinian not to take
235 his inadvertent breach of faith too e man, as his intimate friend, came to his room in the depths of despair and handed him a letter fro that she was already betrothed to Miles, he had proposed to her in an eloquent letter In her reply, she positively stated that she was engaged to Mr Miles, and instead of thanking her for putting hiave as trebly aggravating the agony of the love-letter and the refusal ”Too late!” he yelled, ”by Jingo!” So much for a secret