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RECOLLECTIONS OF A VIRGINIAN
IN THE MEXICAN, INDIAN, AND CIVIL WARS:
Electronic Edition.

Maury, Dabney Herndon, 1822-1900

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition
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Text scanned (OCR) by Jennifer Kellerman
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First edition, 1998
ca. 600K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1998.

        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

Call number E415.9 .M3 .M3 1894 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

LC Subject Headings:

Cover

Spine

Portrait

Title Page

RECOLLECTIONS OF A VIRGINIAN
IN THE
MEXICAN, INDIAN, AND CIVIL WARS

BY

GENERAL DABNEY HERNDON MAURY
EX-UNITED STATES MINISTER TO COLOMBIA

SECOND EDITION

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1894

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

Page v

To My Children

I AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THESE MEMOIRS OF AN OLD
SOLDIER TO MY DEVOTED CHILDREN, WHO FOR TWENTY
YEARS HAVE BEEN THE SOLACE AND PRIDE OF MY
LIFE. AND I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY SPECIAL
DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO MY DAUGHTER ROSE, WHOSE
ENCOURAGEMENT AND PRACTICAL AID HAVE BEEN OF
THE GREATEST HELP TO ME IN THE PREPARATION OF
THIS VOLUME

Page vii

CONTENTS

Page 1

CHAPTER I

Fredericksburg, its People and its History - Traditions of George Washington and of the Lees - Anecdotes of Other Famous Men, and Quaint Characters of the Town - Country Homes of the Gentry - General Lafayette's Visit - The Maury Family - Social Life before the War - The Generous Hospitality of the Old Days

        FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia, is one of the historic towns of America. Founded long before the Revolution, upon the Rappahannock River, at the head of tide-water, it commanded for many years the trade of the opulent planters of all that fertile region lying along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The town was the centre of the commercial and social life of that rich region known as the Northern Neck of Virginia and the Piedmont country, where were born and bred the great Fathers of American liberty. In my boyhood there were many there who had walked and talked with John Marshall, George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the Lees.

        For more than a century prior to the Revolution, the sturdy people of that region were often engaged in active war with the great Indian nation once ruled by King Powhatan. In the rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon against Sir William Berkeley two centuries ago, several thousand horsemen marched under his command to assert those principles of popular rights which were proclaimed and

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established in 1776. Many of these soldiers were from Fredericksburg and its vicinity, and it was inevitable that the descendants of these men should be the very first to arm against the encroachments of the British crown, and it was in Fredericksburg that a convention of delegates of twelve companies of horse assembled and, proclaiming their purpose to defend the colony of Virginia, or any other colony, against the king of England, marched, under the command of Patrick Henry, against Lord Dunmore in his capital. This occurred twenty-one days before the famous Declaration of Mecklenburg, and was therefore the first and most emphatic declaration of our independence. In 1782, when that independence had been accomplished, it was a citizen of Fredericksburg who introduced into the Legislature, which had then replaced the House of Burgesses, the first resolution for the emancipation of the negroes, and for the prohibition of the slave trade, ever offered in America. General John Minor, who had fought throughout the war, was the author and advocate of the measure.

        George Washington had his boyhood's home in Fredericksburg, and after his public career ended he used to go there to visit his venerable mother. His arrival was the occasion of great conviviality and rejoicing. Dinner parties and card parties were then in order, and we find, in that wonderful record of his daily receipts and expenditures, that on one of these occasions he won thirty guineas at loo. Probably it was after this night that he threw the historic dollar across the river, the only instance of extravagance ever charged against him. A dinner party was usually given to him on his arrival at the old Indian Queen Tavern, where, tradition tells us, drink was deep and play was high.

        It is generally believed that Washington did not laugh

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or enjoy a joke. I have often heard judge Francis Taliaferro Brooke, for many years Chief justice of Virginia, say this was not true. Washington often dined at Smithfield, the home of the Brooke family. It is now known in the histories of the battle of Fredericksburg as the "Pratt House." Judge Brooke used to tell of a dinner given to Washington at the Indian Queen Tavern, at which he was present. A British officer sang a comic song, - a very improper song, but as funny as it was improper, - at which Washington laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and called upon the singer to repeat it.

        The Lees frequented Fredericksburg, and Light Horse Harry was once in prison bounds there for debt. It is related that from the jail of that town he wrote to his old friend Robert Morris about his sad case, and asked him to accommodate him with a loan. The great financier replied that he was "very sorry he could not oblige him, because he, too, was in the same condition"! Our greater Lee, Robert Edward, used to make his summer home at Chatham, that old, colonial house just opposite Fredericksburg, then the residence of Fitzhugh. Stratford, where Lee was born, lies on the Potomac, near Wakefield, the birthplace of Washington. Mrs. Lee found the place too unhealthy for summer residence, and moved, with her children, up to the purer air of Chatham. The estate of Chatham adjoined the land of Mrs. Washington, where her son George broke the colt and barked the cherry tree.

        Early in this century, General John Minor lived in the fine old house of Hazel Hill. He was one of the leading gentlemen of his day, and was remarkable for his benevolence and generosity. William Wirt paid high and eloquent tribute to General Minor's consideration for the young lawyers who were struggling up in the

Page 4

profession. His negro butler was named Josephus, and was commonly called Joe. Joe had a son whom he named "Jimsephus." General Minor manumitted him, after he had been educated and had been taught the trade of printer, and he was sent to Liberia, where for many years Mr. James Sephas was the able editor of the Liberia Herald.

        In the fierce struggle between the Federal and Statesrights parties General Minor ran for Congress against James Monroe, then a resident of the town. Monroe beat him, but it made no difference in the personal relations of these high gentlemen. General Minor named a son after James Monroe, and Dr. James Monroe Minor entered the Navy as a surgeon. He married into the Pierrepont family of New York, where he became eminent in his profession.

        On one occasion, the general went into a shoe store, and found a bright-looking country girl in sharp controversy with the merchant over a pair of shoes. Pleased with the girl's intelligence, he purchased the shoes and gave them to her. On the next Valentine's Day he received this: -


                        "If these few lines you do accept,
                        A pair of shoes I shall expect.
                        If these few lines you do refuse,
                        I shall expect a pair of shoes."

        She got the shoes. The distinguished law teacher of the University of Virginia, Professor, John Minor, is the general's nephew and namesake.

        Many of our people advocated negro emancipation and colonization. My grandfather, Mr. Fontaine Maury, manumitted his slaves, and had one of them, a bright young fellow, educated for the law. He was sent to

Page 5

Liberia, where he became the highly respected Judge Draper, of Monrovia. President Monroe, then a lawyer in Fredericksburg, was the great advocate of the emancipation and colonization of the negro. The capital of Liberia was named in his honor, Monrovia. Henry Clay, from the neighboring county of Hanover, was also the champion of emancipation, and president of the colonization society.

        Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury also made his home in Fredericksburg, where he married the sister of Captain William Lewis Herndon, that captain who commanded the Central America on her last, ill-fated voyage, and who, after he had placed all the women and children and as many as possible of the men passengers safely in the boats, refused, himself, to follow, because he would not desert his sinking ship. Dressing himself in his full uniform, he took his place upon the bridge, and as the vessel sank into the waves, her captain passed, with bowed and uncovered head, into the presence of his Maker.

        It was many years prior to this that some good ladies of the town discovered a boy of about ten years in the act of climbing the lightning-rod of old Saint George's steeple to the cross above it. They publicly prophesied that the boy would never come to any good, and doubtless remembered him in their prayers; and these prevailed, for, long afterward, our country was deeply moved by the thrilling story of the Darien expedition, - of how it wandered, lost in the forests of Panama, many perishing, and of how the survivors owed their safety to this same hero, whose courage and self-devotion made the name of Jack Maury loved and honored forever.

        The Honorable Samuel Southard, once Secretary of the Navy, married and lived for a time in Fredericksburg.

Page 6

To his kindness many of our boys owed their commissions in the Navy. A nephew of his by marriage was Jim Harrow, noted for his pugnacity. Jim was a member of the company which marched, in the beginning of the war, to defend Acquia Creek against the United States steamer Pawnee. Whenever the Pawnee would fire a shot, Jim Harrow would jump upon the parapet, and flap his arms and crow like a chicken cock. He also showed his contempt for the enemy by going beyond the works, and finally took his stand by a persimmon tree outside. A shot from the Pawnee struck the tree and cut it down, and Jim Harrow disappeared from view, enveloped in the smoke and dust and débris of the explosion. An old cannoneer exclaimed, "Thank God, that infernal fool is dead at last!" The words were scarcely uttered when there was a movement among the branches of the tree, and Jim Harrow emerged, rolling up his sleeves, and calling upon the man who had "thanked God he was dead" to come out, that he might lick him. Three years later, Jim's fights were ended by a Confederate deserter whom he attempted to arrest.

        Mrs. Little, a lady of high culture and excellence, presided over the Academy to which the best people of the town and neighboring counties sent their daughters for education. An old planter of the Northern Neck took his darling daughter there. One of Mrs. Little's scholars was a Miss Richardetta H., whose name in the school was inevitably abbreviated to "Dick." The newcomer was enraptured with all her surroundings, and wrote home eloquently about the charms of her roommate, Dick H. Her father was astounded. He had heard much of the high character of Mrs. Little's school. He had also a fearful apprehension of the snares which

Page 7

might be set for a young creature just from the seclusion of her country home, thrown at once into the fashionable vortex of the city of Fredericksburg. So he ordered out his carriage, and posted up to town, to take prompt measures about this business. He found Dick H. a gentle, refined girl, worthy of her distinguished family. She still lives, and is the wife of a prominent ex-general of the Confederacy.

        Colonel Byrd Willis was one of the famous characters of his day. Connected with the most influential families of the State, he was the noted wit and raconteur of that old town. Weighing over three hundred pounds, he might have played Falstaff without the padding, and in his geniality and kindness equalled Shakespeare's masterpiece. The charming Princess Achille Murat was his daughter. She was an ornament of the court of the third Emperor, and was always the invited guest of the fashionable watering-places of Virginia. After breaking up his home in Florida, Colonel Willis returned to end his days in Fredericksburg. He paid liberally for his board to his landlady, a decayed gentlewoman and kinswoman, of great piety, but ate his meals at the best restaurant; for he enjoyed the pleasures of the table, and old Mrs. Carter's poverty and unthrift were great. He used to tell, how, one day, all of her resources being exhausted, the old lady took to her bed, saying to her housekeeper, "Nancy, there's nothing in the house but mush for dinner. Give that to my boarders. If they are Christians, they will eat it and be thankful; if they are not Christians, it is much better than they deserve."

        About 1795 Robert Brooke, governor of Virginia, built his home upon Federal Hill, which looks over Sandy Bottom to Marye's Heights, a thousand yards away. Early in this century, Governor Brooke being dead,

Page 8

Federal Hill became the property of the family of Cobb, since of Georgia. Governor Cobb, of Georgia, and his brother, General Sylvanus Cobb, lived there as boys. In the great battle a Federal battery was placed on the lawn of Federal Hill. General Sylvanus Cobb, for the first time since his boyhood, looked again upon his old home from the stone wall at the foot of Marye's Heights. It was the last time he ever saw it, for a cannon-ball from that battery tore him to pieces.

        For many years Mr. Reuben Thom was the postmaster of the town. He was also senior warden of Saint George's Church. Scarcely five feet in stature, he was of heroic nature. Once when the Episcopal Convention was assembled in Saint George's, a dangerous crack was discovered in the gallery of the church, and great apprehension prevailed as to the safety of the building. The senior warden indignantly derided these fears, and, when the convention opened, the amazed congregation saw their warden seated in the gallery, his arms folded, and his back propping the dangerous crack.

        He was a man of strictest integrity and absolute sobriety, and was never known to take a drop of strong drink; but his ruddy face was adorned by a prominent nose of flaming and suspicious redness. One day, while admonishing the mail-carrier of King George County because of his tippling propensities, he was silenced by being requested to look at his own nose before he ventured to talk to other people about drinking.

        During the bombardment of the town, the old man, then an octogenarian, had his arm-chair moved out into the garden, the nearest place to the cannon of the enemy, and there he sat throughout the day, encouraging by word and example the terrified people of his flock.

        It was in 1826 that General Lafayette visited our town,

Page 9

and was received and entertained with great enthusiasm as he passed on his way to Yorktown. The Fredericksburg Guards escorted him to his destination. 1 One of my earliest recollections is of a pair of white morocco shoes with a portrait of General Lafayette on the instep. This country owes more to that truly noble Frenchman than we ever think of now, and France always found him, in every crisis, a brave and faithful patriot.

        While General Lafayette was in Fredericksburg, one of his old soldiers of the Revolution came to town to pay his respects to his former commander. He had a profound conviction of the activity and prevalence of pickpockets, and from the time he entered the streets of the city kept his hand upon his watch. Finally he succeeded, after passing through the crowd, in reaching his general. In his enthusiasm at being greeted so warmly by the great marquis, he seized, with both hands, Lafayette's friendly grasp, and as he turned away clapped his hand again upon his watch pocket, but, alas, it was empty.

        Later on I have seen John Randolph's coach with four thoroughbreds, and John and Jubah in attendance, draw up at the Farmers' Hotel; and in the summer season ten coaches at once would drive from that old tavern to the White Sulphur. It was said that one team of thoroughbred sorrels made Chancellor's Tavern, ten miles away, in one hour.

        Six miles below Fredericksburg on Massaponox Creek was New Post, the home of General Alexander Spottswood. Great intimacy was cherished between the families of Brooke of Smithfield and Spottswood. Young

1. Colonel Charles Pollard, the great railroad benefactor of Alabama, and most distinguished of all her great citizens for his munificent, pure, and exalted life, was a lieutenant of the escort of General Lafayette on his famous excursion to Yorktown.

Page 10

Francis Taliaferro Brooke married a daughter of General Spottswood, and their home at Saint Julian, just a mile away, was for many years one of the most charming in the State.

        Saint Julian, as I remember it, was one of the most delightful of the many country homes of that fair region. It was seven miles below Fredericksburg, on the right of the main stage road to Richmond, situated in a lovely valley embowered in fine old shade trees, and surrounded by acres of choice fruits and flowers. The vegetable garden was closely guarded by a cedar hedge which a cat could hardly penetrate, while away to the left stretched a meadow bordered by a clear running brook, a tributary of the Massaponox, along which my brother and I, escorted by old John, the carriage driver, used to hunt, with old Orion, a black and white pointer, to help us. A generation later Jackson's infantry and Pelham's guns thundered along that stream until its waters ran red with human blood.

        Here my uncle, Frank Brooke, made his home for many years, and my brother and I were ever most welcome guests. Aunt Brooke was a Miss Mary Carter, a beauty of Blenheim, in Albemarle County, and was the most exquisite of Virginia hostesses. Rarely have I enjoyed a table so dainty as hers, with its old blue India china, and handsome silver and napery. Every dish had been the especial care of old Phyllis, the best cook on the Rappahannock. The walls of the parlor were covered by old-fashioned landscape paper, depicting the adventures and death of Captain Cook. Over the mantel hung a portrait of my great-grandfather, Mr. Richard Brooke, in his scarlet coat, buff waistcoat, and lace ruffles, and over the door the portrait of the beautiful Miss Fannie Carter, a famous belle of her day, who married Rosier

Page 11

Dulany, kinsman of the Colonel Dick Dulany, so well known and loved in Virginia, and so distinguished in the army of northern Virginia for his lofty bearing, gentle nature, and daring courage.

        But the charm of Saint Julian was our cousin Helen. Lovely in person and in character, she was the belle of the county, and of Richmond too. She was a little older than I, and her refined, high-bred nature made her my divinity, and she knew it too. Aunt Brooke had a niece, Mary Francis Thompson, whom she adopted as a chosen companion for Helen. She was a sweet, gentle girl, and my brother and she were sweethearts, and when last at Saint Julian on a furlough from the army, I saw on the bark of an aspen tree the big heart caned by my brother, with her initials and his own within it. They had both been dead many years then. When the enemy came to Saint Julian the old family portraits were all carried to Fredericksburg, and stored in the post-office in the care of Mr. Reuben Thom. In the bombardment of the town they were destroyed.

        They were a very happy and united family, those Brookes of Saint Julian. In his youth Uncle Frank used to hunt foxes with General Spottswood, and it was after he came home from the Revolutionary War, where he had served on General Greene's staff, that he married Mary Spottswood. He had been her neighbor and lover all his boyhood. After her death, he married Mary Carter. He became a great lawyer, and was for more than forty years on the Supreme Bench, - the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Henry Clay read law in his office, and on his way to Congress used to stop at Saint Julian. Judge Brooke lived to be more than eighty years of age. He lies by his wife in the little graveyard on the hill above their home. The family are all scattered now or dead,

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and the dear old place has passed into other hands. It has become the property of Mr. Boulware, a very well known and respected Virginian. It is a comfort to me that gentle people are there, for it is the dearest place in all my boyhood's memories.

        Johnson Barbour, son of our distinguished governor, was one of the most brilliant youths of his day, as he has been for many years the highest illustration of our cultured country gentleman. When about sixteen years of age he was a visitor in our home in Fredericksburg. He had been to England with his father when he was our Minister to the Court of St. James, and the versatility and readiness of his talk made a great impression upon all of us, especially upon myself, who felt his superiority to any boy I had ever seen. We were bedfellows during his visit, and one night I, wakeful and much impressed by Johnson's cleverness during the evening, requested him to examine me on matters of general information. He complied, and sleepily inquired how many children Queen Elizabeth had. I gave it up, and the catechism ended, for Johnson rolled over and went to sleep.

        I have recorded these personal anecdotes to illustrate the character of the community in which our people were reared. It was a blessed and happy land in my boyhood and youth. All of the rich bottom lands of the Rappahannock were occupied by prosperous planters, whose ample estates, with their spacious residences, had descended for generations from father to son. Many of these were granted by the Crown of England, but very few are now held under the original grants. The repeal of the law of entail, brought about by Mr. Jefferson, was so recent, that in some families the homes were inherited by the sons, while the daughters were otherwise provided for. These homes were then the abode of very great

Page 13

comfort and dignity; a generous and elegant hospitality was universal. The house servants were long and carefully trained in their respective duties, and oftentimes remained for generations in the same families. My children's nurse, "Mammy Lucy," and her progenitors, had been in the family of my father-in-law for five generations, and remained till the Emancipation Proclamation. The usual retinue of the establishment at "Cleveland," my wife's home, was fifteen servants or more when the house was full of company; and as many as thirty or more of the family and friends daily dined there together for weeks and months at a time.

        In Fredericksburg and its near vicinity lived many Scotch families. Every historic name of Scotland is represented among them, and a more worthy class of people can nowhere be found. Their ancestors came over in colonial days, and, curiously enough, became Episcopalians, as were all the population of that region in those days. The history and traditions of the people made them proud, and the religious and literary influences were of a high order. The old College of William and Mary was the Alma Mater of these colonial gentry, while the classical academies of Hanson, and Lawrence, and the Colemans prepared our youth for their higher education there. Following the English system, the study of the classics was the chief aim of these schools. Modern languages were not taught in them, nor mathematics to any valuable extent.

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CHAPTER II

Captain John Minor Maury's Active and Adventurous Life - Personal Traits of Matthew Fontaine Maury - His Character and his Scientific Achievements - At the University of Virginia - Shakespeare Caldwell's Career - A Cadet at West Point - Incidents of the Life there - Anecdotes of Grant, McClellan, Jackson, and Others

        IN 1824 my father, Captain John Minor Maury, while serving as flag captain of Commodore David Porter's fleet against the pirates of the West Indies, died in the twenty-eighth year of his age. He had been an officer of the Navy since his thirteenth year, and had led a most active and adventurous life; and at the time of his death he was the highest ranking officer of his age in the service. Some years previously he sailed with Captain William Lewis as first officer of a ship bound for China. They had both obtained furloughs for this voyage. Maury, with six men, was left on the island of Nokaheeva to collect sandal-wood and other valuable articles of trade against the return of the ship.

        The war with England broke out, and Captain Lewis was blockaded in a Chinese port. Maury and his men were beset by the natives of one part of the island, though befriended by the chief of that portion where ships were accustomed to land, and at last all of the party save Maury and a sailor named Baker were killed by the savages. These two constructed a place of refuge in the tops of four cocoanut trees which grew close

Page 15

enough together for them to make a room as large as a frigate's maintop. A rope ladder was their means of access. Here they were one day, when their eyes were brightened by the sight of a frigate bearing the American flag. It proved to be the Essex, Captain David Porter commanding, which had touched at the island for fresh water. Captain Porter had with him a very fast British ship which he had just captured. He named her the Essex Junior, and armed her as his consort, placing Lieutenant Downs in command, with Maury as first lieutenant. After refitting they sailed away to Valparaiso, where the British ships Cherub and Phoebe, under Captain Hilliard, fought and captured them.

        Maury's next service was with McDonough in the battle of Lake Champlain, whence he wrote to a friend in Fredericksburg: "We have gained a glorious victory. I hope the most important result of it will be to confirm the wavering allegiance of New York and Vermont to the Union. They have been threatening to secede unless peace be made with England on any terms!" This was in 1815.

        About 1822, Porter organized his fleet for the extinction of the pirates of the West Indies. He was allowed to select his officers, and his first choice was of John Minor Maury to be his flag captain. After serving with distinction on that expedition, he died of yellow fever on his homeward voyage, and was buried almost within sight of Norfolk harbor, where his young wife and two little children were anxiously awaiting his coming.

        After my father's death his younger brother, Matthew Fontaine Maury, became practically the guardian of my brother, William Lewis Maury, and myself. My brother died at the age of twenty, of heart disease, a victim to the barbarous medical practice of the day.

Page 16

He was a very handsome, attractive young fellow, and a great favorite in society. The doctors subjected him to the "moxa," a cruel invention of that time. A spot as large as a half dollar was burned into the flesh over his heart. He was bled frequently. It was proposed to bleed him periodically. For several years he ate no meat, and for the last year of his life was kept in bed. Our uncle protested vainly against this practice, which he realized was killing my brother, but the highest medical authorities of the day upheld this system of depletion. At last, after ever increasing torture, he was released from a life which had dawned full of brightness and promise for him, and had become one of continued suffering.

        After my brother's death my uncle's interest centred in me, and no son ever had a more tender and sympathetic father than I. As long as he lived this mutual confidence and affection existed unimpaired. He was the most lovable man I ever knew, and he won the confidence of all who came within his gentle influence. He ever used cordial praise and approbation as an incentive to endeavor, and if admonition were needed, he gave it in a manner which left no sting. Oftentimes a playful jest would serve the purpose of his correction. From my earliest boyhood I went to him for counsel and for comfort in all my troubles, and always left him with renewed purpose and self-respect. When I came to him from West Point he said to me, "Well, Dab, how did you come out?"

        "Very poorly, Uncle Matt. I graduated thirty-fifth."

        He looked sorry he had asked me, but suddenly taking heart he inquired, "How many were in the class?"

        "There were sixty of us."

        "That was first-rate. You beat me all hollow. I

Page 17

was twenty-seventh, and there were only forty in my class."

        This was truly encouraging. He had a pleasant greeting for every one, but was especially kindly in his way of treating the mechanics and workmen with whom his business brought him in contact. He made them feel he was learning from them, while he never failed to leave with them something instructive about their own branch of work. He was thus learning and teaching all of his time.

        In his youth he read Scott and other English classics, and was very fond of Shakespeare, and all his life he read and studied the Bible. I do not think he ever read any novels after he began to develop the great thoughts with which his brain was teeming. His power of concentration was wonderful. Writing upon the subject in which he was interested, in the midst of his family, he would pause, pen in hand, to laugh at some jest or say a word apropos of the question under discussion, and return in an instant to his work. He wrote his "Navigation" and many strong papers on Naval Reform, which first attracted attention to him, before he was thirty years old. Mr. Calhoun said of him, "Maury is a man of great thoughts"; and Mr. Tyler was urged and desired to make him Secretary of the Navy.

        In 1853-54 I was spending the winter in Philadelphia, when he wrote to me to go and see Mr. Biddle, who had charge of the annual report of the National Observatory, and deliver to him a message relative to it. After our business was ended, Mr. Biddle said to me: "This uncle of yours is a strange man. Here he is publishing, as an official report, the materials for the most valuable and interesting book of science ever produced.

Page 18

You may tell him from me, that if he does not utilize it, he will have the chagrin of seeing some Yankee bookmaker steal his thunder and reap a fortune from it."

        I sat down in Mr. Biddle's office and wrote to him. He replied by next mail that he would take Biddle's advice, and the "Physical Geography of the Sea" was soon published by the Harpers. It created a worldwide interest, and before the war broke out eleven editions had been issued. He used to say to me, "Dab, that is your book."

        At the outbreak of the war, he was at the height of his great scientific career, in the most desirable position possible for the exercise of his talents. But he did not hesitate a moment as to his action, but promptly gave up all of his prospects in life for his people's sake, and calmly faced the uncertainties and anxieties of a new career. When his decision became known, the Emperor of Russia, and a little later the Emperor of France, invited him in the most generous terms to come to them and pursue in tranquillity, and in luxurious comfort and ease, those investigations which were for the benefit of all mankind, until peace should once again enable him to resume them at home. He replied, gratefully acknowledging the invitations, but stating that his presence might be of service to his own people, and in their hour of need he could not desert them.

        At the age of seventeen I entered the University of Virginia, and enjoyed the life of freedom from home surveillance, and the great pleasure of association with men well reared and educated, matured in their purposes, and studying earnestly in the fine professional schools which then, as now, were recognized as among the highest in the country. Johnson Barbour, Randolph Tucker, Robert Withers, John S. Barbour, Stage Davis,

Page 19

Winter Davis, Hunter Marshall, George Randolph, Confederate Secretary of War, Honorable Volney E. Howard, R. L. Dabney, and many another who made his mark in life and has gone over the river, were there then.

        After leaving the University, where I was in the junior law class, I continued the pursuit of that most exacting study in Fredericksburg. There were twenty-six of us in the class of that year, and our instructor was the venerable and learned Judge Lomax, distinguished alike for his legal attainments and the courteous dignity of his bearing. I fear he realized from the first that I would not prove a bright and shining light in my adopted profession, for he used always to select the easiest questions and present them to me for solution. One day he inquired of me, "Mr. Maury, does ignorance of the law justify the commission of an offense?"

        "Certainly, sir," I promptly replied. I noticed that he looked at me with a kind of hopeless forbearance, and as I had by that time begun to have grave misgivings of my own as to my legal qualifications, I went to him and told him that I had decided not to pursue further so inexorable and unjust a profession as that of law.

        Of all our class, "Shake" Caldwell was facile princeps in his studies, as he was our "glass of fashion and mould of form." He was the son of Mr. James Caldwell of New Orleans, and the beautiful Widow Wormley of Fredericksburg. They were near neighbors of ours, and my relations with Shakespeare were warm and affectionate till the day of his death. He was one of the handsomest and most elegant gentlemen I have ever known, as he was one of the ablest men of his day. He was so handsome, so charming, so witty, that many people credited him with being a society man only; but, while brilliant in social life, he was steadfast and strong in

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his affections and duties, with a great capacity for business, so that when he died he was probably the richest man in Virginia, and he used his great wealth as a trust confided to him for the good of his people.

        After we parted, - I to go to West Point, and he to seek his fortune, - I knew nothing of his career for six years until he told me of it himself. He went to Mobile to enter upon the practice of law. After a year of almost hopeless waiting for business, his father, who had by that time successfully established the gas works of New Orleans, resolved to undertake similar works in Mobile, and wrote to his son that if he would take charge of the new enterprise, he would give him $750 per annum, which was more than his law practice brought him. After two years of successful management in Mobile, Mr. James Caldwell decided to establish gas works in Cincinnati, and offered Shakespeare the management of these at $2000 per annum. This property so increased in value in a few years that Mr. Caldwell, enriched by the business in Mobile and New Orleans, transferred to his son, for his sister and himself, all of his interests in Cincinnati. Soon after this, having acquired a handsome estate, Shakespeare became attached to a brilliant young girl of Louisville, one of the illustrious Breckinridge family. She was an orphan and an heiress, and had many suitors. His own property was worth about half a million. Their happy married life was only ended by her early death. In 1874 his sister, who had meanwhile become Mrs. Dean, died, and save for a few minor legacies left him her entire fortune, and at his own death his estate was estimated at $ 3,000,000.

        When she was young, Shakespeare's sister numbered among her suitors Bob Waring, a member of a wealthy

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family living in the Northern Neck. As Bob was not very well equipped in his upper story, he was put to work in a dry-goods store in Fredericksburg, where he speedily lost his heart to Sophy Caldwell. About this time Ole Bull came to town to make some music for us, and Bob decided to invite his lady love to enjoy the concert in his company; so he presented himself before her with a request that she would go with him "to hear the old gentleman." She was at first quite at a loss to apprehend his meaning, but finally discovered, from his blushes and hesitating utterances, that he did not consider it proper to pronounce in her divine presence the name of the great virtuoso! Bob and his lady love and the fiddler have gone long ago where I hope they are each enjoying eternal harmonies.

        About 1872, Shakespeare established in Louisville an asylum for indigent men who were cared for, without regard to religious creed, by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

        In 1875 he came to Richmond, to undertake and organize a similar institution there for the poor of Richmond and Fredericksburg. The endowment of $250,000 was to be under the administration of the Bishop of Richmond, now Cardinal Gibbons. On the day that the Virginia Legislature granted the charter, he was stricken with paralysis, but he soon recovered his mental faculties, and earnestly desired to complete the good work he had so much at heart. But Bishop Gibbons would not permit him to be troubled with business under such circumstances. After two or three months he suffered a relapse, and died in New York city in his fifty-fourth year. He left his great estate to his two daughters, and his generous intentions to his church have been carried out by one of them, who has richly endowed the Catholic University now being erected at Washington.

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        On relinquishing my arduous pursuit of legal learning, I left Fredericksburg to enter West Point, where I was immured for four years, the only unhappy years of a very happy life, made happy by the love of the truest people, whose interest in me has followed me until this day. One hundred and sixty-four boys entered the class with me, of whom few had received either social or educational advantages of a very high order. McClellan was a notable exception to this, being under sixteen years of age when he entered the Academy. He went at once to the head of the class and remained there until the end, enjoying the while the affection and respect of all.

        After six months came the first examination, which pronounced a score or more "deficient," leaving Jackson at the foot of the class and McClellan at the head. Jackson was then in his nineteenth year, and was awkward and uncultured in manner and appearance, but there was an earnest purpose in his aspect which impressed all who saw him. Birket Fry, A. P. Hill, and I were standing together when he entered the South Barracks under charge of a cadet sergeant. He was clad in gray homespun, and wore a coarse felt hat, such as wagoners or constables - as he had been - usually wore, and bore a pair of weather-stained saddle-bags across his shoulders. There was about him so sturdy an expression of purpose that I remarked, "That fellow looks as if he had come to stay." As the sergeant returned from installing him in his quarters, we asked who the new cadet was. He replied, "Cadet Jackson, of Virginia." That was enough for me, and I went at once to show him such interest and kindness as would have gratified others under the circumstances. But Jackson received me so coldly that I regretted my friendly

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overtures, and rejoined my companions, rebuffed and discomfited.

        His steady purpose to succeed and to do his duty soon won the respect of all, and his teachers and comrades alike honored his efforts and wished him God-speed. His barrack room was small and bare and cold. Every night just before taps he would pile his grate high with anthracite coal, so that by the time the lamps were out, a ruddy glow came from his fire, by which, prone upon the bare floor, he would "bone" his lesson for the next day, until it was literally burned into his brain. The result of this honest purpose was that from one examination to the next he continually rose in his class till he reached the first section, and we used to say, "If we stay here another year, old Jack will be head of the class."

        "In medio tutissimus" was my motto, and the most valued relic of my many years' study of the humanities; for it kept me safe from disgrace in the examinations, except in those especial accomplishments of the soldier, in all of which I was facile princeps. Old Jack was very clumsy in his horsemanship and with his sword, and we were painfully anxious as we watched him leaping the bar and cutting at heads. He would do it, but at the risk of his life. It is to be regretted that any of his biographers should claim for him skill and grace as a horseman, when they have with truth so much of real greatness to tell of him.

        In the corps of cadets of that time were many who have become famous beside Jackson and McClellan. There was Grant, a very good and kindly fellow whom everybody liked. He was proficient in mathematics, but did not try to excel at anything except horsemanship. In the riding-school he was very daring. When

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his turn came to leap the bar, he would make the dragoons lift it from the trestles and raise it as high as their heads, when he would drive his horse over it, clearing at least six feet.

        Hancock and Franklin were with us too, and although association of the cadets of one class with those of another was rare, I was much with them, and was intimate with Barnard Bee, that noble South Carolinian who, upon the fatal field on which he bravely fell, gave the name of "Stonewall" Jackson to our hero.

        Bee was one of the most admirable young soldiers of that day. Six feet in stature, he was every inch a soldier, and as gentle as he was brave. He was distinguished always for his delicate consideration for others, as for his manly and noble bearing in personal danger. He served with distinction in the Mexican War, and upon the far western frontier, to fall at Manassas in the very moment of our first victory there. About the close of Bee's second year at the Academy, he was court-martialed for some infraction of the regulations, and was meanly sentenced to remain one day behind his classmates, who went off for the biennial furlough. He had the sympathy of all of us in this peculiar punishment, which struck at him through his affections, and I especially strove to cheer and console him. The class notified Bee that as the steamboat passed Gee's Point he must be there, for they would throw over to him a bottle of cocktail to comfort him in his loneliness. Bee liked cocktail, but couldn't swim. I, having promised my mother not to drink while at the Academy, swam for that bottle for love of Bee. For more than an hour I went up and down the Hudson and nearly across it, in vain search for it. It probably broke from its buoy and went down. Poor Bee was in sorry luck that day.

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        After I had been at West Point a year, my uncle, seeing how my mother pined for me, and being in high favor with the Administration, procured for me a three weeks' leave of absence; I joined my mother at the Observatory, and we were all very happy there together. We had then, for commandant, a huge Tennesseean, whose chief aim seemed to be to keep the cadets' hair cropped close. When I presented myself before him on my return from this leave of absence, he looked at me disapprovingly, and said, "Go and get your hair cut, sir, and report to me." Joe, our barber, could cut hair quicker and shorter than any living man. I stepped into his tent, and he ran his shears around my head, nearly scalping me. In two or three minutes I was back and stood attention.

        "Well, sir," said the commandant, "what's the matter now?"

        "You ordered me to have my hair cut and report to you, sir."

        "Ah! That's very well indeed, sir."

        That evening, at dress parade, I was published a corporal.

        The course of study of the second class at West Point was the most difficult. Bartlett's "Optics" was a fearful book, and the most formidable discussion in it was that called "optical images." It was a general bugbear to the class; and only the men of the first section were expected to be able to demonstrate it. The January examinations were close at hand, and all of the men below me had been found deficient save the "immortal section." I was thoroughly aroused, and being pretty good at a spurt, I made myself master of the course. The "optical images" received my especial attention, for if that were well demonstrated I should be safe. The

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week before the examinations Professor Bartlett came into our section, and Lieutenant Deshon of the Ordnance Corps, who was our instructor, ordered, "Mr. Maury will go to the board, and demonstrate the 'optical images.' "

        It was a complete success, a perfect demonstration. Professor Bartlett and Deshon were both satisfied, and I got "max " on that fortunate effort of mine, and went up seventeen files in my standing. My classmates, who seemed as delighted as I was, said as the section was dismissed, "Peri, you are safe." I had been called "Peri" since my first arrival at the Academy, in consequence of my inability to accomplish anything in the musical line save that plaintive ditty commencing, "Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter." I may as well confess that it constitutes my sole repertory unto this day.

        Deshon was a very amiable and able man. After the Mexican War we were stationed together at the Academy. He "got off" on religion, and in our rides together used to try to convince me of the truth of his new-found convictions as to transubstantiation, etc. I told him he would end by being a Jesuit, and so he did, having long ago become a member of the great Church of Rome. A purer Christian never lived than he.

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CHAPTER III

Graduated at West Point and off for the Mexican War - Operations of the Campaign under General Scott and General Taylor - Anecdotes of these Commanders - Other Officers who became Eminent in the Civil War - The Capture of Vera Cruz - Wounded at Cerro Gordo - In the Hospital - The Journey to Jalapa

        IN June, 1846, I was graduated, and was attached as second lieutenant to the Mounted Rifles, now the Third Cavalry. General Taylor's victories of the 8th and 9th of May had aroused the enthusiasm of our country, and we listened with intense interest to the letters and reports which came pouring in from that army, - how, when Charley May came trotting up with his squadron of dragoons to capture the Mexican guns, young Randolph Ridgely cried out from his battery, "Hold on a minute, Charley, till I draw their fire"; and how young Kirby Smith, known as Seminole Smith, leaped astride of a Mexican cannon as he sabred the gunners. These and scores of similar incidents we heard as we were girding ourselves to join these glorious fellows. It was then that the Chief of Artillery at West Point, Captain Keyes, came to me and urged me to accept the position of Instructor of Artillery during the ensuing summer encampment. The offer, though kindly pressed, was as firmly declined, as it might cause delay in reaching the scene of active preparations, and I hastened home to make my farewell visit to my mother.

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        Orders came shortly for me to go to Baltimore and report to Captain Stevens Mason, commanding a squadron of Mounted Rifles about to sail in the brig Soldana for the army of General Taylor on the Rio Grande. There were eight commissioned officers and one hundred and sixty men who embarked in this unseaworthy craft of about two hundred tons. All are gone now save the sad old writer of these lines. As we sailed down Chesapeake Bay a gale arose, which compelled all shipping, numbering probably a hundred sail, to harbor in Hampton Roads. The skipper of the Soldana was Captain Stubbs, of Maine, well named. Full of the importance of his trust, his ambition moved him to make sail for Mexico before the gale was over. The Soldana was the first and only vessel to leave the Roads for the heaving Atlantic on this September morning, and about two A. M. of that same night she rolled her rotten mainmast out and floated a wretched wreck.

        Her best hope seemed to make for Charleston, or some other port, and repair damages; but Stubbs went to work with great energy, and rigged up a jury mast, and on the thirty-second day of her voyage, after many storms and calms, having been long reported "lost with all hands," we landed at Point Isabel, every man of us safe and well. The news of Taylor's capture of Monterey had just come in, and the hope of participating in that action, which had induced this squadron of the Rifles to move without waiting for horses, was disappointed.

        The Rifles moved on up the Rio Grande to Camargo, whence our colonel, Persifer Smith, then in Monterey, and a soldier of reputation, had us ordered to Monterey as escort to some siege pieces which, under the personal efforts of young Stonewall Jackson, were moving to that city. He worked at them in the muddy roads as he

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used to do at West Point, and ever did in his great career, and they had to move along. In Monterey were the heroes of the campaign, and some of the War of 1812 and of many an Indian fight.

        General Zachary Taylor, a simple and unpretending gentleman, may have been Jackson's model; for he had more of the silent, rapid, impetuous methods, which Jackson practiced later on, than any American general save Forrest.

        Monterey was a pleasant place for the month or two of our stay there. Grant was then Quartermaster of the Fourth Infantry. I had been badly wounded while hunting near Camargo, so as to disable me from duty while in Monterey, and Grant being also, by the duties of his office, free to go when and where he pleased, we were much together and enjoyed the association. Grant was a thoroughly kind and manly young fellow, with no bad habits, and was respected and liked by his brother officers, especially by those of his own regiment.

        In the course of a few weeks news came that General Scott had arrived in the country, and assumed command of the army; that he had changed the line of operations; and that General Taylor's forces would in large part be drawn off to Scott. This caused much talk among us, for Taylor had won the unbounded confidence and love of all of us, while Scott was sneered at as "Old Fuss and Feathers." The expectation was that we should forthwith have an order to trim our hair and beards according to the regulations of the army. With us was General David Emanuel Twiggs, a grand-looking old man, six feet two inches in stature, with long, flowing white hair, and a beard which hung over his broad breast like Aaron's. As I passed his tent one morning early, he was outside of it taking a sponge bath, stripped to the waist.

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I had never seen a grander subject for an artist's study. A few days after I saw him again, shorn of his hoary locks, hair and beard close cropped, in anticipation of orders which were never issued; for Scott addressed himself to the serious work of the Mexican campaign, which has ranked him so high among the world's great captains.

        General Taylor was ordered to move down to Victoria with his available forces, where Scott would meet him. Our route lay along the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains, amid beautiful scenery and through orange groves and fields of sugar-cane, and was crossed by clear, cool mountain streams, in which we bathed after our long and dusty marches. The country people supplied us with poultry, vegetables, and fruit, and we greatly enjoyed our march. At Victoria we did not meet General Scott, but were joined by troops from Camargo. Among those who returned with General Taylor towards Monterey were Colonel Jeff Davis and his famous regiment of Mississippi Rifles, who, two months later, turned the tide of battle in Taylor's famous victory at Buena Vista. With them, too, went Bragg's battery. In that battery I met George H. Thomas, an enthusiastic Virginian then and till the very moment, many years later, when he drew his sword against our dear old State. Attached to the battery also was Lieutenant Bob Wheat, afterwards a distinguished soldier. Wheat has been somewhat lightly spoken of as an adventurer in wars, but there was earnest feeling in him. In all his long and dangerous services he bore in his bosom the little prayer-book his mother gave him when he first left home, and on the morning of his last battle (I believe he fell in the fierce fight at Gaines Mill), when he had formed his battalion he said, "Boys, before we move into this fight I will read you something from

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this little book." He was listened to with great feeling, and a few hours later he fell dead in the very prime of his career.

        We were quiet for some days at Victoria, where no event of interest disturbed us save the stealing of General Taylor's horse, "Old Whitey." Whereupon the general promptly arrested the Alcalde of the town as hostage for the safe and early restitution of "Old Whitey," who was restored next day. Just previous to this Charley May had been sent with his squadron to explore a certain route through the mountains. He rejoined us at Victoria, reporting that he had been beset in a wild gorge by the Mexicans, who fired upon them from the cliffs, and rolled great rocks down on them. He had lost his rear guard under Lieutenant Sturgis, whom he arrested, and who was court- martialed at Victoria. Bragg volunteered to act as counsel for Sturgis, who was entirely acquitted, and came out of the affair with more credit than any one concerned in it. We young fellows, as well as the old ones, were all for Sturgis, who seemed to have been made a scapegoat of.

        It was during this march that one of our young officers, Richie, just from West Point, was lassoed and murdered while passing through a Mexican village. We all liked him, and ample vengeance befell that village.

        At Tampico we met General Scott and some thousands of troops assembling for the descent upon Vera Cruz. In all there were over 14,000, of whom but few were veterans. All had flint-lock muskets save the Rifles and some artillery companies.

        The plains about Tampico afforded ample ground for drill, and here we had, for the first time, drilling by General Scott in the evolutions of the line. As soon as all the transports had arrived with troops and equipments,

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our whole force sailed for the rendezvous off Lobos Island, whence we sailed for Vera Cruz. More than a hundred men-of-war and transports made up the fleet, which landed at the island of Sacrificios for the attack upon the city. Bee and I were in the same transport, and on the day before the debarkation we paid a visit to a friend of Bee's, the captain of a gunboat. When I was introduced to him he said: "Are you a son of Captain John Minor Maury? Captain Tatnell, who has just left me, declared him to be the finest officer in the United States Navy." To hear this on the eve of my first battle filled me with emotion, and with the desire to be worthy of such a father, and with honest pride that the tribute should be paid in the presence of so noble a friend as Bee.

        Our army landed at Vera Cruz, 14,000 strong, in four divisions. The landing was made in whale-boats rowed by the sailors of the fleet. In each boat were from fifty to sixty soldiers, and it was a glorious sight to see the first division, under General Worth, move off at 2 P.M. at the signal from the flag-ship. The fifty great barges kept in line, until near the shore, when General Worth himself led the way to make the landing first of all, and being in a fine gig he accomplished this, and was the first man of the army to plant the American flag upon that shore of Mexico. The Mexicans made no resistance, and the boats rapidly returned for the second division, under Twiggs, which was as quietly transported to the shore. Then the volunteers came, and soon after dark Scott had his whole army in battle order about three miles from Vera Cruz.

        Early next morning we moved around the city till we came to the great national road, built by the Spaniards, from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. The Mounted

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Rifles led in this investment, and C Company was in front when we came out upon the great Camino del Rey, over which at that moment a train of mules, laden with wine and escorted by a troop of Mexicans, was passing. We debouched into the road and fired a few shots at the Mexican dragoons, who fled back to Vera Cruz, firing at us over their shoulders as they ran. When our work for that day was done, we had completed the investment of Vera Cruz. We were very hungry and thirsty. So our Texas guide lassoed a fat beef, a keg of sherry was broached, and we bivouacked upon the northern beach of Vera Cruz, just beyond cannon range of the city, and remained there until, after two or three weeks' bombardment, Vera Cruz surrendered.

        While lying there our scouts brought in word that a considerable body of Mexican guerillas had closed up to a bridge two or three miles in our rear. C Company was ordered to go and look after them. We found several hundred of them. They demanded our surrender, and were so defiant and aggressive that we sent a runner back to camp to report the situation. Meantime, we took up a defensive position till our express resumed, guiding General Smith and five or six companies of the Rifles. Our company was in advance, and we moved to the attack in company front, occupying the whole breadth of the road. The Mexicans had formed and were awaiting us in ambuscade, and fired a volley at us. They were not thirty yards distant, yet not one of our men was touched. We sprang forward, charged and routed them, chased them half a mile, and marched back in great delight over our first affair. Sergeant Harris, of Winchester, Virginia, was the only man seriously wounded. I won my first compliment in special orders for good conduct.

        While we were still bombarding Vera Cruz the news of

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General Taylor's victory over Santa Anna's army at Buena Vista was received. General Scott published it to the army, congratulating us "upon this great victory of the successful General Taylor." It was Taylor's fourth decisive victory since May, and was fought with only 4500 men against 23,000. There is every reason to believe that, had not his forces been diverted to Scott, Taylor would have captured the city of Mexico at as early a date as the latter.

        After Santa Anna's defeat at Buena Vista, a serious revolt was organized against him in the city of Mexico. He moved at once to the capital, restored order, and marched up rapidly with his army to relieve the siege of Vera Cruz. Before his arrival Vera Cruz had fallen, and Scott was prepared to advance upon the city of Mexico.

        When the white flag was shown by Vera Cruz we were overjoyed and greatly comforted, for we had been nearly three weeks in the sand hills without change of raiment, our opportunities for bathing were very limited, and the fleas swarmed over us. I have never seen anything like those Vera Cruz fleas. If one were to stand ten minutes in the sand, the fleas would fall upon him in hundreds. How they live in that dry sand no one knows. They don't live very high, for they are ever ready for a change of diet. The engineer officers, G. W. Smith, and McClellan, slept in canvas bags drawn tight about their necks, having previously greased themselves all over with salt pork. Perhaps the fleas did not partake of them, but they made up for it by regaling themselves on us of the line who had no canvas bags.

        At the sight of the white flag all was gaiety along our lines; work and anxiety gave place to pride and comfort. Our servants brought us fresh clothes from the fleet, and never had we enjoyed them more. Commissioners were

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appointed to arrange terms of surrender, and General Scott selected Captains Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee to represent us, and nobly they did so. This selection gave great satisfaction throughout the army. In rich uniforms, superbly mounted, they were the most soldierly, as they were the ablest, men in the army. We young Virginians were proud that day to see them, and to know that our two victorious armies were led by two great Virginia generals.

        We did not linger long at Vera Cruz, for Scott was eager to press on and capture the capital, and Santa Anna was already preparing to dispute his passage at Cerro Gordo, a strong position three or four days from us. Santa Anna first took position a few days' march from Vera Cruz, near Plan del Rio, on the great national road. Here he entrenched himself, and here we attacked him on the 17th of April, 1847. The Rifles marched at the head of the army, and early in the evening, as we were lying by the side of the road, word came from Lieutenant Gardner, who had been sent up with an infantry picket, that the enemy was advancing to attack us. "Send up the Rifles!" shouted General Harney, and up we moved, and in a few minutes were warmly engaged with the Mexican advance. We drove them steadily back to their fortifications on the high telegraph hill. Our line was halted in the edge of the timber which covered the hill we had just occupied. The Mexican skirmishers rallied and formed in line of battle, just below their fortifications on the opposite hill, whence they kept up a dropping fire upon any of our men who showed themselves. Santa Anna himself, in citizen's dress and mounted on a superb gray horse, was riding about the field, ordering the movements of the troops. He was an able general and a game soldier. Several of my men fired

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at him, but at such long range as forbade accurate shooting. We were in the undergrowth which crowned the hill, and from here I observed a little body of Rifles, who under Lieutenant Gibbs, had ensconced themselves in a sheltered spot rather nearer to the enemy than our own, and who were in no little danger of being cut off.

        I called upon my men to follow, and went down the slope, believing they were behind me; for as I advanced the Mexican battalion fired very actively. Before I had gone a hundred yards a ball shattered my left arm, and turning I found myself alone on that bare hillside. The hill was very steep, and as I turned they opened a rapid file fire upon me, but I managed to reach the cover of the brush, faint and suffering severely. As I did so, a rifleman sprang from behind the only tree affording shelter, and ran to the rear for help. This quickly came in the person of Sergeant Bob Coleman, a gallant soldier and an old schoolmate. He assisted me to a surgeon, who cheerfully said, "You've a very bad arm; I shall have to cut it off."

        I replied: "There's a man over there whose leg is worse than my arm. When you are ready for me you will find me behind that big rock down the hill." On reaching the rock I found a negro boy, a servant of Lieutenant Stuart, whose horse he had in charge. I mounted it, and set out for Plan del Rio, five miles in the rear, where I knew there were surgeons and all proper accommodations for the wounded. Dr. Cuyler fixed me as comfortably as possible, and said, "We can save that arm, Maury"; to which I replied, "Do it at all risks. I will die before I will lose it, and I assume all responsibility."

        Next morning the battle raged fiercely, but soon came the cheerful strains of "Yankee Doodle" from our band escorting the Mexican prisoners. Scott had won a great

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victory, and our cavalry was pursuing the flying Mexicans towards the city of Mexico. The Rifles had borne an active part in the battle. Captain Mason and Lieutenants Ewell and Davis were killed; I was severely, and three other officers slightly, wounded. In the long and active service of that famous regiment, every Virginian who entered it was killed, except myself, and I was crippled for life. Generals Jeb Stuart, William E. Jones, and Chamblis, who fell long afterward, were of this number. Loring, our colonel, lost his arm at the gate of Mexico, but that never abated his wonderful activity in many Indian campaigns, in the war between the States, and in the Egyptian campaign against Abyssinia. He served with distinction in the Egyptian wars, and after his return published one of the most interesting books on that country ever written. To the very last his impetuous courage was unabated, and he was one of the most generous of men. He had borne an active part in the Texan war of independence and in the Seminole wars in Florida, having gone from Florida to Texas as a volunteer at sixteen years of age.

        While I was being borne from the field, Colonel Sumner, a rough old dragoon who had been temporarily put in command of the Rifles in the absence of our colonel, Persifer Smith, met me, and learning what was going on in front hastened forward, and was almost immediately knocked over by a glancing ball upon his head. As soon after being carried to the rear as he could walk, he came to me and spoke very kindly to me, calling me "my brave boy," which compensated for all the wound and pain and for some previous roughness of manner to me. When we reached Jalapa, Generals Harney, Twiggs, and Riley came to see me, and made me proud and happy by the assurance that good reports of their boy would gladden

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the hearts of my dear mother and uncle far away in old Fredericksburg.

        On the evening of the 17th, as I was making my escape from that bloody-minded surgeon who was so bent upon cutting off my arm, I was a sorry spectacle, covered with blood, pale and faint, one man leading my horse, while Tom, the negro, glad enough to get off from that field, kept close to me with a flask of brandy, and when he saw me about to faint he would set me up with a pull at it. We met General James Shields at the head of his brigade, marching rapidly to go in the fight. He was a fine, manly-looking fellow, and showed me much kindly interest and sympathy. Next morning, in storming a battery, a grape shot struck him fair in the breast, and passed out at his back. Dr. Cuyler said to me, "Maury, I assure you, you can double up your fist and pass your arm through his body." Yet he got well very soon, was severely wounded again at the city of Mexico, and lived to play an important part in making the fame of Stonewall Jackson, and to claim a victory over him at Kernstown. He died several years ago, greatly honored by his people, who might have made him President but for his foreign nationality. I never saw him after that memorable meeting, but have always remembered gratefully his warm and manly sympathy for me.

        On the morning of the next day after being wounded, I was removed from the tent to a spacious reed house in the village, quite airy and comfortable. Captain Joe Johnston, just promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of one of our new regiments, was lying there. He had been badly shot six days before in a daring reconnaissance. During the day Captain Mason was brought in, and lay in one of the rooms opening upon the main hall, where I was. A cannon-ball had torn off his leg, but he was very bright

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and game. He and I often talked of the fine times we would have at the Virginia Springs in the coming summer. Poor fellow! He never saw them again. Two or three weeks later blood poison set in, and he died soon after being taken to Jalapa. His history was a sorrowful one. The only son of Armstead Mason, who fell in a duel with his kinsman, Colonel McCarthy, Stevens Mason inherited his father's fine estate of Selma, in Loudon County, where he lived extravagantly. A few years before his death he married; his wife died within a year, and after that all went ill with Mason. When his property was all gone, he procured a captaincy in the Rifles, and died bravely, a representative gentleman of the old times.

        A few days after being placed in the house, Dr. Cuyler said to me: "Maury, there's a young fellow, Derby, across the street, lying wounded among the volunteers, who says he is a classmate of yours and wishes to come over here. I would not agree to it without consulting you, for he is a coarse fellow; but I don't like him to be among the volunteers." In that war the volunteers were not regarded as they were in the great war between the States.

        Of course I cheerfully agreed to his being brought over, and his cot was placed in the hall beside mine. The partitions of the rooms were of reeds wattled together, so that conversations could be heard from one room to the other. John Phoenix Derby was an incessant talker, and uttered a stream of coarse wit, to the great disgust of Joe Johnston, who endured it in silence, till one day he heard Derby order his servant to capture a kid out of a flock of goats passing our door, when he broke out, "If you dare to do that, I'll have you court-martialed and cashiered or shot!"

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        In about ten days General Scott, having chased Santa Anna out of the road, established himself at Jalapa, a lovely little town on the slope of the mountains, looking down towards the sea, some ninety miles distant. Scott sent litters and a strong escort to move us up into that delicious climate. We took two days to make the trip. All of the second day's march was a race between my litter and that of a volunteer officer. We frequently passed each other and had some pleasant chat. Two of my three relays were short men, all of his were long legged fellows, so that he could pass my short men, and I could close up when my tall ones came. His were all good-natured volunteers from Tennessee, I believe. I said, "I fear you'll beat me; you have the legs of me."

        "Ah, you can't say that," and the poor fellow held up the stump of his amputated leg. I had not known before the nature of his wound. I privately told my men I would give them a gold piece or two, if they would get me into Jalapa first, and so they did. Mason, Derby, and I were quartered in an elegant house, where, in a short time, poor Mason left us. I went to the Springs without him.

        After Captain Mason's death, from blood poison, the doctors discovered symptoms of it in me; but happily they passed away, and I was permitted to walk about the city and enjoy the beautiful scenery, the luxurious baths, the fruits, and the flowers, and nowhere had I seen more pretty faces than were found among the women of Jalapa.

        Every day I went to see my friend, Colonel Joe Johnston, still ill of his grievous wounds. He was affectionately tended by his nephew, Preston Johnston, who was dear to him as a son. He was a bright and joyous young fellow, full of hope and courage, and worthy of the great race

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from which he sprung. He fell a few months later while working his gun against Chapultepec. Only a few weeks before General Johnston died, he spoke to me of the death of this bright young lad, who had been so dear to him. He said, "When Lee came to tell me of Preston's mortal wound, he wept as he took my hand in his."

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CHAPTER IV

        Recollections of Jalapa - General Harney and the Seminoles - White Sulphur Springs and its Patrons before the War - The Ashby Brothers - Ordered to West Point as Instructor - Sports and Jokes of the Officers' Mess - Anecdotes of McClellan, Fitz John Porter, and Others - Shooting and Other Excursions

        IN my daily visits to Johnston I passed a residence with deep, iron-barred windows. As I went feebly by one day on the arm of a friend, Lieutenant Coppee, I heard a sweet, sympathetic voice murmur, "Pobre teniente!" ("Poor lieutenant!"); and, turning, I saw a beautiful young girl, a perfect vision of female loveliness and sympathy. She was a blonde, with exquisite features, blue eyes, and curling golden hair. I passed and repassed there daily, and, after that, always received a smile and a bow from her, but our acquaintance never progressed farther. I learned from an American physician, who had lived twenty years in Jalapa, that she was the favorite daughter of Santa Anna, who, though he had never married her mother, had richly endowed this child, whom any gentleman in Jalapa would gladly have made his wife. If she be alive now, she must be sixty years old, and not so attractive and lovable as she was when I last saw her.

        My recollections of Jalapa are the most agreeable of any I retain of Mexico. We were elegantly lodged and cared for, and I received much kind attention from the general officers, who called to see how I was getting on

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and to say kind things to me. Amongst them was General Benet Riley, who had risen from a private soldier to his present rank for repeated acts of gallantry. He was a man of great stature and fine martial bearing, but entirely free from any ostentation. He had the proverbial humor of his race, and, having lost a part of his palate, his voice was quite remarkable and added zest to his narrations. He told me that he had been a shoemaker before he enlisted in the last war, and that after he acquired the rank of General, a fellow came to him one day and proposed to get up a coat of arms for him. He "damned him" - told him to "Clear out; because, sir, I never had a coat of any kind till I was twenty-one years old."

        Generals Twiggs and Harney of the Dragoons, and Sumner as well, were all men of great stature and fine physique. It was quite remarkable that our dragoons should have included so many men of extraordinary size and weight. In other countries this arm of the service seeks light and active men. When Charley May was married, his groomsmen were his handsome brother Julian, Sacket, and several others, all six feet and over. An English officer, who was present at the marriage, said to May, "I understand you gentlemen are all of the light dragoons. I would like very much to see your heavies, don't you know."

        General Harney, a native of Louisiana, was a very remarkable man. Of strong convictions and extraordinary physical powers, he made his presence felt by all sorts of people. While serving as Captain of Dragoons in Florida, he and his company were surprised in their camp one night by the Seminoles, and all but himself were murdered as they slept. They were under their mosquito nets when the Indians crept upon them. Two Indians were appointed to kill each man, and took their

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places on either side of him. At the signal, all struck and killed, save those assigned to Harney, who, finding themselves too far removed from the company's stores, deserted their post, that they might be sure of securing their share of the plunder. Harney, aroused by the outcry, sprang from his bed, accoutred as he was, and fled. He was six feet two inches tall and his legs were well proportioned, and no Indian was able to run with him. He took the route for the nearest station, some forty miles distant, through the Everglades, where he arrived safely. He immediately got together a considerable force, and succeeded in defeating and capturing a majority of the band which had attacked him. He told me he hanged all of his prisoners, because the Indians had a great and superstitious horror of hanging; for they believe that no man's soul will be received into the happy hunting grounds that does not pass through the throat, which is impossible when that route is closed by a rope; it must seek another road of exit, and all such souls are rejected at the gates of Paradise. He said a fine moral effect was produced upon the Indians by this method of execution.

        Early in June I was ordered out of the country to report when well enough for recruiting service. We went down to Vera Cruz in a mule litter, the most delightful of all the modes of travelling I have ever attempted. An old paymaster, Major Hammond, and I had the litter to ourselves. We had pillows and lay vis-à-vis on a great mattress. Our light baggage was in with us, and our books and lunch, and our pistols made us feel safe. We reached Vera Cruz at midday of a broiling June morning. The yellow fever was raging, and as we passed the churches, the whole interior seemed occupied by the cots of the sick. It was a relief, indeed, to get aboard a

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comfortable steamer and breathe the fresh sea breeze. In those days wounded men were rarely seen in our country; therefore, I was an object of interest in Virginia, where I received more than my meed of praise, for I was again complimented in orders and promoted, and the good people of Fredericksburg gave me a beautiful sword, and the lovely Virginia girls carved my chicken for me at dinner and were good to me generally.

        The Mexican War was a fine experience for our troops. It was actively pressed, by Taylor and Scott, from May, 1846, to September, 1847, and was a series of victories without check, until the capital was captured and peace was made. From first to last, we had 100,000 men enrolled in our armies, but at no time were over 14,000 engaged in any battle. After the siege of Vera Cruz, Scott's army was much reduced by the expiration of the terms of service of the volunteers, so that he entered the great valley of Mexico with only 9000 men, and received no reinforcements until after the city was taken. By the terms of the treaty of peace, we received from Mexico the vast territory embraced in California, New Mexico, and Arizona, and a full surrender of the disputed territory of Texas, which lies between the Rio Grande and the Nueces. In a spirit of fairness unusual in conquered nations, we gave Mexico $10,000,000 as conscience money. Some years ago when Mr. Hayes was preparing to invade Mexico, the newspapers of that country admonished us that we had to pay Mexico $10,000,000 to stop the last war, and we had better be careful how we again aroused their wrath.

        So long a period had elapsed since our last war with Great Britain that a whole generation had passed away, and few of our people had ever seen a wounded soldier, and much interest and kindness were shown to such as

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reached home. While on my homeward journey, I was detained a day in Louisville. I was at the Galt House, and had occasion to go to a dry-goods store near by for a silk handkerchief for my broken arm. I was followed and overtaken by a kind-hearted Kentuckian, who with much interest asked, "Is it true that you were wounded at the battle of Cerro Gordo?"

        "Yes."

        "Well, sir, do you ever drink anything?"

        "Yes."

        "Well, come, please, and take a drink with me." He conducted me into the bar-room of the Galt House and said to the bar-keeper, "Let him have the best you have in the house, no matter what it costs." This was but a faint indication of what was in store for the wounded officers homeward bound.

        A rumor of my death had preceded me, and there was great apprehension among my friends lest my mother should hear it before better tidings came. Fortunately, she was spared this pain, for I was her only child and she was a widow. The doctors thought the White Sulphur a fine place for a young soldier with a wounded arm, and there we went for the season and were very happy together.

        One day a party of us were playing whist in the bachelors' quarters in Fredericksburg. It was very warm and we had laid aside our coats, when in walked a committee of the citizens of Fredericksburg appointed to present me a handsome sword. Captain William Lewis Herndon, afterwards the hero of the Central America, was of the party. The sword was presented with an appropriate speech, and finding myself quite unequal to reply to it, I invited the committee to be seated while I composed a note of appreciation and gratitude. This, with the assistance of Lewis Herndon, was happily accomplished.

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        There was no railroad to the White Sulphur in those days, but it was, nevertheless, the favorite summer resort with the best class of Southern people. The long journeys over bad roads made four-in-hand teams a necessity, as were baggage-wagons and a retinue of servants and saddle horses. Judges Brooke, Brokenborough, and Robinson, Jerome Bonaparte, of Baltimore, and his brilliant wife, General Wade Hampton, Colonel Singleton, of South Carolina, and Dick Taylor formed the usual coterie every summer. The Hamptons and Singletons built their own spacious summer residences. There were many complaints of the fare, which was considered poor and insufficient, but the dignified proprietor, Mr. Caldwell, consoled his guests by assuring them they paid nothing for their dinners, but only for the wonderful sulphur water which he had discovered about the beginning of the century. During the height of the season one day the crowded dining-room was appalled by a loud cry of "Murder!" Steward and servants rushed to the victim, who assured them he could get nothing to eat and was dying of starvation. That young man was served well and promptly ever after.

        Writing of the White Sulphur, I am reminded of the Ashby brothers. Turner Ashby was one of the most loved of the devoted men of Virginia. He came of a family famed for their expertness in all manly exercises. They were the famed horsemen of the country. Their birthplace and home was in that Piedmont region which had been noted for generations of bold riders, and which was for four years the battle-field of the great armies of the South and North. Turner Ashby and his younger brother Dick were the pride of all that hard-riding countryside. They were devoted to each other and beloved by all. Turner was not tall, but was powerful

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and active. He was swarthy as a Spaniard, with a gentle, modest bearing and as brave a heart as ever beat. Men and women alike trusted and respected him. One day a great mountaineer, such as are commonly to be found in that region of Virginia, came into the railroad store under his charge and began to bully the youthful clerk, charging him with being dishonest. Turner Ashby had come to the boy's aid when he heard the wanton insult, and in a moment leaped across the counter, knocked the bully down, and administered such a thrashing as he had never before experienced.

        The whole of the family connection were manly in their traits, and the women shared their pride. The boys had a sister, Dora. I well remember her as a belle of the White Sulphur. Tall, with flashing black eyes and gleaming ivory teeth, she was superb, resembling greatly that charming young Virginia matron, who is still remembered and loved in Richmond as Emma Gray, now Emma White of Norfolk. One day Dora Ashby was driving with young Herndon, - youngest brother of Captain William Lewis Herndon, - when they heard closing up behind them a clamorous uproar from a four-horse drag. The young fellows in it were all cousins or other kinsmen of Dora's, and demanded that she should give them the road. Their horses were almost running; Herndon put his own to their fastest trot and kept his place. Finally the drag pushed them hard and was about to pass them, when Herndon said, "Miss Dora, shall I give way to the boys?"

        "If you do," she replied, "I will never ride with you again!" So Herndon plied the whip, and the pursuers and pursued came tearing through the woods, the buggy still leading, and the beautiful girl radiant with triumph. But, alas, the young rascals suddenly came to

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a cut-off, and, whirling into it, reached the hotel a length or two ahead and won the race.

        I used to meet the Ashbys in the summer at the White Sulphur. Every summer there were tournaments, at which good horses and good horsemen showed their power and skill. The Ashbys and the Greenes of Rappahannock and Stafford, their near kin, were always active in these. Turner Ashby used to ride his thoroughbred stallion at the ring without either saddle or bridle, and carried it, too! It was said the young fellows of Rappahannock would not let him enter for the prize unless he rode without saddle and bridle. Dick Ashby was one of the handsomest and most winsome men I ever knew. He was six feet in his stockings, straight as an Indian, handsome and gentle, and brave as the bravest. He entered the war as a captain in the cavalry regiment his brother Turner had raised and commanded. One of the earliest engagements of this command was a scouting affair upon the Potomac near Romney, in which Dick Ashby was killed while acting with heroic courage. His brother Turner came too late to rescue him, but found him lying where he had fallen. His body had been brutally mutilated. From that hour Turner Ashby was a changed man. A stern sorrow became his controlling motive, a deep purpose of vengeance possessed him, all his buoyancy and bright hopes of fame gave place to grief, and his brief and glorious career closed when Jackson defeated Banks and Fremont upon the same day. Ashby had dismounted his command, and sent his beautiful white stallion to the rear, and drawing his sword commanded the charge, when he fell dead, a bullet piercing his noble heart. Such were the Ashbys in peace and war! They were all gathered at my wedding; they are all gone now. Their first cousin, brave William

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Greene, colonel of the Forty-seventh Virginia, fell at Gaines Mill, dying as his cousin Turner had died only a few months before.

        I was in the full enjoyment of the daily association with the charming society gathered at the White Sulphur, when orders came for me to report for duty at West Point. I was much disappointed, for my stay there as a cadet had not been a happy one, and I had no desire to return to the Academy; but on arriving there I was persuaded to remain and try the new duties and relations of an officer and professor. There were already some nice young fellows there, and presently there came from Mexico, McClellan, Franklin, Ruddy Clarke, Baldy Smith, G. W. Smith, Kirby Smith, and several others who had washed off the starch of the Academy in two years of war service, and thenceforth we had a very agreeable sojourn together. Our duties were congenial, and we had an excellent mess. The arrival of an old comrade of the war, or of a foreign officer, was enough to start the champagne corks popping; but we were not convivial alone in our pleasures, for we had several clubs where we resumed our riding and fencing and Spanish. We had a Shakespeare club, and a chess club, of which Professor Agnell was president; but best of all was the Napoleon Club. Professor Mahan was president of this, and gave out the Napoleon campaigns to be discussed by each member. Six weeks' time was allowed to prepare the paper. We had ample authorities, both French and English, at our disposal in the library, and worked diligently on our papers. The campaign of Waterloo, by Lieutenant B. S. Alexander, was considered one of the best discussions ever made of that notable defeat of Bonaparte. The campaign of Russia, by G. W. Smith, and of Wagram, by McClellan, showed

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marked ability. I believe something of this sort has been introduced into the course of study for the cadets.

        In this way we spent four years very profitably and happily at the Academy Remembering how keenly I had felt the restrictions and surveillance of cadet life, I determined to spare those who fell under my charge as much as possible. One night while officer in charge, I came upon a young cadet asleep upon his post. He had leaned his musket against the stair rail, and was fast asleep. I knew it meant severe punishment for him, and he was such a delicate-looking lad my sympathies were aroused, so I wakened him. He was greatly alarmed. I said to him: "If I report this, you will probably be sent away from here in disgrace, your family will be mortified, and you will be seriously injured by it. If you will promise me never to allow it to happen again, I will take no further notice of it." Some years ago a well-known member of Congress invited me to dine with him, and at the table told of this experience with me at West Point. I had often vainly tried to recall the boy and his history, and now for the first time learned both.

        Professor Dennis Mahan was one of the ablest of the faculty at West Point. He was a native of Norfolk, Virginia, and had not received a classical education. He told me he was so impressed by the disadvantage of not having studied Latin and Greek, that he had acquired them by hard work after he became a professor at West Point. His was considered a hard nature by the cadets, and he was given to saying sarcastic things in the section room; but I had reason to observe that he was grateful for benefits bestowed upon him, and capable of much real kindness. On one occasion, when a cadet, he made me the victim of his sarcasm. While reciting

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upon the construction of fortifications, he asked me, "Mr. Maury, what is the height of the breast-height slope?"

        "Five feet, sir," I replied.

        With that cold manner with which he used, to express his contempt for an ignorant cadet, he said, "If it were five feet, Mr. Maury, you could not shoot over it!" As I was only five feet three inches, at that time, this personal allusion was received with a suppressed giggle by my classmates, and for a long time I remembered it against him. Years afterward, he made up for it one night in the Napoleon Club, of which, as I have said, he was president. He came cordially up to me after I had finished reading my paper on the Italian campaign of 1796, grasped my hand with real pleasure, and said: "I congratulate you, Maury. You have discussed your subject in the very spirit of that Italian campaign." I could name many other things about him highly creditable to his warm and generous heart. Some time after the Civil War, at the age of seventy-five years, he lost his life by falling from a steamboat on the Hudson River.

        As I recall these memories of my long life, it seems to me people were always glad when I did anything clever, with a sort of surprised gladness, as if they had never thought I could do it. To tell the truth, I was always surprised myself, and delighted in receiving praise, as I winced under censure and that carping criticism which is the refuge and habit of weak and ignorant natures. Fault-finding is the bane of discipline, while just praise is the very life and object of high endeavor. A true soldier strives and lives to win it. A martinet is an unhappy, worthless creature, wretched and mischievous, too. The only consolation is that he is more unhappy than he makes other people.

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        While the hills and swamps about West Point were fairly good shooting-ground for ruffled grouse (pheasants in Virginia, partridges in New York and Pennsylvania) and woodcock, all of the little mountain streams thereabouts had trout in them. One day, Fitz John Porter, McClellan, and I hired a boat to go a-fishing for perch on the Hudson. We lay at the mouth of a creek which emptied into the river a little more than a mile below the Point. Finding no perch, I sauntered up the creek, searching for trout. In a little over an hour I returned to my still unsuccessful companions with a good creel full of trout; there were over thirty in all, and several were over a foot long. A great sportsman named Warren, brother of General Warren, told me he took over a hundred out of that little stream one day. I met him once coming out of a woodcock swamp with thirty birds in his bag. He advised me not to go in, as he had bagged them all; but having nowhere else to go, I went in, and got eleven more. It was summer, and the birds were breeding. I saw a group of five, not yet feathered. The law should protect the summer birds.

        Every winter we had several weeks of good sleighing. One day a party of us drove up to Newburg. While resting our horses there, and sipping something seasonable, one of us read aloud a funny trick of the famous wizard, Herr Alexander, and we unanimously resolved to play it off on Ruddy Clarke, who was always as ready to be the victim of a sell as we were to practise it upon him. At that time, Franklin and Ruddy Clarke occupied a tower room in the new barracks, with a chamber behind it, and it was our habit to adjourn over there for social enjoyment. Besides Ruddy and Franklin, were usually John M. Jones, Pull Hawes, Frank Clarke and Mac and I. So, after dinner, on our return from Newburg,

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I told Ruddy that I would bet him a bottle of champagne that he might go into the other room, shut the door, and assume any position he chose, and I would tell, from our room, what his position was. After much doubting and questioning, he finally went into the darkened room, struck an attitude, and called out, "What position am I in?"

        I replied, "In the position of a great ass." He looked it when he came out, amidst our laughter, into the light. We induced him, by adroit investigation, to describe to us his exact attitude. It was truly absurd for a professor.

        We had a very jovial and humorous set of young officers stationed at the Academy for several years after the Mexican War, and great kindness of feeling prevailed. We played whist, dime points, and faro, and brag at the same moderate rate. It was noted that at faro we almost invariably broke the bank. One winter I was laid up for many weeks by an injury to my leg, received while riding, and my room, during all that time, was the gathering place after dinner. The card table was drawn up to my bed, and I played my hand till tired and sleepy. One night we were playing brag, and I becoming tired and drowsy, little Frank Clarke said he would play my hand for me while I slept. When I awoke, next morning, I found the greatest amount I had ever won at cards under my pillow. I reflected that it was a demoralizing amusement; that avarice, the basest of human passions, was its moving impulse; that often, at the card table, I observed some show of feeling that left an unpleasant remembrance against a comrade, and that none of us could afford to win or lose even a few dollars; so I ceased all play for money, and have been glad of it ever since.

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        During my stay at West Point as an instructor, Baldy Smith and I were room-mates, and occupied a cottage overlooking Kosciusko's Gardens. We were popular as "Subs," and our pupils used to manifest their appreciation of our efforts in their behalf by paying us long and frequent visits. Our sensations during these well-meant and oft-repeated calls may be best described in the language of a witty Frenchman who was invited to make a cruise on a man-of-war, and afterwards wrote of his experiences there. He said: "Sometimes I would dine with the captain in his cabin, sometimes with lieutenants in the wardroom, and sometimes with midshipmen in the steerage; and my recollections of the conversations of those midshipmen make my blood run cold to this day!"

        No one seemed to have discovered the opportunities for good shooting, until I came along with my setters and pointers. These dogs were a great comfort to me and to my pupils; for they always accompanied me on my inspections, going before me, and giving due notice of my approach, and they were cherished accordingly by the cadets.

        Captain Alden, Robert Coleman, Fitz John Porter, and I made several shooting excursions over the mountains into Orange County, where the Warwick Woodlands, famed by Frank Forrester, gave us fine sport. We took up our quarters with a plain farmer upon the turnpike, named Dickerman, who made us comfortable. He had a very handsome and cultivated daughter, who was not only the maid of all work, but who in the evenings, after our day's hunt was over, would entertain us in the parlor. She was an excellent musician, and an expert in the art of greasing and polishing our hunting-boots after a hard day's tramp through the mud.

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        Sometimes Porter and I would ride over to the home of Mr. Peter Townsend, and spend the night, returning next morning in time for our day's work. Mr. Townsend was a most agreeable country gentleman of New York, and had a vast establishment in Orange County. His wife and three daughters made up his household, and a charming family it was. Mrs. Townsend was very dignified and attractive, and her daughters were all bright, cordial, and handsome, and were great favorites with the young officers at West Point. One of them married General Meagher, the gallant commander of the most distinguished Federal brigade in the battle of Fredericksburg, that Irish brigade which charged, and charged again, Lee's line at Marye's Hill, until eye-witnesses have told me that they could walk along its whole front, and step every step upon the bodies of its dead. After their final repulse, a young soldier named Kirkland, a private in a South Carolina regiment, having obtained permission of his colonel, climbed over the famous stone wall, and, under heavy fire, went out upon the field, bearing canteens of water to the wounded, to all of which he ministered. Unhappily for his country, he did not survive the war; we cannot afford to lose the breed of such men. Another of Mr. Townsend's daughters married General Barlow of New York, a warm personal friend of General Dick Taylor, and a well-known gentleman of New York. I was the recipient of much graceful hospitality from Mr. Townsend's charming household, and time has not dimmed my remembrance of the many delightful hours for which I was their debtor.

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CHAPTER V

        The Rifles ordered to Oregon - Captain Stuart's Tragic Fate - Reminiscences of McClellan - His Capacity and Character illustrated - His Comments upon Foreign Campaigns - His Popularity with his Troops - A Criticism of the Crimean War - McClellan and Grant contrasted - Generals Franklin, Hancock, and Meade - Young Jerome Bonaparte

        AMONG my friends of those far-away days was Captain Stuart, who was the son of an able editor of the Charleston Mercury, and was a great-nephew of Sir John Stuart, who won the battle of Maida and who at his death was the nearest survivor of the royal family of Stuart. He served with me in the Mounted Rifles, and was one of the most interesting characters I have ever known. Handsome, and gentle as a woman, no soldier of our army surpassed him in courage and daring, and after two years of active service the commanding general said in his report of the last battle of the Mexican War, "Lieutenant Stuart of the Rifles, leaping the ditch, was the first American to enter the city of Mexico."

        When the Mexican War was ended, and after I was ordered to West Point, our regiment made ready for service in Oregon, marched across the great plains, and occupied for the ensuing four years that wild and unknown region where there were then only a few venturesome people of the American and British fur-trading companies. At the end of their term of service, the Rifles

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were destined for the frontier of Texas, while the First Dragoons and other troops took their place in Oregon. The officers and non-commissioned officers were sent by sea back to the States, while our horses and the private soldiers, of whom not many remained, were transferred to the dragoons. Captain Phil Kearney, afterwards General Phil Kearney, who fell in the disastrous defeat of General Pope at Manassas, was selected to conduct the transfer of our horses, etc., and to aid him in this work he chose Captain John G. Walker and James Stuart. If there was any officer in our regiment equal to Stuart in conduct, it was Walker, and the two were close friends.

        This interesting march seemed an indulgence and a trip of pleasure. The weather was fine, there seemed nothing likely to disturb them on the route, and their service being ended when California was reached, they, Stuart and Walker together, would return to their homes in the States, where Jamie hoped to find the lady of his love awaiting him. Their road to California lay through the country of the Rogue River Indians, but they were not known to be hostile, and every prospect seemed pleasant to these two comrades. The worst of their journey was over, when one night Walker was aroused by Stuart, who shared his tent. It was after midnight, and Stuart said he had not been able to sleep at all because of a conviction that his death was at hand. He could not rid himself of the feeling, and he wished Walker to see to it that the wishes he now desired to impart would be carried out.

        In vain Walker tried first to laugh away all this as a sort of nightmare. Stuart agreed that it might be so, but he urged his friend to listen and to promise him to be the executor of his last request, to which Walker at last assented, little suspecting the catastrophe hanging

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over them. The next day's march justified Stuart's anxieties; for they found that the Rogue River Indians had begun hostilities, and came upon the trail of a large Indian war party, and preparations were immediately made to follow it and punish the hostiles. At their breakfast next morning, Stuart told of a vivid dream which had troubled him, - how an Indian warrior appeared at the door of the tent, drew his bow upon Walker first, and then changing his aim to Stuart, shot him through the body.

        Kearney divided his command for the march and fight that day into two bodies, sending Stuart with his party down the river on the opposite side, where they came up with the enemy, charged, and scattered them. The chief seemed to surrender to Stuart, who ordered him to drop his bow, and to emphasize the order tapped him upon his head. Instantly the chief drove an arrow through Stuart's body. He lived a few hours in great agony; his grave was made under a tree at the forks of the road, and carefully marked.

        George B. McClellan, to whose cadet days I have already briefly referred, came to West Point at the age of fifteen years and seven months. He bore every evidence of gentle nature and high culture, and his countenance was as charming as his demeanor was modest and winning. His father, the celebrated Dr. McClellan, and his elder brother, Dr. John McClellan, were two of the ablest and best-educated men of their day, and he had been reared in their presence. I remember that it was about the middle of June, 1842, when we first met in the section room at West Point. The class was at first arranged according to alphabetical order, and our initial letters placed us for a brief space side by side. For a very brief space it was, for he pushed at

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once to the head, while I plodded along in the middle - that easiest and safest of positions - through all the long four years of my cadetship. At the end, Mac went into the Engineer Corps, and I, as I have said, into the Rifles. After the Mexican War, while we were both at West Point as instructors, we were, of course, daily associated together for several years, and a happy association it was. A brighter, kindlier, more genial gentleman did not live than he. Sharing freely in all the convivial hospitality of the mess, he was a constant student of his profession. Having been instructed in the Classics and in French before he came to the Academy, he learned Spanish and German there, and before he was sent to Europe to study and report upon the cavalry service of the great military powers of the world, he had acquired sufficient knowledge of the Russian language to enable him to make a satisfactory and valuable report. The excellent saddles and horse equipage ever since used in our service were introduced by him from the Cossacks. He was an excellent horseman, and one of our most athletic and best swordsmen. We rode and fenced together almost daily. His father gave him a handsome thoroughbred mare, and I had brought from Virginia a very fleet race mare. So long as my arm was in splints, she ran away with me whenever I rode her. Nobody else would ride her; but she threw me only twice in the four years, once by carrying me under a limb which swept me off over her tail, and again when she reared and fell over on me, which didn't hurt me, while it gave great amusement to the crowded company of passengers on the steamer New World, before whom I had tried to "show off" as I galloped down to the wharf on my beautiful thoroughbred mare, arrayed in my best suit of cavalry clothes.

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        Mac and Mac's mare had no such foolishness about them. One bright, but bitter cold Christmas Day, he and I decided to escape the wassail of the Academy by riding over the mountains to Newburg. A heavy snow covered the ground, and the road was so slippery we had to lead our horses part of the way. About 11 A. M. we reached a little country church where Christmas services were being held. A number of handsome sleig