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FROM FLAG TO FLAG

A Woman's Adventures and Experiences in the South
during the War, in Mexico, and in Cuba:

Electronic Edition.

Ripley, Eliza Moore Chinn McHatton, 1832-1912

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition
supported the electronic publication of this title.

Text scanned (OCR) by Maryann Gelato
Images scanned by Heather Bumbalough
Text encoded by Heather Bumbalough and Natalia Smith
First edition, 1998
ca. 500K
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 F1763.R58 c.2 1889 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South, Beginnings to 1920.
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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

LC Subject Headings:

Cover

Spine

Title Page

FROM FLAG TO FLAG
A WOMAN'S ADVENTURES AND EXPERIENCES
IN THE SOUTH DURING THE WAR,
IN MEXICO, AND IN CUBA

BY

ELIZA McHATTON-RIPLEY

                        "Faith! I ran when I saw others run."

- I HENRY IV.

                        "See here, my friends and loving countrymen;
                        This token serveth for a flag of truce
                        Betwixt ourselves."

- I HENRY IV.

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1889

COPYRIGHT, 1888,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Page 3

NOTE.

        THE years covered by this narrative were full of stirring interest. Civil war in the United States put the nation under arms from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and shattered the entire social and political fabric of the South. Mexico was conquered by the French, who, in time, were driven from the country, and the improbability of any European power obtaining a foothold there forever settled. A large portion of the Island of Cuba was for years under the control of the insurgents; and, not until a sea of blood and millions of treasure had been poured out, was a semblance of peace secured.

        The minor part I bore in these exciting times has been a thrice-told tale at my fireside; and, believing the unfamiliar pictures of life, varied incidents, and historical facts worthy of record, I have written why, and how, we ran "from flag to flag."

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CONTENTS.

Page 7

FROM FLAG TO FLAG.

CHAPTER I.
A PLANTATION HOME IN LOUISIANA.

        A SPACIOUS mansion, with deep verandas supported by fluted columns, so closely following the architectural features of the historic Lee homestead on the Potomac as to give the name of "Arlington" to the plantation, was the home of my early married life.

        The house faced a broad lawn, dotted here and there with live-oak and pecan trees. An avenue, over which the "pride-of-China" trees cast their shade, and beside which the Cherokee rose grew with great luxuriance, led to the river-bank, and commanded a magnificent view of the Mississippi for many miles above, and below.

        To this house, with all its attractive appointments, I came a bride, and from this home I took a hurried

Page 8

departure a decade later. Time has not dimmed the memory of those years; on the contrary, it has added to their radiant brightness.

        Turning back a quarter of a century, I see a picture of peace, happiness, and the loveliest surroundings. In those spring days at Arlington the air was so pure and fragrant that its inhalation was a positive luxury. It was delightful to wander over the lawn, with its fresh carpet of green, and note the wonderful growth of vegetation on every side. The roses that arched the gateways, the honeysuckles and jasmines that climbed in profusion over the trellises, the delicate-foliaged crape myrtle with its wealth of fairy pink blossoms, all contributed perfume to the breeze.

        Those grand autumnal days, when smoke rolled from the tall chimney of the sugar-house, and the air was redolent with the aroma of boiling cane-juice; when the fields were dotted with groups of busy and contented slaves, and their cabins resounded with the merry voices of playing children; when magnolia and oak trees were musical with the mocking-birds, whose throats poured forth melodies unknown to any other of the feathered tribe, and nimble squirrels gathered their winter stores in the pecan-groves - oh, those grand autumnal days!

        Those Christmas-days, when the house was filled with gay throngs of city guests, and the broad halls resounded with merry laugh and romp; when the

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"plantation band," with the inspiring airs of "Monie Musk" and "Come, haste to the Wedding," put wings to the giddy feet - how the happy moments fled! oh, the jolly days, when we danced the hours away!

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CHAPTER II.
THE NEW FLAG - CAMPAIGN SEWING SOCIETY - CAPTURE OF
NEW ORLEANS.

        BASKING in the sunshine of prosperity during the stirring events that crowded one after another through the winter of 1860-'61, buoyed up by the hope and belief that a peaceful solution of national complications would be attained, we were blind to the ominous clouds that were gathering around us. Prophets arose in our midst, with vigorous tongue and powerful eloquence lifting the veil and giving us glimpses of the fiery sword suspended over our heads; but the pictures revealed were like pages in history, in which we had no part nor lot, so hard it was for people who had for generations walked the flowery paths of peace, to realize war and all that that terrible word imports.

        It was during the temporary absence of my husband, and Arlington full of gay young guests, when our city paper described the device for "the flag," as decided upon at Montgomery, the cradle of the new-born Confederacy. Up to and even far beyond that period we did not, in fact could not, realize the mightiness of

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the impending future. Full of wild enthusiasm, the family at Arlington voted at once that the banner should unfold its brave States-rights constellation from a staff on our river-front. This emblem of nationality (which, on account of its confusing resemblance to the brilliant "Stars and Stripes," was subsequently discarded) consisted of a red field with a horizontal bar of white across its center; in one corner was a square of blue with white stars. There were red flannel and white cotton cloth in the house, but nothing blue could we find; so a messenger was hastily dispatched to town with orders for goods of that color, no matter what the quality or shade.

        On a square of blue denim the white stars were grouped, one to represent each seceded State. We toiled all that Saturday, and had no little difficulty in getting our work to lie smooth and straight, as the red flannel was pieced, the cotton flimsy, and the denim stiff. From the negroes who had been spending their half-holiday catching drift-wood, which in the early spring floats from every tributary down on the rapidly swelling bosom of the broad Mississippi, we procured a long, straight, slender pole, to which the flag was secured by cords, nails, and other devices. When the staff was firmly planted into the ground, on the most prominent point on the river-front, and its gay banner loosened to the breeze, the enthusiastic little party danced round and round, singing and shouting in

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exuberance of spirit. At that critical moment a small stern-wheel Pittsburg boat came puffing up the stream; its shrill whistle and bell joined in the celebration, while passengers and crew cheered and hallooed, waving newspapers, hats, and handkerchiefs, until the little Yankee craft wheezed out of sight in a bend of the river. Of all the joyous party that danced and sung round that first Confederate flag raised on Louisiana soil, I am, with the exception of my son, then a very small boy, the only one living to-day.

        It made such a brave show, and we were so exhilarated, that we passed all that bright Sunday in early spring under its waving folds, or on the piazza in full view of it.

        When my husband, after a two weeks' absence, boarded the steamer Quitman to return home, the first news that greeted him was, "There is a Confederate flag floating over your levee!" He was thunderstruck! That far-seeing, cautious man was by no means an "original secessionist," and did not, in his discretion, and the hope that lingered long in his breast of an amicable adjustment of the difficulties, countenance the zealous ardor of his hasty and impetuous household. Our flag was already beginning to look frayed and ragged-edged. We had no means of lowering it, and its folds had flapped through fog and sunshine until the sleazy cotton split and the stars shriveled on the stiff blue ground. The coming of the "general

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commanding," as we now playfully called him, signalized the removal of our tattered banner; but we had the satisfaction of knowing that advantage of his absence had been taken to float it a whole week, and that it was no hostile hand that furled it at the last.

        The wild alarms of war roused us at last from this Arcadian life of ease and luxury. The rumbling thunder of battle was making itself heard from Sumter on the one side and Manassas on the other. "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" were replacing the soul-stirring battle-songs of our fathers.

        Men who had never saddled their mettled steeds, nor harnessed their own teams for pleasure-excursions, now eagerly bestrode any nag they could command, or drove lumbering mule-teams, or, worse still, plodded on foot with a military company on its march to the front; while the daintily nurtured women, who, in the abundance of service that slavery afforded, had scarce put on their own shoes, assembled and toiled day after day in the preparation of clothing for the soldiers, which quickly became their all-absorbing occupation.

        In the neighboring city of Baton Rouge we organised the "Campaign Sewing Society." Its very title shows how transient we regarded the emergency; how little we deemed the campaign would develop into a four years' war! There many of us received our first lessons in the intricacies of coats and pantaloons. I so well remember when, in the glory of my new

Page 14

acquirements, I proudly made a pair of cottonade trousers for a brother we were fitting out in surpassing style for "service," my embarrassment and consternation when I overheard him slyly remark to my husband that he had to stand on his head to button them - they lapped the wrong way! Stockings had also to be provided, and expert knitters found constant work. By wearing a knitting-bag at my side, and utilizing every moment, I was by no means the only one able to turn off a coarse cotton stocking, with a rather short leg, every day.

        From the factory in our little city - the only one, by the way, of any size or importance in the State - we procured the cloth required for suits, but in the lapse of time the supply of buttons, thread, needles, and tape, in fact, of all the little accessories of the sewing-room, was exhausted, and to replenish the stock our thoughts and conversation were necessarily turned into financial channels. I cordially recommend to societies and impecunious institutions the scheme in all its entirety that we adopted as vastly superior to the ordinary and much-maligned fair; the plan was the offspring of necessity; the demand was so instant and urgent that we could undertake no fair or entertainment that involved time, work, or expense.

        A "Tombola," where every article is donated and every ticket draws a prize, was the happy result of numerous conferences. The scheme was discussed

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with husbands and brothers; each suggested an advancement or improvement on the other, until the project expanded so greatly, including all classes and conditions of donors, that it was quickly found that not only a large hall but a stable and a warehouse also would be required to hold the contributions, which embraced every imaginable article from a tooth-pick to a cow! The hall was soon overflowing with minor articles from houses and shops. Nothing was either too costly or too insignificant to be refused. A glass show-case glittered with jewelry of all styles and patterns, and bits of rare old silver. Pictures and engravings, old and faded, new and valuable, hung side by side on the walls. Odd pieces of furniture, work-boxes, lamps and candelabra, were arranged here and there, to stand out in bold relief amid an immense array of pencils, tweezers, scissors, penknives, tooth-picks, darning-needles, and such trifles. The stalls of the stable were tenanted by mules, cows, hogs, with whole litters of pigs, and varieties of poultry. The warehouse groaned under the weight of barrels of sugar, molasses, and rice, and bushels of meal, potatoes, turnips, and corn. Tickets for a chance at this miscellaneous collection sold for one dollar each. As is ever the case, the blind goddess was capricious: with the exception of an old negro woman, who won a set of pearls, I can not remember any one who secured a prize worth the price of the ticket. I invested in twenty tickets, for which I received nineteen

Page 16

lead-pencils and a frolicsome old goat, with beard hanging to his knees, and horns like those which brought down the walls of Jericho. Need I add that the "general commanding" refused to receive that formidable animal at Arlington?

        The "Tombola" was a grand, an overwhelming success; without one dollar of outlay - the buildings and necessary printing having been donated - we made six thousand dollars. Before this sum could be sent to New Orleans for investment, that city was in the hands of its captors.

        Thus cut off from the means of securing necessary supplies, and at the same time from facilities for communication with those whom we sought to aid, the "Campaign Sewing Society" sadly disbanded. The busy workers retired to their own houses, the treasurer fled with the funds for safe-keeping, and, when she emerged from her retreat, six thousand dollars in Confederate paper was not worth six cents!

        The Federals captured New Orleans in April, and there was intense excitement all up and down the river. We boasted and bragged of what we could do and what we were going to do, like children whistling in the dark to keep their courage up. We had never seen soldiers "on deeds of daring full intent." We had never seen any drilling and manoeuvring of companies and battalions, except our own ardent and inexperienced young men, full of enthusiasm that was kindled and

Page 17

encouraged and in many cases bolstered up by the women, who, like most non-combatants, were very valiant, and like all whose hearthstones are threatened very desperate. So the landing of the enemy in our chief city, and the capitulation of our defenses, roused every drop of blood in our hearts. Nothing but "war to the knife" was spoken of. While we openly declared that New Orleans should have been fired, like Moscow, rather than surrendered, men went about destroying cotton wherever it was stored, and fierce and loud were the denunciations against any man who even by gentle remonstrance made the slightest objection to having his property touched by the torch of his neighbor, to prevent the possibility of its capture by the "hordes of hirelings" as we called the Northern soldiers and their naturalized comrades.

        All the blankets and bedding that could reasonably be spared had been gathered during the winter, by teams driven from house to house, making one grand collection for our suffering troops.

        Now, thoroughly alarmed at the possibility of being cut off from all communication with our soldiers in the field, and prevented from contributing to their comfort, carpets were ripped from the floors of many houses, cut into suitable blanket-size, and sent via "Camp Moore" - now our only outlet - to the army in the mountains of Virginia and on the borders of Tennessee. There was no combined or concerted plan;

Page 18

each acted his individual part, and made personal sacrifices to help the cause. Plantations were adjoining, but the residences too remote to meet and discuss matters when time was so precious. Black William and I drew the tacks from every carpet at Arlington; brussels, tapestry, and ingrain, old and new, all were made into blankets and promptly sent to the front. One half the house was closed, and a deal of management was required to keep the other half comfortable without a carpet or rug to lay over the bare floor. So it happened that when the Federals, after an exciting siege, captured New Orleans, very little was left in the houses on the river that could be made available for the use of the army.

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CHAPTER III.
A CREVASSE - OCCUPATION OF BATON ROUGE - DEFENSELESS
CITIZENS.

        THE rapidly rising river was another element of danger menacing us. It is a fearful sight to see the relentless flood plunging by, bearing great trees and logs of drift-wood on its muddy surface many feet above the ground on which you stand, an embankment of earth your only defense, and the waves of passing steamboats dashing over that frail barrier and falling in spray at your feet. It is startling to realize that busy craw-fish, the dread enemy of every man whose "lines are laid" behind a Mississippi levee, are constantly boring holes through the earthworks, and invading the ditches carefully constructed to receive and bear away to the rear swamps and drains the seepage that exudes all the time from the pressure on the outer side; and terrible to know that one malicious cut of a spade would make an insidious fissure through which those battling waters would in a few hours rush in an overwhelming torrent, destroying property worth thousands of dollars - a calamity greatly dreaded, and

Page 20

guarded against day and night by trusty men with shovels and lanterns.

        My husband, whose duty it was as levee inspector, notified our neighbors of a dangerously "weak spot" on an adjoining plantation front, but so fearful were all planters at that time of negro assemblages, so apprehensive lest they communicate from plantation to plantation, and a stray spark enkindle the fires of sedition and rebellion, that the responses to his call were not adequate, and the result was a crevasse between Baton Rouge and Arlington, four miles south, that cut a broad chasm directly across the road, and through our cane-fields far back for miles to bayous and draining canals, leaving a wide ravine with a rush of roaring water that poured millions of gallons a minute, plowing a deep canal through roads and fields, spreading and widening over the rear swamps in its destructive errand, until it reached the river again in a bend twenty-five miles away.

        But the terrors and subsequent losses by such a calamity were forgotten in the greater alarm and the foreshadowing of untold disaster to the panic-stricken planters' wives, who were in many instances left by their soldier husbands in charge of threatened homes. The negroes, already seeing the dawning rays of liberty, which at that time meant plenty to eat and nothing to do, "jist like marster," were becoming lazy and impudent. So the crevasse and the injury it was

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destined to inflict were of small moment to us when the prospect of cultivating the growing crop, grew beautifully less day by day.

        One magnificent morning in early summer the whole river, the silence on whose surface had remained now many weeks undisturbed, was suddenly, as if by magic, ablaze with the grandeur of Federal gunboats and transports with flags and bright-colored streamers flying from every peak, their decks thronged with brilliantly uniformed officers. We stood upon the veranda, with streaming eyes and bursting hearts, the gay strains of "Yankee Doodle" as they floated o'er the waters filling our souls with bitterness unspeakable, and watched the victorious pageant, until, with a mighty sweep to avoid the boiling and surging currents of the crevasse, it anchored amid blare of trumpet and beat of drum beside the deserted landing of our dear little city. The enemy was there! But there was a barrier between us that cut off all communication by land, and, though they could forage above and back of the town, as is the way with hungry soldiers, we had the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that access to Arlington was not feasible.

        By and by the old Mississippi began to subside; the tributary streams had well-nigh exhausted their superfluous floods. Water began slowly and steadily to recede from the fields; day by day we could see from the windows and verandas new bits of green

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here and there; places where bridges that spanned ditches had been swept away; and deep ridges cut by the action of rushing torrents where were once smooth, level fields of waving cane.

        But the big gully at the mouth of the crevasse was still there, deep, muddy, and unutterably foul with the odor of dead fish lying stranded all about. The road was cut in two by an impassable barrier, a fathomless mud-hole. So the crevasse was a blessing, and we were at least thankful that, if we did not have a crop, we were safe from unwelcome visitors.

        My little baby was two weeks old, and I was reposing quietly in bed, early one morning, when, lo and behold! not a cloud of dust, but a splash of mud; and a company of soldiers made their unwonted appearance on the hither side of our defenses. Before Charlotte could run up-stairs with the spoons and forks, hastily gathered from the breakfast-table, to hide under my pillow - for the darkies been carefully taught that the whole war was a thieving expedition to steal our homes and property - before Charlotte could tell the news and tuck the spoons away, the clatter of hoofs on the lawn and the voices of strange men revealed the fact that the Federal soldiers were upon us!

        My husband, whose disability, from the loss of an eye, relieved him from active service, was equal to the occasion, and met the party at the door; explained the

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invalid condition of his wife till one might have thought that nothing less than a miracle could save her delicate life; requested the officers not to permit their men to dismount, offered them milk, the only refreshment we had that they would accept, and it was handed around by William, in a pail; after every man was refreshed, they quietly and decorously rode away. I was up and peeped through a hole in the curtain at the only company of Federal soldiers I saw during the war.

        Their gentlemanly deportment quite disarmed Charlotte of her fears for the safety of the silver; as she took it from under my pillow, she said, "I don't believe them men would 'onderscend to steal spoons."

        They went on, though, those very men, to a plantation five miles beyond. The poor, old gentleman had all his sons in the Confederate service; he kept a horse tied at his back gate, day and night: it seems he did not share our confidence in the protection of the muddy gully, so he was always in retreating order. When the soldiers rode into his front yard, the tip of his horse's tail could be seen vanishing in the distance; in Southern parlance he "took to the woods." Finding no one to represent the host but a very young and bashful daughter-in-law, they soon disposed of her in a safe place - a bedroom with locked doors - and for twenty-four hours remained on the premises, engaged in collecting all they could find for

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food and forage. Cattle, corn, molasses, and hay were shipped to town by the ferry-boat sent to their assistance. In due course of time, finding the coast was clear and the whole place "cleaned out," the old gentleman ambled home. The bashful lady of the castle had been released from her confinement, and order somewhat restored, so there was little left to do but estimate the damage.

        Charlotte told me the story as she had it from the sable "cloud of witnesses" that pervaded every Southern household, ending the recital with the wise remark, "We didn't hide them spoons none too soon."

        "Bombs bursting in air" every few days gave assurance that the "guerrillas," as a hastily organized band of rowdies and bullies, that hovered on the outskirts of the town, chose to style themselves, had "run in and fired off and run out again," making just enough demonstration to call a return fire from the gunboats and scare everybody in town. These occurrences became so frequent that scarce a day passed that we did not hear, either of an intended raid by the "guerrillas," or the hissing and explosion of bombs, with shudders of unutterable agony for the safety of aged and defenseless friends.

        The towns-people actually made excavations in their yards and covered them with planks for refuge in a bombardment. Some of the plank coverings were struck and shattered by fiery missiles, so the

Page 25

wretched inhabitants had to dig tunnels by which they could obtain shelter beyond the covered entrance. Plans and diagrams for these were passed around, and neighbor helped neighbor in the life-saving work. It was a terrible state of things, no military organization at hand to control the rowdy element on the Confedate side, and the Federals claiming to have no other way of putting a stop to these senseless raids except by firing from their gunboats.

        In the midst of these occurrences, which we viewed from a safe distance, I was startled one day by seeing a man dressed in the striped and numbered garb of a convict enter the gates. He hurriedly explained to my husband that the doors of the penitentiary at Baton Rouge had been thrown open by military order, and the convicts freed, with injunctions to report at headquarters and enlist.

        I do not know how many inmates there were, but the people of the town were terrified to find the whole criminal gang of the State turned loose upon their streets. The man who sought to escape the Federal service as well as the jurisdiction of the prison was a South Carolinian, who in a sudden burst of passion had made himself amenable to the law. He begged to be supplied with citizen's clothing and transportation beyond the limits of the State, so that he could reach his home. We opened trunk after trunk that had been left at Arlington for safe-keeping, by men long gone

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to the front, to find a suit that would fit the slender, under-sized man. At last we succeeded, and gave him my little boy's only hat, as the one that best fitted, and with its broad brim somewhat concealed his face, bleached from long confinement in the cotton-factory. A slight change of clothing was also provided in an improvised traveling-bag. My husband advanced him the needful funds, loaned him a pony, and gave minute directions as to the safest road to Camp Moore, where he could leave the animal and board the train that would quickly carry him toward his old home. When warned to be very cautious lest he be apprehended on the road, and not to carry anything on his person that could betray him, with moistened eyes and quivering lip he drew from his pocket and handed me a package of photographs of his little children and a bundle of letters the only things he turned back for when the portals of the prison were opened. "I can not tell you what a gift you are sending to my wife when you put me on the road to home; read these, they will tell you." We stood on the back piazza at early dawn and watched the retreating form of that happy man until it disappeared from sight - then burned the unread letters and the thumbed and worn photographs.

        Twenty years after, we heard from him as quietly and peacefully living in Carolina, surrounded by his family.

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CHAPTER IV.
WILLY'S ERRAND - BRECKENRIDGE'S MESSAGE - THE RAW
RECRUITS.

        TAXES had to be paid on plantations in Mississippi. Federal gunboats cut off the usual means of communication. From New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and from Cairo to Vicksburg, they were in undisturbed possession. So we were compelled to send a messenger by land to Greenville, some distance beyond Vicksburg. I well remember how carefully Willy, a boy of fourteen, very bright and manly, though small for his age, was prepared for the undertaking. He had never been through the country. So he had a memorandum given him, how far and by what road to go the first day, and that would bring him to a certain house where my husband was known; he was to tell who he was and who sent him "on an errand," but on no account to divulge the nature of his errand, and "die" before he told about the money he had on his person!

        Day after day his route was mapped out; he was told what to say, what not to say, and where to stop each night; at Greenville to pay the clerk of the court

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the fifteen hundred dollars he had belted around his waist, get a receipt, and return home.

        Willy was an orphan, whose entire family had died of yellow fever in New Orleans; a bright, intelligent boy, with only the little education we had been able to give him before the schools were closed and people's minds turned to more exciting things; he was so apt and faithful that we confided many things to his care, though of course he had never been trusted to the extent of a four days' journey on horseback with a large amount of money in his keeping. Even if we had found a man to send, he was liable to conscription on the road, so we had to depend on the boy's natural shrewdness, willingness to obey orders implicitly, and diminutive size, to help us.

        Days went by and no Willy returned. We began to whisper our anxieties to each other, when out on the lawn where no one else could hear; having already learned to be wary of the darky. We were afraid he had died before he told, as he had been cautioned to do again and again. At last, one day Willy presented himself all right and fresh as a rose. Pony looked as though he had been in clover instead of on a long and rather perilous journey. The boy came to me, in the absence of my husband, and handed the receipt. To my eager inquiries as to the delay, he could furnish no sensible reason. He was detained, could not tell by what. Did he lose the road? "No." Was he

Page 29

sick? "No." Did pony give out? "No" "What was the detention?" Well, he "couldn't just tell." "Of one thing you may be sure, sir; your uncle will make you tell." And he was dismissed with a frown. The orphan boy was no relative, but called my husband uncle, from association with our nephews.

        My husband's step was heard. Willy ran to meet him, and they had a long and anxious talk, walking down the road. The bright, animated face of the youth, and his uncle's bowed, eagerly listening attitude, warned me that Willy did have a "tale to unfold" that was not simply "No," for the talk came from him. My assiduous pumping must have started the stream, for the anxious listener was eagerly drinking refreshing draughts of news.

        We were only two in those days: the children were young, the negroes crafty, and the neighbors scattered; so we were only two, and never did two hearts beat as one as ours did in those times that tried men's souls, and made the bravest among them feel the need of help, even though it were the help of a woman, whose quick inspirations often assisted her husband's deductions, and sometimes solved the problem by intuition. There was no secret I did not share - there was nothing done - and, dear me! we felt, while the world was "up and doing," that we could do so little - but there was nothing done wherein I was not allowed to help. That night we walked by the silent river's bank, and

Page 30

then I heard the story that made my blood run quick. I longed to be a soldier, and go forth to battle for my beloved land, like Joan of Arc.

        When Willy reached within a few miles of home, he was astounded to find a "whole army," as he called it, on the wary march. He was arrested, as traveling in the direction no one was allowed to pass.

        General Breckinridge, with a totally inadequate contingent of men, was moving toward Baton Rouge, then in possession of the Federals. If he could swoop down upon them suddenly, and have the co-operation of a Confederate gunboat, he hoped by strategy to accomplish what might be impossible in open battle. Willy was detained two or three days, before obtaining permission to see General Breckinridge. When admitted, he related his story to the general, even that part he was cautioned to "die before telling," and in sheer desperation showed the tax-office receipt. General Breckinridge immediately dispatched the boy with a secret message to my husband (with whom he was personally intimate), to the effect that he "was slowly approaching Baton Rouge, and needed all the assistance possible; if he could send any men to join him, to do so; they could bring arms if they had them. He had no hospital supplies. No one could be spared to attend to the disabled, and men who could not engage in actual conflict could battle with disease and wounds

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in the rear. If lint and bandages could be had, send them, and come himself within two days." Poor, burdened Willy trotted home, big with the secret no man knew this side of the advancing command.

        By the light of the moon I heard the stirring story, and earnestly we talked and planned. We each had a tired and wounded brother only a few days home from the battle-field of Shiloh, on sick leave, both the poor fellows up-stairs in bed, ragged, foot-sore, tired, disgusted, and inclined to think that the "hireling horde" the North was pouring down upon us was a well-disciplined, almost invincible foe. We knew those young men would need no "bugle-call" to summon them to the front; while they really had nothing to buckle on but a tin water-can, they would be off at the earliest moment, and take the chance of getting arms from the first captured men. Then, one by one, we recalled the names and whereabouts of some eight or ten others. Some were exempts; some called themselves by the alluring name of "Home-Guards," that would fight "right thar," but couldn't go all the way to Virginia to do it; and one or two were, like our two, home from Shiloh. We made our plans to recruit, under the calm radiance of an August moon that was destined to shine on many an upturned face on that bloody battle-field, unpitying for the agonies that surge far and wide, blasting hearts that never heard the cannon's roar. Next morning my husband sallied forth.

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                        "Not with the roll of the stirring drum
                        And the trumpet that sings of fame,"

        but in a very cautious way he went after recruits, and succeeded in raising a dozen, all told. In the gray of the early morning of the day following there assembled at Arlington a rough stalwart set of men. I do not know how many fought the next day, nor how many ran, but they were quietly and soberly enthusiastic. We furnished a hearty breakfast by candle-light, filled their tin cans with coffee, and, as they were not burdened with arms or accoutrements, a substantial lunch was put into their pockets. They marched off in the early dawn, toward the rear of the plantation, and no more earnest prayer was ever offered to the God of battles than ascended from our lips as, with dimmed eyes and beating hearts, we watched them vanish in the veil of mist which at that hour rises from the river.

        Knowing that the assault was planned for the following morning, we felt anxious and excited all day; and at evening my husband mounted his horse, followed by an attendant, both loaded down with hastily prepared lint, linen sheets for bandages, and all the medicines we had. They also vanished amid the descending shades of night, and I was left alone with two little children and a few house-servants.

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CHAPTER V.
THE BATTLE - RUSH TO ARLINGTON - DISASTER - DEPARTURE
OF OUR GUESTS.

        THE next morning, at the first blush of dawn, firing was distinctly heard from the direction of the town. Now, while the town was distant four miles by the road winding with the river, it was not half that far as the crow flies. Baton Rouge was on a sharp point; then the river made a deep bend, and Arlington was on the next point of the scallop; so that, looking toward the town from the windows, we looked partly over water, and the city had somewhat the appearance of being built on an island, the two points were so sharp and well-defined. It is proper to add here, twenty-five years make at least twenty-five changes in that most fickle of rivers. To-day, Arlington Point may have been washed away - I do not know.

        My little baby, whose advent was made such a good excuse for asking the soldiers not to alight on our lawn, was now two months old. With care, anxiety, a never-ceasing interest in all that surrounded us, and rather delicate health at the best, I was by no means

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in good fighting order for what had to be endured on that most memorable day. I sprung from my bed, and flew half dressed to the windows commanding a view of the scene. The roar of cannon was distinctly heard, and the house seemed to tremble and shake with the unusual noise; the rattle of musketry, the flying of bursting bombs from the Federal boats, the incessant smoke and the rumble of nameless battle-sounds, kept us in suspense and excitement, pride and fear, alarm and enthusiasm, that were painful. General Breckinridge's name had always carried victory with it in civil life, where we knew him best. So, as I watched and prayed, I could not bring my thoughts to the point that our men could be beaten on their own ground under my very eyes! My thoughts turned from these exultant channels, to see what at first seemed to be stampeded sheep, emerging from the foggy mist in the far-away bend of the road, swelling and surging, and rushing in the wildest hurry and flight, through a volume of dust made ten times more stifling by the fierce heat. These were not sheep, but human beings, running pell-mell, under intense excitement, as fast as their legs could carry them. It is a sad commentary on humanity that individuals are swallowed up in masses. When we prayed that our troops might conquer and prevail, no thought of the hearts that might be made desolate forever by the fatalities of war came to us. "Victory! victory!" was

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the cry of every woman, as she buckled on the sword, and sent husband and son to fight. No thought came of her own or any other woman's desolation. So, that morning, standing alone at my window, watching through the dim mist what seemed to be the ebb and flow of battle, hearing in the distance the booming, hissing, and rattling sounds of conflict, I never once thought of the homes of that besieged city, of the women and children, the old men and the sick - never once thought of them, so swallowed up the destiny of the day every other consideration. But when that struggling mass was revealed to me - pouring, panting, rushing tumultuously down the hot, dusty road, hatless, bonnetless, some with slippers and no stockings, some with wrappers hastily thrown over nightgowns; now and then a coatless man on a bare-back horse, holding a helpless child in his arms before him, and a terrified woman clinging on behind; men trundling children too young to run, in dirty wheelbarrows, while other little half-clad, barefooted ones ran beside, weary and crying; an old man, who could scarcely totter along, bearing a baby in his trembling arms, while the distracted mother carried an older child with wounded and bleeding feet; occasionally could be descried a battered umbrella held over some delicate woman to temper the rays of what was fast becoming a blazing August sun. Some ran, some stumbled along, others faltered and almost gave out;

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but, before I could hurry on my clothes, they poured into our gates and invaded the house, a small army of them, about five hundred tired, exhausted, broken-down, sick, frightened, terrified human beings - all roused from their beds by firing and fighting in the very streets; rushing half-clad from houses being riddled with shot and shell; rushing through streets filled with men fighting hand to hand; wildly running they scarce knew whither, being separated from children and wives and mothers in the midst of the roar of battle, and no time to look for them; no turning back; on - on - through yards and over fences and down narrow, dusty lanes - anywhere to get from the clash of steel and the bursting of countless bombs!

        Once on the open road and away from the very midst of battle, they ran as though demons pursued them, never turning back or branching off. There was but the one hot, dusty road to run, and that led straight to our ever-open gates and to other gates beyond; but when they gained the first, by common consent they turned in.

        The battle roared and surged, but there was a roaring and surging battle for bread in that house which for the moment silenced every other. Our store-closets were thrown wide open; but how the crowd managed that day I never knew. Before noon news came of our defeat. I was sick and heart-sore, too much so to eat my own slender breakfast which

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Charlotte smuggled up the back stairs under her apron; too sick to care, too overwhelmed with the immensity of the undertaking of feeding a great multitude with five loaves and no fishes, to attempt it.

        I lay down beside my half-starved babe, whose nourishment was cut short by the excitements of the morning, and, while I wept the bitterest tears I ever shed, told the little unconscious child it did not matter much whether we lived or died; we were beaten - beaten!

        The few men in the army that invaded Arlington foraged as better-disciplined ones do, and brought in some sheep and an ox; killed, skinned, and cut them up with such knives as they could find, and in lieu of better, used their own pocket-knives. Bits of meat distributed around hastily cooked, smoked, and singed, they devoured like savages; the famished babies had pieces given them to suck. Long before noon the twelve pounds of tea from the store-closets had entirely disappeared. We had immense iron kettles "set" in the laundry where soap had been made by the barrel for plantation use, fires were kindled under them and tea made ad libitum, but, to use Charlotte's forcible language, "it was drunk faster than it was made"; it could not be furnished fast enough to meet the demands of the parched and thirsty crowd. In the tumult of finding something to eat and drink,

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as in all such cases, the strongest and hardiest being the enterprising ones, fared the best, and the weak and ailing were in a measure overlooked and neglected by the general crowd. By and by individual cases attracted attention. One frail woman came down that road, carrying a child five years old, wrapped in the blanket in which it had lain at death's door for days and nights. At first the distracted parents thought they would stand by the suffering bedside amid all the sounds of battle; it would be certain death to remove the patient. They remained until a bomb exploded in their yard, carrying off part of the house-top; then the mother, in a light night wrapper, snatched the child up, enveloped in its blanket, and ran after the terrified crowd down the road, the father by her panting side, with a younger child in his arms whose weight was more than that of the invalid. That distressed family was provided with the luxury of a bed, and the entire room was almost yielded to them by the crowd at Arlington, who still had wit enough to know that malignant scarlet fever was almost as bad as bullets.

        Time and again Charlotte, who was the Lady Bountiful of the occasion, came to tell me that first one, then another, and still another poor woman was in peril, and little garments went from my scanty store to the innocent babes who opened their eyes on that eventful day, and nothing but the supreme terror of

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their mothers prevented them from first seeing light amid scenes of carnage and desolation.

        So the day wore on - such a long day and such a short one it was; so much crowded into it - and night found us all more tired and anxious than ever.

        The brief conflict was over. We knew we were beaten; the bad news followed swiftly after the defeat; but the news of our dear ones, the anxiety to know particulars, the surmises, hopes, and fears, but, above all, the overwhelming news that we were beaten, wore us all out. About sunset a sergeant and a few men from the victorious enemy came down to Arlington and demanded to see my husband. Of course, he was not at home, and I received them, bewitched to know what to say, for I could not tell them that he was with General Breckinridge's wounded. I made the most plausible excuse possible for his temporary absence, and the sergeant handed me a permit for him to enter their lines and visit General Clark, of Mississippi, a most dear friend, who had been grievously wounded and was their prisoner. My husband returned before bedtime, and hurriedly availed himself of the permit. In his absence word came to me, from a man who said he was just from town, that the Federal officer in command said, if we did not send that rebel crowd away from Arlington, a gunboat should be dispatched to shell them out. I was desperate then, and simply replied that I could not send that homeless multitude adrift.

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Many became alarmed, however, and took up their weary march, some going down to neighboring plantations on the river-bank, and others going back into the woods and swamps; enough remained, however, to overflow the house - every stair-step had its reclining form, every inch of sofa, bed, and floor was occupied by tired, sleepy humanity. There was the usual rain that follows heavy cannonading; it was damp and miserable everywhere. There were two very large oak-trees in front of the house, with wide-spreading branches and luxuriant foliage, a favorite resort for mocking-birds, whose songs (how I should delight in them now!) were often an intolerable nuisance. In those sturdy trees a whole colony of boys roosted, congratulating themselves that nobody could turn them out, the thick leaves sheltering them from falling drops of rain. So wearied nature gradually sought repose; the last noises were the occasional twitterings of the wingless occupants of the oak-trees. A hissing noise rent the air, and a bomb exploded in front of the house; then another, and another; and a fourth went whizzing over our heads, exploding with loud reports back of the house, and on this side and on that. A gunboat anchored in the river was sending its deadly missives far and wide. Far and wide they were meant to be; for surely, if they intended to strike the house, they could have done so, such a shining, big white mark as it was. The first bomb that burst on the lawn roused

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our poor wingless birds, and the boys tumbled out of those trees like overripe fruit in a gale, like something that falls faster than that; like a great shake to a tree of ripe persimmons, all fell at once. Each bomb called forth wails and shrieks of terror from the thoroughly alarmed and nervously excited people. After having accomplished their purpose, the boat moved off; but there was no more roosting that night, nor sleeping either. A feeling that something more was to happen pervaded the air, and we sat about in anxious groups and desperately waited for it.

        The first slanting rays of the rising sun saw a good many tired fathers and mothers march off with their little half-clad families in various directions. Others wandered back to their demolished and desecrated homes, or to the homes of friends in the country; and by noon none were left to our hospitable care, except the mothers with the new babies.

        The poor woman with the sick child was frightened by the mere threat of bombardment; she picked up the scarlet fever and blanket, there seemed little else tangible - the patient was so emaciated and lifeless - and sought refuge in the woods. I would add here that the child is alive to-day, a beautiful woman, so deaf from that illness and cruel exposure that she has almost lost her speech.

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CHAPTER VI.
RESTORING ORDER - SCENES OF VANDALISM - PREPARATIONS
FOR DEPARTURE.

        NO one, who has not had the experience, knows what a litter and indescribable confusion of dirt and débris is left after twenty-four hours' occupancy of a house and grounds by a host, such as I have attempted to describe. For days the negroes were cleaning up, and restoring some kind of order. We moved around in a melancholy way, ministering to the wants of our reluctant guests as far as we could, and bidding them Godspeed when one by one they recovered sufficient strength to pick up their additional little burden and creep away to join their own friends, and to collect as far as they could the remnants of their scattered (in many instances shattered) belongings, or to erect other hearthstones over the remains of what had once been not only comfortable but luxurious homes.

        Though the days were prolonged by our constant anxiety, the remainder of the summer gradually wore away. We stayed quietly at home; the horses, except a small pony, had been given away, and we had no

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means of locomotion except behind heavy wagon-mules, quite unfit for our landau; and we were reluctant to yield with grace to that order of things, so we kept at home. Books, portraits, and family plate had already been sent to remote places of safety. Poultry was all devoured. Some sheep and cattle remained, perhaps enough to supply the plantation with food for some months longer. So we had nothing tangible to afford us occupation or entertainment; no crop to cultivate, the planted cane having been plowed up by the waters. Corn was put in the ground, but the worms which invariably appear on a submerged field devoured it as fast as it sprouted. The negroes, in a half-hearted way, as if they foresaw the doom that awaited the plantation, repaired only a few bridges, leveled some ruts, and in a listless manner pottered around as though they knew perfectly well "it was no use"; we realized the same, but felt the necessity of furnishing these dependent laborers with occupation.

        It is difficult at this distant day for me to realize how isolated we were. Having relied almost entirely on the Mississippi River packets for intercourse with the world beyond, all facilities of communication through that medium were now suspended. The post-office might as well have been closed so far as we were concerned, for no mails were received from, or dispatched to, any point outside of the Federal lines.

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Near relatives sickened, died, and were buried within a day's ride of our home, of whose extremity we did not know for weeks - receiving the information then through a casual passer-by. People journeying from point to point avoided towns on the river-bank and sought hospitality at plantation or farm houses. So frequent were the demands made upon Arlington by lonely and forlorn travelers, that a couple of rooms in the rear of the house were set apart for their convenience.

        Occasionally small companies of Federals made raids in the neighborhood, under some pretext or other; notice of the intended visit was often mysteriously conveyed to the planter in time for him to prepare.

        On one occasion, word was brought to my husband of an intention to search Arlington for arms and accoutrements. Our two soldier brothers had crept home under shadow of night, a few days after the battle, with guns captured on the field; William had secreted them in our attic. As he was absent, I went in search of them. The attic covered the entire house; it was never used, and was not floored. Carefully stepping from beam to beam in the darkness, trusting more to the sense of touch than sight, in search of the guns, by an unlucky step one foot went through lath and plastering. I was alone, and struggled desperately, sinking deeper with every effort, until I was

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actually in danger of descending bodily into the room below. Finally extricating myself, I hobbled in a very scratched and bruised state down-stairs, to find that the accident had occurred immediately over the bed where one of the sick brothers lay unable to rise, his bed covered with the débris, and he convulsed with laughter. We eagerly watched the small detachment of soldiers approach our gate, and without even pausing, ride by. When we left Arlington, the arms were still secreted in the attic; and as the substantial homestead still stands - dismantled, shutterless, and perhaps in many places floorless though it be - those guns are doubtless lying in some remote corner under the roof, mute witnesses of the horrors of war.

        When the Federals left the town I do not remember, but after a while they did leave, and we had something to say about a barren victory, forgetting that Baton Rouge was no strategic point. In those days, to us Baton Rouge was a considerable place, only second in importance to New Orleans, and that city ranked with Richmond in our estimation. One fine day the fleet of gunboats steamed away, accompanied by transports loaded to the edge with their black freight. Negroes from every direction flocked in after the battle, old and young and of both sexes. Some went from Arlington, too; several women, in their eagerness, and desiring to be unencumbered, left their sleeping babies in the cabin beds. The

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Federals, in acknowledgment of their loyalty, took them to New Orleans, and the general who first gave them the title of contraband must have been well-nigh overwhelmed by the motley crew that hastened to put themselves under his protection.

        For many weeks we had not passed beyond our plantation limits. My husband's business, which formerly took him daily to the little city, was suddenly and disastrously terminated when the Federals took possession. During this depressing interval, General Clark's wife arrived at Arlington from his plantation in Mississippi, after a six days' ride through a very rough country. The distracted woman had heard that her husband was seriously wounded - no more; but we were able to comfort her with the assurance that he was alive and in General Butler's care. It was hard to recognize, in the heart-broken, weary traveler, the robust, cheerful woman, who formed one of the party when we accompanied our delegate husbands to the Democratic Convention at Charleston in April, 1860.

        The incidents of those stormy days can never be effaced from my mind. From my favored seat in the gallery I witnessed the proceedings every step of which led to more tumultuous excitement, culminating at last in the disruption of the convention, and opening the way for a momentous future of which we had little conception. How well I remember my

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intense emotion while leaning over the gallery rail, listening to the roll-call of States to ratify the adoption of the platform, seeing one Southern delegation after another, with a few words of explanatory protest from its chairman, rise and solemnly file out of the hall! How my heart beat at the call "Louisiana!" how intently I listened to catch the words of grand old Governor Mouton, as with French accent, made ten times more unintelligible by his vehement manner and rapid utterance, he explained the attitude of his State! Pointing a tremulous finger at the seated representatives of Louisiana, with emphatic delivery and quivering voice he concluded: "Louisiana instructed her delegation to vote as a unit; two of the number refuse to act with the majority; they can retain their seats, but they have no voice, they can not represent the State." The impetuous old gentleman descended from the bench on which he stood, to command attention to his remarks, and strode out of the assembly, followed by nine of his confrères. To my unspeakable dismay - for I was too hot-headed to be reasonable amid so much excitement - I saw my husband and his colleague remain seated, the delinquents toward whom the defiant finger of the creole Hotspur had been directed. General Clark's attitude in the Mississippi delegation was scarcely less conservative than that of my clear-headed husband.

        Poor Mrs. Clark was detained several days, until

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a flag of truce could be obtained from the nearest Confederate post to escort her to New Orleans, and we had ample time to talk over the rush of events since the exciting period when we had last sat side by side.

        After the Federals evacuated we were induced to go to Baton Rouge to inquire concerning the welfare of certain friends who had returned to town, and of others who remained during the conflict witnesses of the struggle. Pickets commanded all the approaches during the Federal occupation, and at first only the loyal were permitted to pass. It is needless, perhaps, to say what class composed the "truly loyal," thus early in the war, in an extreme Southern State. Ignorant and brutal negroes, who for generations had been kept under some kind of control, rushed past the pickets without a challenge, and no doubt contributed no small share to the indiscriminate robbery and devilish destruction which we in our indignation attributed to the common soldiers, who, by the death of General Williams (unfortunately killed in the battle of Baton Rouge), were left under officers certainly unequal to the task of keeping them in subordination. It was only after the place had been sacked - I believe that is the word, though it is scarcely comprehensive enough - that the former residents were allowed to enter and view the abomination of desolation. More than one distressed man returned to his wife, detained at

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Arlington by the claims of maternity, with a few broken articles or a bag of willfully mutilated clothing, and reported, "This is all I could find at home."

        Several days after the evacuation we ventured to enter the gates of our sweet little city, on errands of mercy, mingled with no little curiosity to see the condition in which it had been left by its unwelcome and turbulent visitors. The tall, broad-spreading shade-trees that lined the streets had been felled and thrown across all the leading thoroughfares, impeding travel so that our landau made many ineffectual attempts to thread its way. At last I descended and walked the dusty, littered, shadeless streets from square to square. Seeing the front door of the late Judge Morgan's house thrown wide open, and knowing that his widow and daughters, after asking protection for their property of the commanding general, had left before the battle, I entered. No words can tell the scene that those deserted rooms presented. The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering headdresses, and quaint golden chains - ancestors long since dead, not only valuable as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works of art - these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way! The contents of

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store-closets had been poured over the floors; molasses and vinegar, and everything that defaces and stains, had been smeared over walls and furniture. Up-stairs, armoires with mirror-doors had been smashed in with heavy axes or hammers, and the dainty dresses of the young ladies torn and crushed with studied, painstaking malignity, while china, toilet articles, and bits of glass that ornamented the rooms were thrown upon the beds and broken and ground into a mass of fragments; desks were wrenched open, and the contents scattered not only through the house, but out upon the streets, to be wafted in all directions; parts of their private letters as well as letters from the desks of other violated homes, and family records torn from numberless bibles, were found on the sidewalks of the town, and even on the public roads beyond town limits!

        Judge Morgan's was the only vacated house I entered. It was enough: I was too heart-sick and indignant to seek another evidence of the lengths to which a conquering army can go in pitiless, unmeaning destruction, when nothing can result from such vandalism but hatred and revenge.

        All the devastation that harrowed my soul on that visit was not entirely due to the conquering army. The Confederate attack, on that day so full of sad and tender memories, was made from the rear of the city. The men in gray sprung over the fences and swarmed

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through the cemeteries, trampled down the graves, rushed over the little crosses and demolished and scattered the larger monuments that marked the resting-place of their own beloved dead, making, in that wild and desperate onslaught, ruins that tender hands and loving hearts have never yet been able to entirely repair.

        My husband soon found that the distracted state of the country, the upheaving of the very foundation upon which our domestic life was based, and the idleness into which the negroes lapsed, partly from lack of steady work caused by the destruction of the growing crops, was more than he could endure.

        So, in direct violation of military orders issued from headquarters in New Orleans, prohibiting the transfer of slaves from one plantation to another, a number of our negroes were sent to my brother's plantation, where work was provided for them, by which they could at least earn their food, and at the same time partially relieve us of an element of querulous discontent that was fast becoming dangerous.

        Our experience before and after the battle was so painful and harassing as to lead to the determination never again to be placed under the arbitrary rule of the army of occupation, whose frequent arrests and incarcerations in the common jail of unoffending citizens under the most frivolous pretexts, and often with no pretexts at all, made our very lives insecure. Believing

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that at no distant day we would have to accept the only alternative, voluntary exile, preparations for departure were quietly matured. The landau was exchanged for a rockaway, and this, with the curtains buttoned down, and some alterations in the seats to render a sleeping-place possible, made a reasonably comfortable traveling vehicle. A stout wagon, with a cotton cover, was put in order, to carry food and such articles as were necessary in camping out during a long journey, and six of the best and strongest mules were stabled with their harness hanging beside them for use at a moment's warning. We did not have long to wait.

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CHAPTER VII.
SECOND VISIT OF THE ENEMY - MIDNIGHT FLIGHT - FAREWELL
TO ARLINGTON.

        THE only exact date I can remember, and that I can never forget, was the 17th of December.

        The weather was warm for the season, a thick fog hung over the river, obscuring objects only a few yards distant. As I stood by the window, in the early morning, completing my toilet, the white, misty curtain rolled up like a scroll, revealing a fleet of gunboats. Far as the eye could reach, up and down and around our point, the river was bristling with gayly flagged transports, anchored mid-stream, waiting for the dissipation of the mist to proceed. In a twinkling all was excitement with the hurry and bustle of preparation for our immediate departure. A breakfast eaten "on the fly," as it were, a rushing here and there, and packing of necessaries for our journey, God only knew whither, we did not care where, so we escaped a repetition of scenes that had made us old before our time, and life a constant excitement that was burning us up. William was dispatched to the city on a tour of

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observation. He returned, to report ten thousand men and the most warlike demonstrations that the darky's genius could invent; pickets to be stationed away beyond Arlington, and all of us to be embraced within the lines and made to "toe de mark." "Mars Jim, and every white man what harbored a Confederate soldier de time of de fight, was to be tuk prisoner." The more William told, the more he remembered to tell; and, long before he was through with his recital, I was perplexed, bewildered, and almost distracted.

        The negro men were summoned from their quarters to help load the wagon. We put in cooking-utensils, some dishes and plates, bedding and a small mattress, a few kegs and boxes of necessary provisions, a trunk of clothing, some small bags and bundles - that was all.

        I wandered through the dear old rooms of the house where we had lived ten happy years, taking a mournful farewell of a whole armoire of dinner and ball dresses, that were of no use to me now, packed a trunk full of laces, flowers, feathers, and other such useless things that were found here and there in boxes and drawers, leaving the packed things in a front room. The only thing among them I specially remember was a partly made album quilt that bore the signatures of numberless friends and of some distinguished personages. When Baton Rouge was threatened, and indeed after its capture, trunks, bags, and bundles, belonging to men off "on service," were at various times

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conveyed to Arlington for safe-keeping. These I now opened, and all the letters and papers they contained were destroyed.

        The mules safely locked in the stable, the harnesses all ready to slip on, extra straps and ropes thrown into the wagon - too excited to sleep, we threw ourselves on our beds for the last time; too tired to talk, sore at heart, too worn out to weep. There we lay in a fitful and uneasy slumber. In the dead stillness of the night there came a low tap at our chamber-door. "Mars Jim!" My husband was on his feet with a bound. "Your niggers is all gone to de Yankees; de pickets is on our place, and dey done told your niggers you would be arrested at daylight!" The speaker was head sugar-maker on an adjoining plantation, himself a slave. "Call Dominick and tell him to get my buggy ready while I put on some clothes," was the only response. I lighted the candle and hurried my husband off, while he whispered directions for me to join him immediately after breakfast at the house of a neighbor five miles back of us, which he could speedily reach by going through the woods, and to have one of the men drive the wagon and one drive the ambulance through the longer but better wagon-road.

        That was all - and he was gone! Knowing that my husband's disregard of military orders by the removal of negroes from Arlington to my brother's plantation rendered him liable to immediate arrest,

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it was an untold relief to feel that he was safe beyond Federal reach.

        I did not lie down again, but wandered around in an aimless sort of way, too excited and nervous to sit still a moment, and too distracted to do a useful or sensible thing. At the first appearance of dawn I aroused William to prepare breakfast, and Charlotte to get the table ready. Before the children were awake, I was down at the stable, having William and Willy hitch up the teams. I saw with half an eye that William was not in sympathy with our plans, and knew intuitively that my husband distrusted him, else he and not Dominick would have been the one to pilot him through the canebrake and woods the previous night. Incidentally William dropped remarks to the effect that he "could lend a hand at harnessing, but he never druv mules; he know'd a smatterin' 'bout hosses, but mules (with a sneer) was clean away from him." With difficulty I repressed my disappointment regarding further help from him in my emergency. He who had been my husband's valet in his gay bachelor days and our confidential servant, our very aid and help in all my bright married life, had had his poor woolly head turned by that one trip to town, and asserted his independence at the first shadow of provocation. William failing me, I knew I must seek other help. Some of the negroes had left during the night, but I was aware that others remained who might seek exemption

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from service now that they were in sight of the flag whose brilliant stars and stripes were plainly visible floating from the dome of the State Capitol. Being ready and eager to start, I immediately went down to the quarters a half-mile distant; there I waited, going from cabin to cabin, and walked to the dwelling-house and back again. Willy stood by the hitched-up teams, and Sabe, near by, held the baby in her arms, while little Henry clung to her skirts. Then back to the quarters. This man "had a misery in his back - had it ever since the crevasse"; that man "never druv in his life - didn't I know he was de engineer?" Another man "wouldn't drive old Sall - she was de balkinest mule on de place; you won't git a mile from here 'fore she takes de studs and wont budge a step." "Well, drive us that mile." "Not me! I don't 'low to walk home wid dis here lame foot." I could have sat down and wept my very heart out. It was long past noon; the harnessed mules had to be fed, and William made out to say: "We had better take a little snack and give it up; if we stayed home, Mars Jim would come back; the Yankees didn't have nothing 'gin him."

        I could hardly hold my tongue by almost biting it off - so helpless - so worried; and ever and anon the thought of my husband's impatient waiting almost crazed me. At last old Dave said he "warn't no hand wid mules, but he 'low'd he could tackle old Sal till

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she balked." There was no time for bargaining for another driver now. I caught at Dave's offer before he knew it, only stopping long enough to bid all the deluded creatures a hasty good-by. Old "Aunt Hannah" (that was my mother's laundress long before I was born, and who had been given a cabin to herself to sun away her half-blind and grumbling old age) stood in her little cabin-door, as straight as an arrow; she always complained of rheumatiz, and I don't think I ever saw her straight before; but there she stood, with the air of one suddenly elevated to an exalted position, and waved me a "Good-by, madam - I b'ar you no malice."

        Dave was hurried by my rapid steps back to the stable, and Sabe came out with the tired children. Just as I thought we were fairly off, William announced, "Sence you was gone, a Yankee gunboat is cum down and I see it's anchored 'tween us and Kernel Hickey's." A peep around the corner of the house confirmed the truth of his statement. Hastily grasping a carpet-bag, lying ready packed in the ambulance, I ascended to my bedroom, took from it two large pockets quilted thick with jewels which I secured about my person, while Charlotte put the breakfast forks and spoons in the bottom of the bag. When I returned to the teams, everybody was standing about, apparently waiting to see what "Miss 'Liza" would do now. Summoning every effort to command

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a voice whose quaver must have betrayed my intense emotion, I directed Willy to mount the wagon, a few last baskets and packages were tossed into the ambulance, and Henry's little pony tied behind. I got in, then the little ones and Sabe; Dave shambled into his place in front; the curtain cutting off the driver's seat was carefully rolled up, so I could have an unobstructed view, and Willy was told to lead the way. Twice I had bidden Charlotte, whose mournful eyes had followed me all day, a tearful farewell, and twice I had returned from a fruitless and unsuccessful tramp to the negro quarters. At the last moment I waved her good-by as she stood sobbing by William's side on the veranda, watching us as with bowed heads and heavy hearts we drove through the gate of our once lovely home.

        So I rode away from Arlington, leaving the sugar-house crowded to its utmost capacity with the entire crop of sugar and molasses of the previous year for which we had been unable to find a market within "our lines," leaving cattle grazing in the fields, sheep wandering over the levee, doors and windows flung wide open, furniture in the rooms, clothes too fine for me to wear now hanging in the armoires, china in the closets, pictures on the walls, beds unmade, table spread. It was late in the afternoon of that bright, clear, bracing day, December 18, 1862, that I bade Arlington adieu forever!

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CHAPTER VIII.
"PICKETS DOWN DAR!" - HARD JOURNEYING - WILLY'S FATE -
CHARLOTTE.

        THE whole plantation field-work was done with mules, and I really believe Willy was the only person on the place, capable of driving, who had never managed a team of four. He moved slowly up toward the town, as directed. I think Dave felt a little reassured so long as he faced the Federal flag; but at Gartness Lane the wagon turned in, leaving the starry emblem to the left; then Dave stopped to remark that he believed he "had gone 'bout far enough - p'raps Sabe could drive, but he wouldn't." Here was the supreme moment for me. There was a small pistol-case on the seat behind me. I do not know to this day whether that pistol was loaded or not, but there was no time to waste, and I was in no frame of mind for hesitation. I pulled it out like a professional highwayman, held it close to Dave's woolly head, and ordered him to follow the wagon, or I'd blow his brains out! Even now, when I think of that moment, my lips quiver and my hands tremble.

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Not a word did Dave utter, but, with one scared look that made his old black face ashy, he drove through the gate and closely followed the wagon.

        By evening we reached the end of Gartness Lane, and a black head popped out of the bushes. "Don't go dat road, pickets down dar!" so we turned up the road we wanted to go down. When it was quite dark, we reached a house, where we asked to remain all night, and there to my intense astonishment I met our overseer, who, instead of remaining on the plantation attending to his duties, had taken flight on the first appearance of the Federals. He had departed without the slightest notification, leaving me to do the best I could, without the help of a living soul but little Willy; seeking a place of safety for his worthless self, and in that place of safety I found him at night - waiting for me!

        I was too dejected, helpless, and cowed, to say anything more than that I was pleased to see him, and would he be good enough to help Willy feed the mules; and be sure to put Dave in a safe place, as he was my only dependence for a driver until I could join my husband?

        The next morning, the first thing I heard was, that Dave had stolen Henry's pony and absconded! Words fail to express my indignation, but I controlled sufficient vocabulary to give the overseer my opinion of him in terms that must have made him think he was

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a very contemptible piece of humanity. He was given to understand that he must tie his horse to the tail of the wagon, and take the reins of the four mules, while Willy would drive the ambulance.

        I never saw before the people who so hospitably entertained us that night, and have forgotten their names, but I presume they thought I was equal to any emergency, and did not wonder I had been left to "paddle my own canoe."

        The rest comes to my mind in vague confusion. Recollections of woolly heads popping out of bushes at every cross-road, and, sending us the roundabout way, with the whisper, "Pickets down dat road!" temporary bridges over impassable places, felled trees shoved aside, fences taken down for us to pass through woods and fields to come to an open road, and the oft-repeated warning, "Pickets down dar!" - it is all now like a dim, troubled dream. On the third day we emerged on a broad highway, where were wagons loaded with furniture, beds, bundles, cooking-utensils, articles of clothing, old trunks and barrels overflowing with hastily collected household effects, being laboriously drawn by broken-down, emaciated horses, whose days of active service had long since departed. A few decrepit, bedraggled, dejected women, with whole families of shivering children, walked the dusty roadside.

        These were the "rear-guard," as it were, of a little

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army of wretched citizens fleeing from their broken homes. On the afternoon of that (my third) day's travel, now quite voiceless from severe cold, and very nearly exhausted, we arrived in front of a comfortable- looking plantation-house. I gave out completely when I saw its wide-open veranda doors and all the surroundings of a luxurious resting-place. Willy was sent in to ask if we could stop there, and returned with a beaming face to say it was Mr. Pierce's house, and that my husband had been there looking for me, and had gone to make further search, promising to return at night. His anxiety for my safety had been greatly increased through numerous reports circulated by the refugees from Baton Rouge, to the effect that a Federal gunboat had landed at Arlington subsequent to his hurried departure, and, failing to capture him, had taken his wife and children on board, and then proceeded to New Orleans. The rumor, reasserted in various forms, had so great a resemblance to truth that he was nearly distracted, and not till late in the evening, when he found us safe at Mr. Pierce's, did he know the facts. My heart burst with its burden of anxieties when I saw my husband again and was infolded in his strong arms, only thirteen miles from our own home, and I had been three days making it! Arlington with all its attractions was nothing. I said then, as I say now, "I never desire to see it again." The brightest hours of my early life were spent there,

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but the remembrance is blotted out by the painful incidents of the last days at the dear old home.

        In consequence of the contagious nature of the illness in Mr. Pierce's house, we took a hasty departure the following morning. He gave us a small army-tent that was found on his place after the battle; it was thankfully stored in the wagon. Thirty miles farther brought us to my brother's home, where we tarried several days. Willy was reluctant to go on with us, and we needed him no longer, so he returned to Arlington with the buggy, which was also useless. The boy, months afterward, while engaged in guarding a neighbor's cotton from roving bands of self-styled guerrillas, who were as much to be feared as the enemy, was found stark and stiff with a bullet in his heart and a gun clutched in his cold hands, his face turned heavenward, whither his brave spirit had flown. Sad fate for the noble, faithful boy!

        One word about Charlotte, a type of a class of slaves, one specimen at least of which was to be found in every well-governed establishment. "Aunt" Charlotte was a trusted member of my husband's family when "old miss," as she with affectionate reverence always called his mother, was at the head of the household. Her zeal in our service never flagged; she had no higher ambition than the faithful discharge of her daily duties. She superintended the details of our house with systematic precision, "achieved," as she

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expressed it, from "old miss." The day after our abrupt departure, the Federals took possession of all that remained on the plantation. Our old home was quickly stripped. Charlotte - I think in the vain hope of our return - claimed certain valuable articles of furniture and my portrait, and, with William and their baby, secured a vacant house in town, and there they received Willy upon his return. This much we knew before we left Louisiana.

        To a relative who saw her two years later in her own room, the poor creature with sobs told of the death of her baby, repeating again and again, "If Miss 'Liza had been here, my baby wouldn't have died." She opened the trunk I had left in the house, and with careful hands took out the faded finery and bit of silk patchwork to show how she was keeping it for "Miss 'Liza." A short while after this the poor soul became hopelessly insane. Now she rests!

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CHAPTER IX.
CAMPING BY NIGHT - FORLORN WOMEN - BEAUMONT - HOUSTON.

        WE were going to Texas, the great State that opened its hospitable doors to hundreds of refugees fleeing like ourselves from their own homes. We were going to Texas for many reasons.

        A loving brother was there, and our slaves were there at peaceful work on land cultivated on shares. We had, besides, the feeling that the Federals could never get a foothold on its boundless prairies, though they had made an ominous beginning by capturing its most valuable seaport; but, above and beyond all, we could take refuge in Mexico if the worse came to the worst.

        We had long journeys of days that ran into weeks, of camping under a tent that was scarce large enough to cover four. Every night after the day's ride, fodder, that was picked up in the fields bordering the road, was carefully spread on the bare ground, with comforts and a blanket on top, and we stowed ourselves away, each with a child to keep warm. Often we rose in the morning to find the ground covered

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with frost, and the tent too stiff to be folded into the wagon. Then, crossing rivers by rope-ferries, "manned" by women whose husbands were in the mountains of Virginia or the swamps around Vicksburg - frail rope-ferries, that could only take one vehicle at a time without risk of sinking; riding by day, camping by night, occasionally in rainy weather asking shelter at houses by the road side; though never refused, the accommodations were always scant and more or less uncomfortable. Proceeding west, we found the people poorer and more ignorant, consequently more helpless. In many instances only women and children were left in the almost destitute farmhouses. One rainy Sunday afternoon we stopped at a miserable country house - the first one we had seen all that day - which consisted of two rooms and a porch perched a few feet above the ground on the inevitable six stumps which formed the foundation, and a retreat at the same time for pigs and chickens. After rapping and calling for some time, finding no response, and the door on the latch, we ventured to enter the deserted house. The rafters were hung with long leaves of partly cured tobacco, and there was a remnant of fire on the capacious hearth, with other evidences that the owner was temporarily absent. Not a living thing was to be seen around the premises but a broken-down, one-eyed horse, and an ancient rooster, that strutted around in solitary state. In the

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course of the afternoon two forlorn women made their appearance with a handkerchief full of "borrowed" corn-meal, for, except a pound or two of rusty bacon, they had nothing whatever in the house to eat. It was difficult for my husband to believe they could be so destitute that they had to walk in a drizzling rain four miles to a neighbor to borrow a half-peck of meal; he freely offered to pay any price for a few ears of corn for the mules. They were not to be had.

        Their husbands (they were mother and daughter) had gone "to fight Lincoln," they pathetically told us, and when they went, "now gwine on two year," they expected to "git done with the job" in a month. The poor women had eaten everything their husbands left them but the "terbacker," and, from the way they smoked and chewed that night, I am afraid they consumed all that before the men returned, if, alas! they ever did. We had hoped, being only twenty miles or so from the town of Beaumont, on the Sabine River, to find some variation in our own camp-diet. The poor baby had been fed on sweet-potatoes - the brave little fellow only six months old. When we asked for milk, they showed us the old one-eyed mar, stretching her long, skinny neck over the broken fence, as the "onlyest she-critter'" they had. In despair for ourselves and pity for them, we brought out our camp supplies - coffee, sugar, salt, and hard-tack - and the famished women enjoyed a sumptuous feast with the

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hot corn-bread and fried bacon they were able to add.

        We were allowed to occupy their only bed, and I think there were a million of cimices lectuarii in it, for Henry and the patient little baby presented the appearance of having measles when we awoke the next morning.

        We parted from our wagon and its camping facilities at the door of this old cabin, sending it by road direct to Houston, proposing ourselves to take cars at Beaumont, thereby saving at least sixty miles of wagon travel, which mode of conveyance had become intolerably wearisome to the children.

        The only tavern at that picturesquely located town was less adapted to the accommodation of man than of beast. There was but one guest-chamber, and its only entrance was through a combination of office, bar, smoking and lounging room, presided over by the landlord, a kindly, hunchbacked dwarf, whose wife, a comely, intelligent woman, by the way, was the first "dipper" I ever saw. She confined herself mostly to the kitchen, where her pot of snuff and dip-stick were conveniently at hand on the window-sill, and between dips - I refrain from describing the process - attended to her domestic duties. The universal assembly-room was the only one provided with a fireplace. As a severe storm of rain and sleet, accompanied by a sharp fall in temperature, set in on Monday, the very

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day of our arrival, and continued with increasing fury until Friday, I sat all those days in a corner by a smoky fire, with baby wrapped in shawls on my lap. We were the only lodgers, so far as could be discovered, but the boarders hung round the same pitiful fire from meal to meal, reluctant to brave the inhospitable elements. They smoked pipes, talked, chewed, and expectorated hour after hour, but I was so glad of a warm, dry corner, and not inappreciative of the scant courtesy showed to the only lady in the crowd, that I had no complaints to make. No recollection remains to me regarding the time-table of the Houston and Beaumont Railroad, but a dim idea dawns that it was intended to make a round trip daily, Deo volente, which implied "weather permitting"; but when rain soaked the wood piled by the road-side so that it would not make steam, or when sleet made the rails slippery, travel was entirely suspended. As both these contingencies existed the week we were in Beaumont, of course no travel could be thought of.

        At Orange faint rumors were circulated that Galveston had been recaptured by the Confederates. Proceeding west, those rumors became more frequent and positive; and the last day at Beaumont we had the happiness to have them verified by eye-witnesses of General Magruder's heroic and gallant act, which could scarcely have been excelled by any similar event of the war. The story, repeated again and again, with

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added particulars at every recital, gave us mighty food for boastful talk, and our hearts so glowed with the warmth of excitement, that it was not surprising the sun burst out from the dark clouds then and there, and scattered the sleety rain-drops.

        Master Henry had been so long confined to the smoky, stale odor of the sitting-room, that he took immediate advantage of the clearing weather to explore the town, whose mysteries he had studied for days through the grimy, rain-spotted windows. When missed, he could not be found. Beaumont is located on a high, almost perpendicular bluff, which runs sheer down to the bed of the narrow river. As the tavern was only a stone's-throw from this precipitous bank, the first thought was that the child might have tumbled into the river. Our kind landlord himself headed a search, and, when the children at the school were dismissed at recess, they also joined in. When, some time afterward, the enterprising young scamp was found, quietly watching the men at work in a sawmill out of town, the whole population had already been aroused. Meanwhile my husband - with an occasional little inquiring trip to the door, which did not arouse my suspicions - remained with me engaged in earnest discussion of the news from Galveston, in which, as in all particulars concerning the war, I was always so easily interested as to become for the time oblivious of every other subject. So well did he

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manage the self-imposed task, that the little truant was brought back before I had felt any anxiety on the score of his absence.

        After a long day's snail-like progress, the train stopping every few miles to take a load of wet and soggy wood, and every few minutes to get up steam, slipping, sliding, and sometimes refusing point-blank to budge until all the men got out in the mud and slush to "giv her a shove," we reached Houston after midnight, tired, cold, hungry, and cross, to find no conveyance at the muddy, inhospitable shed of a depot to carry us to a hotel.

        One of our fellow-passengers, who had also sat by the Beaumont fire, procured a carriage from a stable near by, and in the wee hours of the morning our party tumbled into the "Old Capitol." I believe there is a new hotel of the same name on the spot now, of which Houstonians are justly proud; and, as our advance in the refinement of life is measured by the depths from which we started, they will not be offended if reminded that the "Old Capitol," in wartimes, was about as wretched a hostelry as could have been found on the face of this continent.

        A small bucket, filled with cold meat and sweet-potatoes by the hostess of the Beaumont tavern, to serve in case of delay, was so liberally shared with the other hungry passengers of the train, that we were famished when we arrived at Houston. Nothing whatever to

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eat was procurable at that late hour. Sabe managed to kindle a fire in the grate of our chilly chamber, already filled with half-burned coals, ashes, scraps of paper, stumps, and quids of discarded tobacco, and we were made more comfortable by a cup of coffee from our own camp supply.

        Upon the edge of boasted grazing prairies, where the grass furnished boundless pasturage for cattle too numerous to be counted, not a drop of milk could be had for patient baby, who had almost forgotten the taste of the only food he ought to have had, not a particle of butter to soften the dry sweet-potato he had to eat, not even a piece of broiled steak. Milk and butter, we were coolly told, were out of season (one would have thought they were vegetables and fruit like green peas and peaches), and the meat, tough and stringy, was fried to the consistency of leather.

        A dark purple calico dress and black cloth sacque, my hair combed straight back à la chinoise, and protected from dust by a cap of chenille, a home-made palmetto hat of the "wash-bowl" pattern, with a fold of black bombazine around the crown, constituted the costume in which I had traveled and camped. The first morning in that unique hotel, decked out in my black bombazine, my hair in the broad, spreading bands over the ears, as was the fashion, I sallied out to breakfast. A freshly shaved gentleman in broadcloth passed and repassed me with a perplexed look

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that attracted my notice. Glances of inquiry were exchanged, followed by peals of laughter; the outfit of our Beaumont friend had been even shabbier than mine, and each found the other metamorphosed by change of clothes almost beyond recognition. While enjoying a hearty laugh over the affair, another butterfly emerged from the chrysalis state, and we stoutly refused to recognize my husband fresh from the barber and boot-black.

        Drums were beating, flags flying, and the whole city in holiday attire, streets filled with crowds jostling their way toward a grand stand erected on a broad open space in Main Street, where, with some music, more speeches, and most cheers, a pretty young lady in a blue silk evening-dress presented in the name of the "Lone Star State" (as Texas loved to call herself) a superb sword to the gallant general whose dashing heroism had wrested their island city from the grasp of the foe, and much more to the same effect. General Magruder, whose soldierly bearing was somewhat marred by an unfortunate lisp in his utterance, conveying the impression of effeminate affectation, graciously received it, and, refusing the assistance of his aide, buckled it himself about his gorgeous uniform with a solemn oath that it should never be sheathed while the enemy was on Confederate soil, etc., all very grand, glittering, and impressive. I can not but smile now when the scene comes back to me, as I stood in

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the thickest of the throng, holding Henry by the hand, my heart almost bursting with proud emotion, my eyes dim with grateful tears, and hoping the boy was inhaling patriotism with every breath, though still too young to understand and appreciate the greatness of the occasion. That the elegant sword was borrowed for the presentation from a veteran of the war with Mexico, and was only typical of a more magnificent weapon to be substituted later when circumstances would permit, and was to be returned with thanks to its owner that very night, did not cause a ripple of a derisive smile. Every emotion was merged in patriotic fervor.

        Years after, when General Magruder became our guest in a foreign land, how uproariously we laughed at the incident when he repeated, in his peculiarly halting lisp, portions of the gushing address, and in his inimitable way went through the motions of buckling on the borrowed saber, which, by the way, the donors had never been able to replace!

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CHAPTER X.
TRAVELING THROUGH TEXAS - NEARING THE RIO GRANDE.

        ONCE in Texas, we moved around with our fast-vanishing lares et penates as business or convenience required. The dear baby succumbed to the first illness he ever had, and one beautiful April day his little body was carried to the cemetery at Houston and buried, as was our blessed Saviour, in a tomb belonging to another. The cradle that had been kindly loaned us by a neighbor, and the various little cups and mugs, also borrowed, were returned, the medicine- bottles put out of sight, and I sat down desolate and lonely in the empty room, with no heart to do any more, feeling that there was nothing now to do but to lie down and die.

        My husband, whose energy was all-controlling, and who knew no such word as fail, rose above every emergency. It seems now, when I recall it all, the heavier were the blows, the stouter his resistance. I actually learned in those days to feel something discouraging had happened when he came into my presence with a brighter smile and more cheerful words

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than usual. His was one of those rare natures to persevere and resist against the blows that would have prostrated almost any other man. He had contracts to move Government cotton to the frontier, which afforded him opportunities to move his own; and in following up that cotton we took more than one trip to the Rio Grande, repeating the camping out, minus the tent, which was patriotically turned over to General Magruder upon our arrival at Houston.

        We now made our bed in the ambulance; only two could possibly occupy that. Sometimes Henry shared it with me, and his father lay upon the ground underneath the vehicle, and often the boy slept on Mother Earth. We still had that "prairie-schooner" of a wagon to carry our clothing, provisions, cooking- utensils, and a servant-woman. Our ablutions were performed habitually in the horse-bucket, and the towel - we were reduced to one, the others having been ruined or blown away while camping out - the precious towel, pinned to the ambulance-curtain, flapped in the breeze and dried as we rode along.

        It was not always plain sailing; adventures were frequent. We had the ill luck, on the first trip to the Rio Grande, to put up in Victoria at the meanest and dirtiest hotel I ever dreamed of. It was not half so comfortable as the ambulance and the horse-bucket, but that could not be found out until it had been tried. The room assigned us was immediately over

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what they were pleased to call the office, but which was really a bar-room; and one unacquainted with Texas in those days can not understand what a bar-room pure and simple was. I was too tired and sleepy to fight long with the various creatures in the bed that had previous possession, which is nine points of the law. By and by, giving up the battle, I fell sound asleep.

        My husband, being a light sleeper, was easily roused by outside noises. He spent the greater part of the night with ear and eye at the cracks in the floor, that furnished a pretty good view into the bar-room beneath, and then and there heard the thirsty, boisterous couriers from General Bee to General Magruder tell that the Federals were in Brownsville, and that the place was evacuated. The ubiquitous Yankees! Even away out on the borders of the Guadalupe River we had to hear the old story - "Pickets down dat road!"

        What to do was the question that concerned us now. The couriers fortified themselves with drinks, and were off to Magruder before the dawn. By the time I was awake, my husband had procured a dilapidated old map, and was studying out the situation. Our cotton was on the road to Brownsville; the news soon came, however, that General Bee had ordered all the cotton-teams back, and directed them to Laredo. To Laredo we prepared to go. At General Bee's

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urgent advice, it was, at the last moment of starting, decided that Henry, my negro servant-woman, and I, should return to my brother's in the interior of Texas. My husband and a few men, on the same cotton errand, joined together for mutual protection, but they did not relish the additional care of two women and a great white covered wagon, that could be seen for miles over the flat prairie country, only broken with a low growth of chaparral and prickly-pear. All this was being discussed during the first day's ride from Fernando Creek, where we met General Bee. My husband could see, by my burning face and resolute eye, that I was inwardly protesting the whole time.

        When we camped that night, the mules were chained to the wagon-wheels, to provide against a chance of stampede; the men, with loaded guns, were detailed to stand watch, with eyes and ears on the keen alert. My husband and I crept into our ambulance, buttoned the curtains closely down, and, while he held a dim candle in a bottle, I divided in half the few pieces of gold coin we had; sewed twenty pieces for him in a broad, coarse cotton belt, and twenty for me in the bosom and hips of my corset. Then began the division of our scanty bedding; his eyes were filled with tears - that resolute man, who had borne every blow so bravely! We could not talk, our hearts were too full; each dared not unnerve the other by a word. The division took place in absolute silence;

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he held the candle, and I did the work. Then we lay down for the last time together; we, who had fought such a brave fight side by side, were to separate now, because the dangers to be encountered were too much for the woman. Lying very quiet, each hoping the other would sleep, oh! how the thoughts surged through my brain the short remnant of that night; how earnestly I prayed to be shown the right way; how I petitioned the all-wise God to shut from my view all feeling of self - myself, himself - and show me the way, whether to turn back alone or go on by his side! At the earliest dawn I took advantage of a slight move to ask if he was awake, and then told him in emphatic, plain, unmistakable terms that I was not going back. He pressed me to his thankful heart without a word. As we journeyed on with the rest of the little company, we laughingly proposed that all the money and watches be trusted to my keeping, for, if the Mexican outlaws should pounce upon us, surely they would not search the only lady in the party.

        The next night our camp was by the ruins of an abandoned well. Only twenty-four hours after, a party of four men were attacked by Mexican bandits at that very spot, and robbed of everything, even their horses. We did not know of our narrow escape till some days afterward, when the rifled men wearily tramped into Laredo. It was a four-days' trip, and

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in that exciting and perilous journey I am sure that Henry and I were the only ones that slept.

        The sportsmen of our party often varied the bill-of-fare with game. On several occasions early in the journey one of the number, Mr. Dodds, brought down a fine wild-turkey. A particularly handsome one furnished me with a "turkey-tail fan," the ragged edges of which are still in my possession.

        Nearing the Rio Grande, the country was so barren that the only growths were prickly-pear and mesquite, except on the banks of the few streams. Even in that desolate region an occasional mule-eared rabbit was brought to camp and made into a delicious stew.

        Desiring to accomplish thirty-five miles each day, we always started at the earliest dawn, fortified with a cup of black coffee and a cracker. At noon a halt was called of a half-hour or so, and at four we camped for the night, when the meal of the day was leisurely prepared and enjoyed. Frequently we were able to procure a kid. One of the men, who had made the overland journey to California in the fifties, and therefore was endowed with envied experience, was very expert in finding, where no one else could, Mexican jeccals (huts) and kids, and preparing the meat in a variety of tempting ways; so by common consent Mr. Crossan became our commissary and chef. Being the only lady in the company, I was allowed to do nothing, and ate the hard-tack and salt pork, when there was

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nothing better, with the relish that stimulating air and exercise always impart, immensely enjoying the savory roasts and stews. Many chats Mr. Crossan and I had while I reclined on an improvised divan and watched him stretch the kid on cross-sticks and incline it over the fire à la barbecue; as he turned and basted it, there arose an appetizing odor that was absolutely delightful. I was constantly reminding the kindly man by my presence, of one trip he made to California when his young wife was the only woman in the company; and the tempting, dainty dishes he contrived for me, and the laughable stories he told to while away the time, I always considered a tribute to the memory of that other woman who was so patient and brave.

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CHAPTER XI.
LAREDO - MEXICAN ESCORT TO PIEDRAS NEGRAS - THE CUSTOM-HOUSE -
A NORTHER - SAN ANTONIO - SCARCITY OF NECESSARIES.

        ON the fourth day at noon we camped amid sand and prickly-pear, to brush up and make ourselves presentable to appear before strangers. An hour afterward we drove into the scattering town of Laredo, amid the plaudits of numberless little, half-naked muchachos who never had seen an ambulance, never had seen anything but themselves and the muddy river, and at long intervals a lonely wagon. So they hung on to the traces, ran by the wheels, and caught on behind, at the imminent risk of bodily injury. If they had ever heard of Queen Victoria, they might have thought she was coming to town, for I was the first white woman and my attendant the first black one the generation had seen.

        I often think of the days we spent in quaint Laredo - of the old priest who three times a day solemnly issued from his adobe hut and tolled off the hours from the big, harsh-sounding bell that

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surmounted a tall staff beside the little mud-covered church - of the courtesy and kindness of the women who brought me almost daily presents of little loaves of bread, alas! full of caraway-seed, but sweet and warm from the adobe ovens that were scattered at convenient distances through the village - of the men, wrapped in blankets like Indians, standing aside and giving me a courteous, deep salaam, sombrero in hand, when necessity compelled me to take the quart-cup and go to the public pen for goat's milk - of the dexterous manner with which said goats were milked, all herded in a crowded pen: the milker fastened his eye on a certain nanny, made a rapid dart, caught her by the left hind-foot, which he secured under his right arm, thereby lifting the struggling creature quite off her legs; with a quick stoop and a few lightning strokes the cup foamed over and Mrs. Goat was released. This trick was repeated with an accuracy and dexterity quite bewildering. All the animals looked alike to me, but the milker never seemed to make the mistake of catching the same one twice. I sometimes stood and watched the whole process, until the froth and foam of my cup settled down, revealing very little milk. Daily I went to the pen, both because I could ask for it in their mixture of Spanish and Indian, and because Delia with her ebony face was such a curiosity as to excite a commotion every time she stepped out of the house, and therefore she was reluctant to go. I

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need not tell of the hours I sat at the only window of our temporary home, and wrote letters that were never sent, or made entries in a diary that was subsequently lost, while a crowd of inquisitive urchins gathered about, until I was forced to retreat inside and put the writing away; nor of days that I wandered to the bluff, and met long processions of women returning from the river, with curiously shaped jars of water deftly balanced on their heads, or suspended by one hand over the shoulder, and watched other women washing clothes without soap or hot water, by spreading them on rocks over which the waters of the river lapped, and beating and turning and beating them again with queer wooden mallets, while the naked children paddled in and out, diving, ducking, floating, and splashing around as though water was their native element; nor of other days when I stood on the bank to see the long-expected cotton-wagons cross the ford to the Mexican side; nor of the startling rumor that the Federals, who seemed to be sweeping over the country like a swarm of locusts, were rapidly marching up the Rio Grande!

        The alarm was premature, but we immediately crossed into Mexico. My husband's first business venture, when still a youth, was the superintendence of a "stage line" in the West, for which he had a "mail contract." In Laredo he found one of his old employés, who had drifted there after the war

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with Mexico, married an olive beauty, and settled down to a life of masterly inactivity. Through his kindly offices we had been able to obtain quite comfortable quarters, but when we crossed to "foreign parts" were not so well housed, albeit we found more life and animation. The frolicsome men of American Laredo, to avoid conscription had emigrated also. Here they amused themselves with feats of horseback-riding and lofty tumbling, some of which were quite astonishing. It was a frequent exploit for a rider to lean over and pick a silver dollar from the ground while his horse was in full gallop under whip and spur. During the annual festival of their patron saint, "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe," we walked through the plaza, filled with gaily decked booths, and saw both men and women win and lose bags of money at the gambling-tables with a sang-froid that indicated familiarity with the game.

        The repeated rumors of Federal advance soon caused the order to be issued to close the custom-house at Laredo and open one at Piedras Negras, still farther up the Rio Grande, and on the Mexican side of the river, to which point all cotton-trains were now directed. Our Confederate official procured from the Governor of the State of Nuevo Leon an armed escort, and we eagerly embraced the opportunity of safe convoy through that wild and lawless region by joining his party. I presume there were valuables, perhaps

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specie, in his train, from the extraordinary precautions observed against attack. Away in front of our cortége, the striped serape of the Mexican captain was always visible, fluttering in the wind, as he rode rapidly forward reconnoitring the country, while we followed in single file, surrounded by his armed men. It was a four-days' journey, if my memory serves me. Sometimes we halted in the middle of the day, scarcely having scored a dozen miles, and sometimes rode until quite dark, in order to avoid dangerous and exposed camping-places.

        Arrived at Piedras Negras, the party was directed to the only public building in the town, to which it had been assigned by the courtesy of the Mexican governor, and I believe, also, the only one that boasted a fireplace, a tiny grate in an inconvenient corner, that could hold about two chips and a handful of coals. The weather, though late in December, gave no indications, however, that even a small fire would be necessary for our comfort. The building consisted of one lo