OLD MAIDS
[J. L. Underwood.]
This would be a dark world without old maids--God bless them! No one
can measure their usefulness. Many a one of them has never married
because she has never found a man good enough for her.
The saddest
mourners the world ever saw were some of our Southern girls whose
hearts and hopes were buried in a soldier's grave in Virginia or the
Far West. For four years the daughters of the South waited for their
lovers, and alas! many waited in a life widowhood of unutterable
sorrow. After the seven days' battles in front of Richmond a horseman
rode up to the door of one of the houses on ---- street in Richmond
and cried out to an anxious mother: "Your son is safe, but Captain
---- is killed." On the opposite side of the street a fair young girl
was sitting. She was the betrothed of the ill-fated captain, and heard
the crushing announcement. That's the way war made so many Southern
girls widows without coming to the marriage altar.
"It matters little now, Lorena;
The past is the eternal past.
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena;
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast
But, there's a future--oh, thank God--
Of life this is so small a part;
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod,
But there--up there,--'tis heart to heart."
The writer is so partial to the old maids of the Confederacy that he
is afraid of a charge of extravagance were he to say anything more.
But the author of this book is not the only one to admire and love
them. Hear what another old Confederate soldier says in the following
letter in the Atlanta _Journal_:
SUGAR VALLEY, GA.
DEAR MISS THOMAS:
Will you permit an old Confederate soldier, who has nearly reached
his three-score and ten, to occupy a seat while he says a few
words?
The old maids of to-day were young girls in my youthful days. They
were once young and happy and looked forward with bright hopes to
the future, while the flowers opened as pretty, the birds sung as
sweetly, and the sun shone as brightly as it does to the young
girls of to-day. They had sweethearts; they loved and were loved
in return; they had pleasant dreams of the coming future to be
passed in their own happy homes surrounded by husband and
children. But, alas! the dark war clouds lowered above the horizon
and all their bright dreams of the future were overcast with
gloom. They loved with a pure and unselfish devotion, but they
loved their country best. The young men of the sixties were the
first to respond to their country's call and marched away to the
front, to undergo the hardships and dangers of a soldier's life.
Now, can you imagine the pangs that rent the maiden's breast as
she bid farewell, maybe for the last time this side of eternity,
to the one who was dearer than her own heart's blood, as she
watched his manly form clothed in his uniform of gray disappear in
the distance? She tried to be brave when she bade him go and fight
the battles of his country. She remained at home and prayed to an
all-wise and merciful God to spare him amidst the storm of iron
and lead, but her heart seemed rent in twain and all of her bright
hopes for the future seemed turned to ashes. The weary days and
months passed in dread suspense.
Now and then a letter from the front revived her drooping spirits,
as her soldier boy told of his many escapes amid the charging
columns and roar of battle. After many months or maybe years she
received the sad tidings that her gallant soldier was no more; his
gallant spirit had flashed out with the guns, and his manly form,
wrapped in a soldier's blanket, had been consigned to an unmarked
grave far away from home and loved ones. The last rays of hope
fled, and she resigned herself to her sad and lonely fate. They
were true to their country in its sore distress, true to their
heroes wearing the gray, and true to their God who doeth all
things well. Could any one lead a more consecrated life? Now, let
us, instead of deriding, cast the veil of charity over their
desolate lives.
The once smooth cheek is furrowed with the wrinkles of time, the
glossy braids have whitened with the snows of winter, the once
graceful form is bending under the weight of years, while the
bright eyes have grown dim watching, not for the soldier in gray,
but for the summons that calls her to meet him on that bright and
beautiful shore, there to be with loved ones who have gone before,
and receive the reward of "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant." Soon the last one of those patriotic women of the
sixties will have passed over the river, and their like may never
be seen again, but their love of home and country will be handed
down to generations yet unknown.
With best wishes for the household,
W. H. ANDREWS.
A MOTHER'S LETTER
[From a dying soldier boy.]
The Alabama papers in 1863 published the following letter from Private
John Moseley, a youth who gave up his life at Gettysburg:
BATTLEFIELD, GETTYSBURG, PA.,
_July 4, 1863_.
DEAR MOTHER:
I am here, prisoner of war and mortally wounded. I can live but a
few hours more at furthest. I was shot fifty yards from the
enemy's line. They have been exceedingly kind to me. I have no
doubt as to the final result of this battle, and I hope I may live
long enough to hear the shouts of victory before I die. I am very
weak. Do not mourn my loss. I had hoped to have been spared, but a
righteous God has ordered it otherwise, and I feel prepared to
trust my case in His hands. Farewell to you all. Pray that God may
receive my soul.
Your unfortunate son,
JOHN.
TOM AND HIS YOUNG MASTER
[In Richmond During the War, pages 178-179.]
A young soldier from Georgia brought with him to the war in Virginia a
young man who had been brought up with him on his father's plantation.
On leaving his home with his regiment, the mother of the young soldier
said to his negro slave: "Now, Tom, I commit your master Jemmy into
your keeping. Don't let him suffer for anything with which you can
supply him. If he is sick, nurse him well, my boy; and if he dies,
bring his body home to me; if wounded, take care of him; and oh! if he
is killed in battle, don't let him be buried on the field, but secure
his body for me, and bring him home to be buried!" The negro
faithfully promised his mistress that all her wishes should be
attended to, and came on to the seat of war charged with the grave
responsibility placed upon him.
In one of the battles around Richmond the negro saw his young master
when he entered the fight, and saw him when he fell, but no more of
him. The battle became fierce, the dust and smoke so dense that the
company to which he was attached, wholly enveloped in the cloud, was
hidden from the sight of the negro, and it was not until the battle
was over that Tom could seek for his young master. He found him in a
heap of slain. Removing the mangled remains, torn frightfully by a
piece of shell, he conveyed them to an empty house, where he laid them
out in the most decent order he could, and securing the few valuables
found on his person, he sought a conveyance to carry the body to
Richmond. Ambulances were in too great requisition for those whose
lives were not extinct to permit the body of a dead man to be conveyed
in one of them. He pleaded most piteously for a place to bring in the
body of his young master. It was useless, and he was repulsed; but
finding some one to guard the dead, he hastened into the city and
hired a cart and driver to go out with him to bring in the body to
Richmond.
When he arrived again at the place where he had left it, he was urged
to let it be buried on the field, and was told that he would not be
allowed to take it from Richmond, and therefore it were better to be
buried there. "I can't do it. I promised my mistress (his mother) to
bring his body home to her if he got killed, and I'll go home with it
or I'll die by it; I can't leave my master Jemmy here."
The boy was
allowed to have the body and brought it to Richmond, where he was
furnished with a coffin, and the circumstances being made known, the
faithful slave, in the care of a wounded officer who went South, was
permitted to carry the remains of his master to his distant home in
Georgia. The heart of the mother was comforted in the possession of
the precious body of her child, and in giving it a burial in the
church-yard near his own loved home.
Fee or reward for this noble act of fidelity would have been an insult
to the better feelings of this poor slave; but when he delivered up
the watch and other things taken from the person of his young master,
the mistress returned him the watch, and said: "Take this watch, Tom,
and keep it for the sake of my boy; 'tis but a poor reward for such
services as you have rendered him and his mother." The poor woman,
quite overcome, could only add: "God bless you, boy!"
"I KNEW YOU WOULD COME"
[In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 22, pages 58-59.]
Col. W. R. Aylett tells the following tender story: Once during the war, when the lines of the enemy separated me from my
home, I was an inmate of my brother's Richmond home while suffering
from a wound. As soon as I could walk about a little, my first steps
were directed to Seabrook's Hospital to see some of my dear comrades
who were worse wounded than I. While sitting by the cot of a friend,
who was soon to "pass over the river and rest under the shade of the
trees," I witnessed a scene that I can hardly ever think of without
quickened pulse and moist eye.
A beautiful boy, too young to fight and die, and a member of an
Alabama regiment, was dying from a terrible wound a few feet off. His
mother had been telegraphed for at his request. In the wild delirium
of his dying moments he had been steadily calling for her, "Oh,
mother, come; do come quickly!" Then, under the influence of opiates
given to smooth his entrance into eternal rest, he dozed and
slumbered. The thunders of the great guns along the lines of the
immortal Lee roused him up. Just then his dying eyes rested upon one
of the lovely matrons of Richmond advancing toward him.
His reeling
brain and distempered imagination mistook her for his mother. Raising
himself up, with a wild, delirious cry of joy, which rang throughout
the hospital, he cried: "Oh, mother! I knew you would come! I knew you
would come! I can die easy now;" and she, humoring his illusion, let
him fall upon her bosom, and he died happy in her arms, her tears
flowing for him as if he had been her own son.
LETTERS FROM THE POOR AT HOME
[Phoebe Y. Pember.]
A thousand evidences of the loving care and energetic labor of the
patient ones at home, telling an affecting story that knocked hard at
the gates of the heart, were the portals ever so firmly closed; and
with all these came letters written by poor, ignorant ones who often
had no knowledge of how such communications should be addressed.
These letters, making inquiries concerning patients from anxious
relatives at home, directed oftener to my office than my home, came in
numbers, and were queer mixtures of ignorance, bad grammar, worse
spelling, and simple feeling. However absurd the style, the love that
filled them chastened and purified them. Many are stored away, and
though irresistibly ludicrous, are too sacred to print for public
amusement. In them could be detected the prejudices of the different
sections. One old lady in upper Georgia wrote a pathetic appeal for a
furlough for her son. She called me "My dear sir," while still
retaining my feminine address, and though expressing the strongest
desire for her son's restoration to health, entreated in moving
accents that if his life could not be spared, that he should not be
buried in "Ole Virginny dirt"--rather a derogatory term to apply to
the sacred soil that gave birth to the Presidents,--the soil of the
Old Dominion.
Almost all of these letters told the same sad tale of destitution of
food and clothing; even shoes of the roughest kind being either too
expensive for the mass or unattainable by the expenditure of any sum,
in many parts of the country. For the first two years of the war,
privations were lightly dwelt upon and courageously borne, but when
want and suffering pressed heavily, as times grew more stringent,
there was a natural longing for the stronger heart and frame to bear
part of the burden. Desertion is a crime that meets generally with as
much contempt as cowardice, and yet how hard for the husband or father
to remain inactive in winter quarters, knowing that his wife and
little ones were literally starving at home--not even at home, for few
homes were left.
LIFE IN RICHMOND DURING THE WAR
[Southern Historical Papers, Volume 19. From the _Cosmopolitan_,
December, 1891; by Edward M. Alfriend.]
For many months after the beginning of the war between the States,
Richmond was an extremely gay, bright, and happy city.
Except that
its streets were filled with handsomely attired officers and that
troops constantly passed through it, there was nothing to indicate the
horrors or sorrows of war, or the fearful deprivations that
subsequently befell it. As the war progressed its miseries tightened
their bloody grasp upon the city, happiness was nearly destroyed, and
the hearts of the people were made to bleed. During the time of
McClellan's investment of Richmond, and the seven days'
fighting
between Lee's army and his own, every cannon that was fired could be
heard in every home in Richmond, and as every home had its son or sons
at the front of Lee's army, it can be easily understood how great was
the anguish of every mother's heart in the Confederate capital. These
mothers had cheerfully given their sons to the Southern cause,
illustrating, as they sent them to battle, the heroism of the Spartan
mother, who, when she gave the shield to her son, told him to return
with it or on it.
_Happy Phases_
And yet, during the entire war, Richmond had happy phases to its
social life. Entertainments were given freely and very liberally the
first year of the war, and at them wine and suppers were graciously
furnished, but as the war progressed all this was of necessity given
up, and we had instead what were called "starvation parties."
The young ladies of the city, accompanied by their male escorts
(generally Confederate officers on leave) would assemble at a
fashionable residence that before the war had been the abode of
wealth, and have music and plenty of dancing, but not a morsel of food
or a drop of drink was seen. And this form of entertainment became the
popular and universal one in Richmond. Of course, no food or wine was
served, simply because the host could not get it, or could not afford
it. And at these starvation parties the young people of Richmond and
the young army officers assembled and danced as brightly and as
happily as though a supper worthy of Lucullus awaited them.
The ladies were simply dressed, many of them without jewelry, because
the women of the South had given their jewelry to the Confederate
cause. Often on the occasion of these starvation parties, some young
Southern girl would appear in an old gown belonging to her mother or
grandmother, or possibly a still more remote ancestor, and the effect
of the antique garment was very peculiar; but no matter what was
worn, no matter how peculiarly any one might be attired, no matter how
bad the music, no matter how limited the host's or hostess's
ability to entertain, everybody laughed, danced, and was happy,
although the reports of the cannon often boomed in their ears, and all
deprivations, all deficiencies, were looked on as a sacrifice to
the Southern cause.
_The Dress of a Grandmother_
I remember going to a starvation party during the war with a Miss M.,
a sister of Annie Rive's mother. She wore a dress belonging to her
great-grandmother or grandmother, and she looked regally handsome in
it. She was a young lady of rare beauty, and as thoroughbred in every
feature of her face or pose and line of her body as a reindeer, and
with this old dress on she looked as though the portrait of some
ancestor had stepped out of its frame.
Such spectacles were very common at our starvation parties. On one
occasion I attended a starvation party at the residence of Mr. John
Enders, an old and honored citizen of Richmond, and, of course, there
was no supper. Among those present was Willie Allan, the second son of
the gentleman, Mr. John Allan, who adopted Edgar Allan Poe, and gave
him his middle name. About 1 o'clock in the morning he came to one
other gentleman and myself, and asked us to go to his home just across
the street, saying he thought he could give us some supper. Of course,
we eagerly accepted his invitation and accompanied him to his house.
He brought out a half dozen mutton chops and some bread, and we had
what was to us a royal supper. I spent the night at the Allan home and
slept in the same room with Willie Allan. The next morning there was
a tap on the door, and I heard the mother's gentle voice calling:
"Willie, Willie." He answered, "Yes, mother; what is it?" And she
replied: "Did you eat the mutton chops last night?" He answered,
"Yes," when she said, "Well, then, we haven't any breakfast."
_Frightful Contrasts_
The condition of the Allan household was that of all Richmond.
Sometimes the contrasts that occurred in these social gayeties in
Richmond were frightful, ghastly. A brilliant, handsome, happy, joyous
young officer, full of hope and promise, would dance with a lovely
girl and return to his command. A few days would elapse, another
"starvation" would occur, the officer would be missed, he would be
asked for, and the reply come, "Killed in battle;" and frequently the
same girls with whom he danced a few nights before would attend his
funeral from one of the churches of Richmond. Can life have any more
terrible antithesis than this?
A Georgia lady was once remonstrating with General Sherman against the
conduct of some of his men, when she said: "General, this is
barbarity," and General Sherman, who was famous for his pregnant
epigrams, replied: "Madame, war is barbarity." And so it is.
On one occasion, when I was attending a starvation party in Richmond,
the dancing was at its height and everybody was bright and happy, when
the hostess, who was a widow, was suddenly called out of the room. A
hush fell on everything, the dancing stopped, and every one became
sad, all having a premonition in those troublous times that something
fearful had happened. We were soon told that her son had been killed
late that evening, in a skirmish in front of Richmond, a few miles
from his home.
Wounded and sick men and officers were constantly brought into the
homes of the people of Richmond to be taken care of, and every home
had in it a sick or wounded Confederate soldier. From the association
thus brought about many a love affair occurred and many a marriage
resulted. I know of several wives and mothers in the South who lost
their hearts and won their soldier husbands in this way, so this phase
of life during the war near Richmond was prolific of romance.
_General Lee Kissed the Girls_
General Robert E. Lee would often leave the front, come into Richmond
and attend these starvation parties, and on such occasions he was not
only the cynosure of all eyes, but the young ladies all crowded around
him, and he kissed every one of them. This was esteemed his privilege
and he seemed to enjoy the exercise of it. On such occasions he was
thoroughly urbane, but always the dignified, patrician soldier in his
bearing.
Private theatricals were also a form of amusement during the war. I
saw several of them. The finest I witnessed, however, was a
performance of Sheridan's comedy, of Alabama, played by Mrs. Malaprop.
Her rendition of the part was one of the best I ever saw, rivalling
that of any professional. The audience was very brilliant, the
President of the Confederacy, Mrs. Davis, Judah P.
Benjamin, and
others of equal distinction being present.
Mrs. Davis is a woman of great intellectual powers and a social queen,
and at these entertainments she was very charming. Mr.
Davis was
always simple, unpretentious, and thoroughly cordial in his manner. To
those who saw him on these occasions it was impossible to associate
his gentle, pleasing manner with the stern decision with which he was
then directing his side of the greatest war of modern times. The world
has greatly misunderstood Mr. Davis, and in no way more than in
personal traits of his character. My brother, the late Frank H.
Alfriend, was Mr. Davis's biographer, and through personal intercourse
with Mr. Davis I knew him well. In all his social, domestic, and
family relations, he was the gentlest, the noblest, the tenderest of
men. As a father and husband he was almost peerless, for his domestic
life was the highest conceivable.
Mr. Davis, at the executive mansion, held weekly receptions, to which
the public were admitted. These continued until nearly the end of the
war. The occasions were not especially marked, but Mr.
and Mrs. Davis
were always delightful hosts.
_John Wise and His Big Clothes_
The spectacle presented at the social gatherings, particularly the
starvation parties, was picturesque in the extreme. The ladies often
took down the damask and other curtains and made dresses of them. My
friend, Hon. John S. Wise, formerly of Virginia, now of New York,
tells the following story of himself: He was serving in front of
Richmond and was invited to come into the city to attend a starvation
party. Having no coat of his own fit to wear, he borrowed one from a
brother officer nearly twice his height. The sleeves of his coat
covered his hands entirely, the skirt came below his knees several
inches, and the b