CHAPTER XXII
WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE
Milicent always came as a soul comes.
The day after we got the batch of letters the door opened softly, and there she stood, holding Bobby by the hand. She had come so quietly that we did not know it until she stood in our midst. But Bobby was a veritable piece of flesh and blood. As soon as he saw it was grandma and auntie, he made a bound for us, and overwhelmed us with his noisy and affectionate greetings, while his mother submitted to being loved and kissed, and in her quiet way loved and kissed back again. Then she told us how she had come from Norfolk to Petersburg. It was a long, dreary trip.
“I went on a flag-of-truce train to Suffolk. Dr. Wright’s family were on the train, and I spent the night with them. Bobby burned his throat at supper by swallowing tea too hot for him, and he did not rest well in the early part of the night and slept late the next day, and I was very anxious about him. This, and the difficulty in getting a conveyance, kept me at Dr. Wright’s until the afternoon. By that time I had secured a mule-cart to take me to Ivor Station, on the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. Ivor, you know, is not more than twenty-five miles from Suffolk by the direct route, but the route we had to take for safety, as far as the Yankees and mud were concerned, was longer, and our one mule went slowly.
“The first afternoon we traveled till late in the night. Bobby would insist on driving the mule, and the driver humored him. In spite of the pain in his throat, he stood up against my knee and held the lines until, poor little tired fellow! he went to sleep holding them. I drew him on to my lap, covered him up, and we went on, the old negro, old mule, and baby all asleep. At last we stopped at a farmhouse to feed the mule. The woman who lived there asked me in. I laid Bobby down on her bed, dropped across it, and in five minutes was asleep myself. I don’t know how many other people slept in that bed that night, but I know that the old woman, Bobby, and I slept in it. When I woke up it was several hours after daylight. Our breakfast the next morning was a typical Confederate breakfast. My hostess gave me a drink made of parched wheat and corn which had been ground, a glass of milk, and some corn bread and bacon, and I enjoyed the meal and paid her cheerfully.
“We reached Ivor late that afternoon, my driver got his fee and departed, and Bobby and I were left to wait for the train. But we were not the only persons at the station; two other women were waiting at Ivor. If those two women could have had their way there would never have been another sunset on this earth. Their two sons were to be shot at sundown – they were watching for the sun to go down. Up and down, up and down, they walked in front of a tent where their sons under military guard awaited execution, and as they walked their eyes, swift and haggard, shifted from tent to sky and back again from sky to tent. As my train moved out of the station I glanced back. They were walking with feverish haste, and the sun hung low in the heavens.”
“Hush, hush!” I cried, “I can’t stand another word – I shall dream of those women all night. Tell me how you got here at last!”
“When I reached Pocahontas I meant to go to Jarrett’s, and stop until I could find out where you were, but while I was looking around for a carriage who should I come upon but John, our old hackman. He told me that you were both out here at Uncle William’s, and I made him drive me out.”
Soon after my sister’s arrival we moved into town and boarded at Miss Anne Walker’s, an old historic house then facing Washington Street, which runs east and west, paralleling the railroad at Jarrett’s Hotel – or rather where Jarrett’s used to stand – an ugly old hotel in the heart of the town. It was beside this railroad that I ran bareheaded along Washington Street some months later to get out of the way of the Yankee cannon. I was at Miss Anne’s when Dan gave me leave to visit him at Charlottesville. His headquarters was a small cottage in sight of the university and of my window. He came home every night – home was a student’s room in the university – and very often I went with him in the morning to his cottage.
One morning as I sat in the cottage, turning a pair of Dan’s old trousers, the door opened, and a fine-looking cavalry officer entered. Surprised to find a lady in occupation, he lifted his hat and started to withdraw. Then he hesitated, regarding me in a confused, doubtful fashion. Whereupon I in my turn began to stare at him.
“Isn’t this John – John Mason?” I asked suddenly.
“That is my name,” with a sweeping bow. “And are you not my old friend, Miss Nellie Duncan, of Norfolk?”
“Yes,” I answered smiling, “but you know I have a third name now.”
“Of course. Unpleasant facts are always hard to remember. I heard of your marriage, certainly, but for the moment the remembrance of it escaped me. You are here with the major?”
The last time I had seen John was on that day which closed the chapter of my happy girlhood in Norfolk. He had been with me when the telegram came telling us that father could not live, and from that day to this I had never seen him until he surprised me patching Dan’s old trousers in the cottage at Charlottesville.
He took the chair opposite, and began talking about the work I was doing and the evidence it bore to my being a good wife. But so far from being pleased I was very much mortified, for the old trousers were in a dreadful state of wear and tear, and he was resplendent in a new uniform. But after a while we dropped the trousers, and got on the subject of Norfolk and old times, and had quite a pleasant chat till my husband came in and he and John turned their attention to business.
I was seeing more of my husband than at any previous or later period of the war, and having altogether a delightful time. One of the things I enjoyed most were our horseback rides.
Dan had two horses for his own use – Tom Hodges, his old army horse, and Nellie Grey, a fine new mare that he had christened for me. When his horse was shot under him in that charge which has been mentioned before, the people of his native town had sent him Nellie Grey in its stead. Nellie was a beautiful creature, docile but very spirited, and I was not often trusted to ride her unless Dan himself was along. Tom Hodges was not so handsome, but he was a horse of decorous ideas and steadfast principles.
I remember well my first ride on Nellie Grey. I had the reputation of being an excellent horsewoman, and Dan wanted to show me off. He was inordinately proud of me, to my great delight, but I could have dispensed with the form his vanity took on that day.
As we rode in an easy canter down University Avenue he gave Nellie Grey a cut, without my knowledge, that sent her off like the wind in a regular cavalry gallop.
Well, I kept my seat – somehow – and I brought her to her senses and a standstill, and then I looked back to see Dan beaming with pride and pleasure.
“What is the matter with this horse?” I asked. “She’s a fool!”
Then Dan told me of that secret cut.
“I knew just what she would do,” he said, “and I knew what you’d do. I wanted to show the boys over there what pluck my wife’s got.”
“Dan,” I said solemnly, “it’s not Nellie Grey that’s the fool.”
I was breathless and vexed, and I had to use the strongest language at my command to express my opinion of Nellie Grey, but it wasn’t strong enough to express my feelings toward Dan! I simply had to look my thoughts!
“You see, wifie,” he went on apologetically, “you did look so pretty and plucky that you ought to have seen yourself.”
Sam had gone home on a furlough, and in his place Dan had a very magnificent body-servant named Napoleon Bonaparte, and an under-boy named Solomon. Napoleon Bonaparte brushed the major’s boots, and Solomon brushed Napoleon’s. Napoleon Bonaparte was a bright mulatto, Solomon was as black as tar. It was Napoleon Bonaparte’s business to supply my room with wood, but this task he delegated to Solomon. Whatever menial work the major ordered Napoleon Bonaparte to do, Napoleon turned over to Solomon. “Solomon,” he said, “was nothin’ but a free nigger nohow.” It came to pass finally that Solomon, ostensibly hired to one master, in reality served two. Of course, Napoleon Bonaparte feathered his own nest and worked things so that the major was really paying two men to do the work of one. When the major could not ride with me, he sent Napoleon Bonaparte to act as groom. This Napoleon Bonaparte esteemed an honor, and he only appointed Solomon in his stead when he himself was in demand as equerry for the major. Napoleon always elected to follow the major in such case, as that was higher employment in his eyes than riding behind me. One morning I stood waiting in my habit a long time for the horses. At last when they appeared Solomon came on a sorry mount, leading Tom Hodges. The procession moved at a snail’s pace, and Solomon looked dreadfully glum.
“What makes you so late?” I asked impatiently.
“Dunno ’zackly, marm. Evvybody in de camp got de debbul in ’em. Major, he got de debbul in him! ’Poleon Bonaparte, he got de debbul in him. An’ evvybody got de debbul in ’em!”
“There seem to have been a great many devils in camp. Wasn’t there one to spare for you, Solomon?”
“Nor’m, I ain’t had no debbul in me – me an’ Tom Hodges. We’s been de onliest peaceable people in camp. Ef I hadn’t er kep’ de peace, me an’ ’Poleon Bonaparte would ha’ fit, sho!”
“I should think you would like to fight Napoleon – I should, if I were you.”
“Nor’m, I don’ b’lieve in no fightin’ – ’cep’in’ ’tis ter fit de Yankees. I’m er peaceable man, I is.”
I told Dan what a bad report Solomon had made out against him.
He laughed. “Solomon has the grumps this morning. He seemed to have quite a time with your namesake, as well as with the rest of us. Napoleon Bonaparte sent him to rub Nellie Grey down and saddle her for me. The mare threw her head up and jerked him about a little, and we could hear him saying: ‘Whoa! Nellie Grey, whoa! You got de debbul in you too! Who-a, Nellie Grey!’ Between the two of them I am having rather a hard time lately,” said Dan. “Solomon blames ’Poleon Bonaparte directly for all the hard times he has, and me indirectly. If something isn’t done as it should be, and I take Napoleon to task, he lays it thick and hard on Solomon. Solomon did have a time of it at camp this morning. You see, ’Poleon Bonaparte is very particular about the way the horses are kept, but he makes Solomon do all the rubbing down, and Solomon doesn’t understand how to manage horses and is a little afraid of them. ’Poleon Bonaparte found fault with his job this morning, and made him rub Nellie Grey down twice. It naturally occurred to Nellie that so much rubbing meant an opportunity for playing. Black Solomon really was the good angel at camp, for before he and Nellie Grey got us to laughing, swearing had been thick enough to cut with a knife. I had turned loose on ’Poleon, and ’Poleon had turned loose on Solomon.”
“Dan, what makes you keep them both?”
“Keep them both! I don’t. I don’t want either of them, but I can’t get rid of them.”
“Make Napoleon do his work and send Solomon off.”
“Make! Nell, how you talk! And ’Poleon’s got just as much right to hire a nigger as I have to own one.”
And during our stay in Charlottesville Dan’s servants gave him “more trouble,” he said, “than fighting the Yankees.” But it was a very happy time in my life.
The late springtime of ’64 found me again in Petersburg.
More vacant chairs, more broken hearts, more suffering, and starvation nearer at hand was what I found there. Milicent was spending her time in nursing the sick and wounded in the hospital, and winning from them the name that has clung to her ever since. There are old white-haired men in the South who still call her “Madonna.”
CHAPTER XXIII
“INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH”
One lovely morning mother sat at an upper window shelling peas for dinner. The window commanded a view of the Petersburg heights and beyond. Presently she stopped shelling peas, and gazed intently out of the window.
“What is that on the heights, Nellie?” she asked, and then, “What men are those running about on the hill beyond?”
I came to the window and looked out. The hills looked blue.
With a sinking heart I got the field-glass and turned it southeast. The hills swarmed with soldiers in Federal uniforms! Men in gray were galloping up to the Reservoir and unlimbering guns. We heard the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry. The heavens were filled with fire and smoke. Men in blue were vanishing as they came; they thought Reservoir Hill a fort. That was the ninth of June, when 125 old men and boys saved the town by holding Kautz’s command, 1,800 strong, at bay on the Jerusalem Plank Road as long as they could and long enough to give Graham’s and Studivant’s batteries and Dearing’s cavalry time to rush to the front. The Ninth of June is Petersburg’s Memorial Day, her day of pride and sorrow.
A few days after – mother was shelling peas again – whiz! whack! a shell sung through the air, striking in Bolling Square. Whiz! whack! came another, and struck Mrs. Dunlop’s house two doors from us. Mrs. De Voss, our neighbor on one side, and Mrs. Williams and her two daughters who lived on the other, ran in, pale with terror, and clamored to go down into our cellar. We were like frightened sheep. I half laugh, half cry now with vexation to think how calmly and stubbornly mother sat shelling peas in that window. She was bent on finishing her peas before she moved. Finally we induced her to go with us, and we all went down into the cellar. There we huddled together for the rest of the day, and until late into the night, not knowing what went on above or outside, little Bobby asleep in his mother’s lap, and the rest of us too frightened to sleep. At last, when we had heard no guns for a long time, we crept upstairs and lay down on our beds and tried to sleep. The next morning the shelling began again. Shells flew all around us. One struck in the yard next to ours; another horrid, smoking thing dropped in our own yard. We decided that it was time to abandon the house.
As the firing came from the south and the east, and the Appomattox was on the north of the city, we could only turn to the west. Any other direction and we would have run toward the guns or into the river. With no more rhyme or reason than this in our course we started up Washington Street, running west, but without regard to the order of our going.
Crossing the railroad at Jarrett’s Hotel, I saw a Confederate soldier whom I recognized as an old playmate and friend of Norfolk days. We stopped each other.
“Where did you come from, Harry?”
“Where are you running to, Nell?”
“Why, we were at Miss Anne Walker’s and the shells were bursting in our yard, and we are getting out of the way.”
Zip! a shell passed over my head and burst a few yards away. I didn’t wait to say good-by, but ran along Washington Street for my life. At last we got to Mr. Venable’s house, which was out of the range of the guns, and there we stopped with others. Many people had passed us on our way, and we had passed many people, all running through Washington Street for dear life. Everybody seemed to be running; in Mr. Venable’s house quite a crowd was gathered. His family were from home, but their friends filled the house. We watched from doors and windows, and talked of our friends who had fallen, of the Ninth of June, and of how Fort Hell and Fort Damnation got their names. We spoke of a friend who had kissed wife and children good-by, and gone out that fateful Ninth with the militia up the Jerusalem Plank Road to Fort Hell. Later in the day a wagon had come lumbering up to the door, blood dripping from it as it jolted along. In it lay the husband and father, literally shot to pieces. His little boy walked weeping behind it. His widow had shrouded him with her own hands, and trimmed his bier herself with the fragrant June flowers that were growing in her yard – flowers which he had loved and helped to tend. She had a house full of little ones around her. She had never known how to work, and now she was going about finding tasks to do, bearing up bravely and strengthening her children, she who had been as dependent upon her husband for love and tenderness as his children were upon her.
As the day waned we saw people hurrying past the Venable home bearing the wounded. I remember one poor fellow who was lying on a stretcher that was borne by his friends. He seemed to be shot almost to pieces. Graycoats were passing now, marching into the city.
As we sat at supper that night – a large party it was at that hospitable board – a servant brought a message to the three of us. A gentleman – a soldier – wished to see us. I went into the hall, and there was Walter Taylor. I don’t think I was ever so glad to see anybody in my life. Walter was not only “Walter,” but he was General Lee’s adjutant, and the very sight of him meant help to us. What did mother, Millie, and I do but throw our arms around his neck and kiss him like crazy women.
“I can’t stop a minute,” he said. “I heard you were here, and felt that I must come out to see how you were getting along. But I must go straight back to my command. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”
“Walter, where is Dan?”
“I don’t know, Nell, but I think he will be here to-night – if he is not here already.”
We felt like clinging to Walter and holding him back. I for one had lost my nerve. I was sick of war, sick of the butchery, the anguish, the running hither and thither, the fear. Soon after supper my husband came in. I was tremblingly glad to see him again, to touch his warm living body, to see that he was not maimed and mutilated – yet it hung over me all the time that he must go away in a few minutes – to come back, or be brought back – how? I kept my hand on him all the time he sat beside me. Every time he moved I trembled, feeling that it was a move to go.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked; “I thought you were at Miss Anne’s and went there for you.”
“We left there.”
“What for?”
“The shells were flying all around us, and we were afraid, and ran out here, I tell you.”
“Afraid? Why, Nell, you weren’t afraid?”
“Yes, I am – I’m terrified.”
“A soldier’s wife – a regular campaigner!”
“I can’t help it. I’m scared.”
“After all you’ve been through, like the brave girl you are, to break down like a coward!”
“I can’t help what you call me, I’m scared – I’m scared to death.”
“Nell, I’m ashamed of you.”
“I can’t help it, Dan; I’m scared.”
“What would General Stuart say if he could know?”
“I don’t care what he would think. I’m terrified. I’m going to run from those shells as long as there is a place to run to. I’m not going to stand still and let a shell strike me to please anybody. I’m for getting away from town. If I had my way we’d take to the woods this night, and let the Yankees have it.”
“They’d mighty soon find us in the woods.”
“Then I’d move on. They can have everywhere they come to now, as far as I am concerned.”
Dan looked aghast. I was completely demoralized. Knowing he must go, I summoned all my strength and braced myself for the parting, but though Dan was sorry for me, my effort to be brave was so comical that he had to laugh. By morning the range of the guns was changed, shells were flying all over the city, and our present quarters were not exempt. Zip! zip! crack! bang! the nasty things went everywhere.
We piled ourselves, pell-mell, helter-skelter into the first ambulance we could get and started out Washington Street again as fast as ever we could get the driver to urge his horses.
Everybody was racing out Washington Street, still running west. Pell-mell, helter-skelter, they ran, any way to get out of the range of the horrid, whizzing, singing, zipping bombs. We met Mr. McIlvaine driving toward town, that is, in the direction from which we were running.
He hailed us.
“Where are you going?”
“We don’t know where we are going. We are not going anywhere that we know of.”
“Go to my house. My family are away, but I can make you welcome. Quite a number of people are out there now.”
We found this to be the literal truth. All the floors were covered with mattresses – if you rolled off your own mattress you rolled on to some one else’s, for they were laid so thick that they touched. But things might always be worse.
Mr. McIlvaine had an excellent cook. She made delicious rolls and wonderful muffins and wafers, and as far as skill went our provisions were turned into delicious food. There was quite a colony – seven women besides ourselves – and we told Mr. McIlvaine that we could not expect him to feed us all, that we were thankful enough for shelter and to have our cooking done, and that we would all throw in and buy provisions. So we made a common fund, and sent for such things as could be had by Mr. McIlvaine whenever he went into town.
My husband came out to see me quite often during the weeks that followed, and Colonel Taylor and many of our military friends remembered us by dropping in to tea and spending an evening with us when they could. There was a piano in the parlor, and our evenings were often gay with singing, music, and dancing. There was but one servant on the place as I remember – the cook I have spoken of, and whom I remember vividly and affectionately for the good things to eat she set before us. To cook for us, however, was about all she could do. We had but few clothes with us, and when these got soiled there was no washerwoman to be had, so when Sue Williams said she was going to wash her clothes herself we all got up our washings, and went down into the back yard with her. We found some tubs ands drew our water, and made up some fire under a pot, as we had seen the negroes do. I can see Sue now, drawing water and lifting buckets back and forth from the well. We tied some clothes up in a sheet and put them into the pot to boil; then we put some other clothes in a tub and began to wash; meanwhile we had to keep up the fire under the pot. It was dinner hour by the time we got thus far. The weather was very hot and we were dreadfully tired, and we hadn’t got any clothes on the line yet. We stopped to swallow our dinner, and went at it again. The sun was going down when we had a pile of clothes washed, rinsed, and wrung, ready for the line. We didn’t know what to do about it. There didn’t seem to be any precedent that we had ever known for hanging clothes out at sundown. On the other hand, if we didn’t spread them out they would mildew – we had heard of such things. If they had to be spread out, certainly there was no better place to spread them than on the line. So at sunset we hung out our clothes to dry. There were handkerchiefs on the line and a petticoat apiece. The rest of the clothes were in the pot and the tub, and they are there now for aught I know to the contrary. I don’t know what became of them, but I know we went into the house and went to bed with the backache and every other sort of ache. I have never in all my life worked so hard as I worked that day trying to wash my clothes out; and the next day the clothes on the line looked yellow for all the labor that was put upon them. I have never known why they looked yellow – not for lack of work, for we had rubbed holes in some of them. We did not undertake to iron them for fear we should make them look still worse, but wore them rough dry.
Early one morning we waked suddenly, and sprang to our feet and reached for each other’s trembling hands. There had been a sudden and terrific noise. The earth was shaking. That awful thunder! that horrible quaking of the earth! as if its very bowels were being rent asunder! What was it? We tried to whisper to each other through the darkness of our rooms, but our tongues were dry and palsied with fear. We feared to draw the curtains of our windows, we dared not move. That was the morning of the 30th of July, the morning when the Crater was made – when an entire regiment was blown into the air, and when into the pit left behind them Federals and Confederates marched over each other, and fought all day like tigers in a hole. If you ever go to the quaint old town of Petersburg, you can drive out the old Jerusalem Plank Road to Forts Hell and Damnation, and you can turn out of it to a large hole in the earth which is called the Crater. The last time I was at the Crater it was lined with grass; some sassafras bushes grew on the sides; down in the hollow was a peach-tree in blossom, a mocking-bird sang in it, and a rabbit hopped away as I looked down.
Soon after the explosion occurred, we saw from our windows that the McIlvaine place was swarming with soldiers who were throwing up earthworks everywhere. They were our own soldiers, of course, and we applied for an ambulance and got one, and went back in it to Miss Anne’s in town.
I shall never forget how that deserted house felt when we three women and little Bobby entered it. The dust was on everything and there was a musty smell about everywhere. That night Millie had high fever. Such a wretched night as it was! no servants, no conveniences, little or no food; Millie in a raging fever, little sleepy Bobby crying for his mother and his supper; the shock of the Crater still upon us, danger underneath, overhead, everywhere. The next morning Millie’s fever was lower, and she seemed better.
“We must get her away from here, or she will die,” mother said.
But how? We could hear nothing of Dan, and didn’t know where to find him. Mother sent a note to General Mahone by a passing soldier asking for a pass to Richmond. Her reply was an ambulance and a driver who brought a note from the general, saying that we would be taken outside of the city to the nearest point to where our trains from Richmond were allowed to come. We got Millie into the ambulance and were taken to the Dunlop’s, a beautiful place on the Richmond Railroad. Here we waited for a train which did not come. Night came on; still we waited, but no train. We sent into the house and asked for lodgings. Answer came that the house was full, and no more people could be taken in. Millie’s fever continued to rise. We sent again, saying how ill she was, and begging for shelter for the night. The same answer was returned, and there we were out on the lawn, our shawls spread on two trunks and Millie lying on them, and looking as if every breath would be her last.
“Do you know where Colonel Walter Taylor is stationed?” I asked our driver.
“Yes, ma’am. I know exactly where he is. His camp is about a mile from here.”
“How could I get a note to him?”
“I will go with it. I’ll take one of the horses out of the ambulance.”
I scratched off:
“Dear Walter: We are out in the woods near Dunlop’s without any shelter, and Millie is very ill. Can you help us?
“Affectionately,“Nell.”
The driver took the note and Walter came back with him.
“I don’t know what to do, Nell,” he said. “There is no train to Richmond till noon to-morrow, but you can’t stay out here.”
He went himself to the house, but without effect.
“I will send you a tent and a doctor,” he said. “That is the best I can do for you. I wish I could stay here with you all and help take care of Millie to-night, but I must go back at once.”
The tent came and with it Dr. Newton, and Millie was made as comfortable as was possible on the trunks.
An old negress who was passing saw our strait and brought us her pillow in a clean pillow-case, and we put that under Millie’s head. We gave “aunty” some tea that we had with us, and she took it to her cabin and drew us a cup or two over her fire, and we got Millie to swallow a little of it. We had picked Bobby up off the grass, and dropped him on a pile of bags in a corner of the tent.
At one time that night we thought Millie would die – the doctor himself was doubtful if she could live till morning. When morning came she was alive, and that was all. Dr. Newton sent for a stretcher and had her lifted on it into the train. That was a terrible journey; there were many delays, and we thought we should never get to Richmond, but we were there at last. We went into the waiting-room at the station and sent for Major Grey’s brother. Fortunately, he was quickly found, and took us to the house at which he boarded and where there was a vacant room. The city was crowded, and on such short notice it was the best he could do, but it was a stifling little place.
The room was small, its only window opened on a little dark hallway, there was an objectionable closet attached to the room, and the close, unwholesome air made me sick and faint as we opened the door. We laid Millie on the bed. Suddenly she gasped, moaned something that sounded like “I am dying!” and seemed to be dead.
“Air!” cried mother hopelessly, “she needs air.”
But there was no window for Dick to throw up.
He picked her up in his arms, ran down the steps with her, and into the open street. The ladies in the house all came out to us, offering help and sympathy, and with us got Millie into the parlor, where we laid her on a lounge, and where two physicians worked over her for hours before they were sure she would recover entirely from the attack. They said it was heart failure. That evening we carried her on a stretcher to the Spotswood Hotel. She was ill for two weeks. Then Bobby was ill for five. Our funds ran out. What moneys we had were in the Yankee lines and inaccessible, and Millie determined to put her education and accomplishments to use. She set herself to work to find something to do, and a lady from Staunton who happened to meet us at this time, learning that she wanted work, offered her a position in a young ladies’ school. So Millie and little Bobby went to Staunton.