Let me introduce to you Augusta Evans Wilson as I first met her when
she was a bride, when her soul, like mine, was allied to love, faith
and romance, when every day was made perfect with its own contentment
and to-morrow's hope, when we were happy because we loved and were
loved.
I do not know why, when she clasped my hand and said, "How young you
are," I thought of the poem of Lucas, "The land where we lay
dreaming," or why those lines should come back to me now when her feet
are treading the path where silence is. It may have been because of
her sweet voice, "Which did thrill until at eve the whip-poor-will and
at noon the mocking-birds were mute and still," or because of the
exchange of memories of those days of shot and shell and red meteors,
of the camp, of the march, of the sick and wounded to whom she
ministered, and of the realization that "All our glorious visions fled
and left us nothing real but the dead, in the land where we lay
dreaming."
When she remarked upon my youth the fancy drifted through my mind that
she was rather old for a bride, or at least looked so, for I was
accustomed to seeing very youthful brides, being only half her years
when I was one, while she had passed through ageing experiences, had
written many books, and looked older than she really was. I had not
formed the habit of thinking of her as Mrs. Wilson, and in the
confusion of the old name and the new could not recall either, so
called her "Mrs. Macaria." She laughed and told me that she was
accustomed to being called "Beulah," but this was the first time that
she had been addressed as "Mrs. Macaria."
She told me of the many adventures of "Macaria" in its early days.
Camp "Beulah," named in honor of her second book, which appeared not
long before the opening of the war and brought her at once into
prominence as a writer, was near Summerville, the girlhood home of
Augusta Evans, and in that camp and its hospital, as well as in the
many others which soon sprang up around the Evans residence, she took
a Southern woman's share in the work, the darkness and the heartache
of the time. Her friend, Mr. Thomas Cooper De Leon, of Mobile, gives a
picture of her in those days:
The slim, willowy girl, with masses of brown hair coiled in the
funnel depths of a poke bonnet, a long check apron and a pair of
tin buckets, became the typical guardian angel of the nearby
hospitals.
She was amanuensis, as well as nurse, cook and general purveyor of
light and comfort, and she sent many a cheering letter to waiting
hearts at home, and never was the power of her glowing pen used more
nobly and helpfully than when, forced to write the last dread message
of all, it wove into the sorrowful words a golden thread of love and
faith and hope.
In the pauses of her work she wrote most of her war-novel, "Macaria,"
which, to a great extent, shared the uncertainties and excitements of
the period. It was published in 1864 by West & Johnson, of Richmond,
being printed on wrapping paper, and soon became a favorite with the
Southern soldiers, who probably found in it more human nature and more
of the logic of possible events than it revealed to the general
reader, their own experience in those days having led them to grave
doubts as to the accuracy of the philosophic theory that not all
conceivable things are possible. At that time it stood to reason that
the kind of literature popular in Southern camps would not appeal
forcibly to the approval of the Northern army, and a Federal officer
captured and burned all the copies of "Macaria" that he could find.
Miss Evans contrived to slip a copy of her new book across the lines
to a publisher friend who, being unable at that time to bring out a
new edition, took it to the J.B. Lippincott Company and arranged for
its publication. Immediately afterward it was found that another
publisher had come into possession of a copy and had an edition of
five thousand ready to issue but, upon inquiry, expressed his
intention of paying no royalty to the author. Through the efforts of
Mr. Lippincott he was induced to allow a royalty. Miss Evans afterward
wrote to her friend:
I have always felt profoundly grateful to Mr. Lippincott, but fate
has never indulged me in an opportunity of adequately thanking
him for his generous and chivalrous action in behalf of an unknown
rebel, who at that period was nursing Confederate soldiers in a
hospital established near "Camp Beulah."
In telling me of this she said that the kindness of Mr. Lippincott did
not surprise her, as she remembered with gratitude the generosity of
the Lippincott Company in regard to Southern obligations at the
opening of the war.
With the beautiful voice which so enchanted me she once took captive
General Bragg's army on Lookout Mountain. With her mother she had gone
to visit her brother, Captain Howard Evans, just before the battle of
Chickamauga. It chanced that he had been sent to the front before they
arrived, but they were hospitably received and given a hut on the
slope. At midnight they were awakened by steps and whispers and upon
inquiry found that their unexpected visitors were soldiers who had
crept through the lines to see Miss Evans and hear her sing. The
mother was disposed to object to her appearing at a time and place not
conventionally appropriate to artistic performances, but, wrapping her
travelling coat and robe about her, she went out into the moonlight
with her mass of hair streaming in the wind like a flying cloud, and
sang that thrilling song written by her friend, Randall, "Maryland, my
Maryland." As the melodious tones swelled out upon the night and came
floating back in echoes from the rugged peaks and mountain walls, they
filled the audience with rapt delight. When the song was finished the
sobs and cheers that burst from the soldier-hearts formed an encore
not to be denied, and again that battle-cry thrilled out upon the air.
The moment of silence that followed was broken by the high, shrill,
quavering, penetrating note of the rebel yell.
The singer has passed into the land of the higher music and most of
those who thrilled to the sound of her battle-song on that war-crowned
height have passed away from the melodies of earth, but somewhere in
this wide land there may be hearts through which yet pulses the music
of that midnight song.
Among the most valued possessions of Mrs. Wilson were the rings,
bracelets and baskets fashioned from buttons and fruit-seeds by her
soldiers in hospital, tokens of their grateful remembrance of her. I
showed her a little cross cut from a button in a prison and given to
me by my uncle, Colonel Phillips, of the Confederate Army, who had
been a captive on Johnson's Island. The prisoners used the cross to
certify to the validity of secret messages. It was sent with the
message and returned with the answer, carrying conviction of the
truthfulness of both.
I told her the story of another cross, connected with the surrender of
the Army of Northern Virginia. Colonel Aylett, of the Fifty-Third
Virginia, a very religious man, was talking with some friends when a
letter came bringing the sad tidings. "I do not believe it," he said.
"If it could be true I should not have faith in God or in prayer." As
he talked he took from his pocket a letter folded in the way that was
followed when we had no envelopes, and, cutting it, let it fall to the
floor. One of his companions took it up, placing the pieces on the
table to look for an address, and found that the fragments formed a
crucifix, the cross at each side to which the thieves were nailed, the
block supporting the crucifix, the block on which the dice were
thrown, the sponge and the reed, as if in imitation of a celebrated
painting of the Crucifixion.
"And this beautiful cross," said Mrs. Wilson, touching the one I wore,
"it must have a story, too." I replied that it had been in my family
for nearly three centuries, that General Pickett had worn it at the
battle of Gettysburg, and that it had been blessed by the Pope three
times. The last time, it was taken to Rome by Father Walter who, in
his long service as Rector of Saint Patrick's Church in Washington,
had by his sweet spirit of kindness and liberality endeared himself to
the whole community, regardless of religious differences. Mrs. Wilson
said that when she was in Washington she went to see Father Walter
because of his great kindness to the people of the South. She spoke,
too, of the most pathetic and tragic service of his life, his faithful
attendance upon Mrs. Surratt to the last awful moment.
In 1868 Augusta Evans was married to Mr. Lorenze M. Wilson, President
of the Mobile & Montana Railroad, and became mistress of the beautiful
home on the Spring Hill shell road near the picturesque city of
Mobile. The house looked toward the road through aisles of greenery
across a yard filled with flowers diffusing a perfume blended of
geraniums, roses, tropical plants and the blossoms of the North. A
chorus of birds filled the air with music. Majestic old live-oaks with
twilight veils of gray moss were like tall and stately nuns pausing
suddenly to count their beads to the music of vesper bells. Magnolia
trees in dense white blossom gave the impression that winter had
aroused from his summer sleep and unfolded his blanket of snow to add
his most beautiful touch to the charms of the golden days. A handsome
driveway led across a lawn to a veranda, vine-wreathed and hidden in a
crush of flowers. The house, divided by a wide hall, opened upon broad
piazzas. Leading up to it through brilliant blossoming was a white
path between sentinel lines of oak trees that reached out friendly
hands to clasp each other above the broad footway. Amid such beauty
one felt lost in a mystic world of which he had never dreamed and
revelled in a vision from which he might hope that there would be no
waking.
Augusta Jane Evans was born May 4, 1835, near Columbus, Georgia. "The
Queen City of the Chattahoochee" is enthroned in a pine forest amid a
range of hills that form a semi-circle about the city with its fine
wide streets and magnificent shade trees. The St. Elmo Institute for
girls, with its great oak grove and its beautiful lake, was the model
for the school in the book, "St. Elmo." Sweet memories of the
beautiful home in Columbus remained in the heart of Miss Evans and she
said in after years that many of the happiest days of her girlhood
were spent there. In later years she had here her "White Farm," on
which all the animals and fowls were white.
In her childhood the family removed to Galveston, Texas, going
afterward to San Antonio. In the two years spent here she studied
under the tutorship of her mother, who never gave up her charge to the
care of a professional teacher, though the responsibility of seven
other children might have furnished her with an excuse for doing so.
In the most enchanting city of Texas the future novelist was
surrounded by the romantic myths of Indian lore. On a day long past,
the miracle of the San Antonio River and its valley had burst upon the
enraptured eyes of Tremanos, the young Apache brave, from the hilltop
to which he had climbed with weary footsteps, followed by the gaunt
shadow of death, dazed by the phantoms on the distant horizon, lured
on by mystic spirit music brought to him on the wings of the scorching
winds; and he had gone with glad heart down into the rich and verdant
plains of "Tejas, the Beautiful."
Not far from the picturesque old city of San Antonio was the Huisache,
one of the three springs which join to form the San Antonio River.
Along its banks the gray dove's sad note was heard. When the two
Indian sisters, "Flower of Gladness" and "Flower of Pity," used to
come down to drink from the Spring of the Huisache the song of the
dove was all of joy. A youthful Indian brave of rare enchantment came
into their lives and brought love and treachery, and the assassin's
knife felled the Indian youth on the brink of the Huisache. "Flower of
Pity," coming to the spring, found the lifeless form of the young
warrior and snatched the knife from the wound and plunged it into her
own heart. A little later "Flower of Gladness" found her sister and
the Indian brave dead by the water's edge and straightway went mad.
Manitou graciously allowed the poor lost soul to find a voice for its
woes in the note of the dove and henceforth she was the mourning dove.
The lives of the youth and maiden, floating out in white clouds of
mist, descended into the earth and became two living springs which
united with the Huisache to form the San Antonio River.
In her story of "Inez," founded upon the most tragic event in the
history of the Lone Star State, the defence of the Alamo, Miss Evans
thus described the scene from the viewpoint of the newly arrived
immigrant:
The river wound around the town like an azure girdle, gliding
along the surface and reflecting in its deep blue waters the
rustling tule which fringed the margin. An occasional pecan
or live-oak flung a majestic shadow athwart its azure bosom.
Now and then a clump of willows sigh low in the evening breeze.
Far away to the north stretched a mountain range, blue in the
distance; to the south lay the luxuriant valley of the stream.
The streets were narrow and laid out with a total disregard of
the points of the compass.
By this river of romantic beauty and old-time myth Augusta Evans spent
two of youth's impressionable years. On Main Plaza, near the Alamo,
where the Frost National Bank now stands, was the Evans store, where
she, the daughter of the store-keeper, lived. Almost under the shadow
of the tragically historic old mission, by the park near which Santa
Ana had his headquarters, she received the incentive and gathered the
material for her first novel, "Inez," written in her own room at night
as a gift with which to surprise her father and mother. The work of a
girl of fifteen, it did not appeal to many readers, but it contained a
vivid description of the inspired heroism and self-sacrifice of the
men whose deeds crowned the history of Texas with the sanctity of the
supreme glory of self-immolation upon the altar of patriotism. We have
fallen upon commercial days now, and the traditions of the old Alamo
circle around a warehouse. Alamo Plaza is now the scene of the annual
"Battle of the Flowers," a joyous and beautiful occasion which throws
a fragrant floral veil about the terrible memories that gloom over the
place.
At the close of the two years spent in San Antonio, the family
returned to Columbus and later found a home in Mobile, Alabama, the
town of the "Maubila," Choctaw, Indians. It is a pleasant town of
shaded streets, romantic drives and beautiful homes. Its history
reaches back through the centuries to a time long before the United
States had being, and it is the only American city that has seen five
flags wave over it: French, English, Spanish, United States and
Confederate.
While in this home Augusta Evans became widely known through the
publication in 1859 of her second novel, "Beulah." Then came the war,
bringing forth her one war-novel, "Macaria." "Vashti," "St. Elmo,"
"Infelice," "At the Mercy of Tiberius," the latter being her best,
followed in quick succession, until her marriage put a close to her
work, for Mr. Wilson was unwilling that she should tax her strength by
close application. Life in the delightful home furnished interest
enough to make resort to fiction unnecessary as an entertainment. In
1879 the death of Mr. Wilson ended the idyllic home life and she
returned to her desk, writing "The Speckled Bird" and "Devota," with a
pen that had lost much of its charm in the days of happy absorption.
Having no children of her own, Mrs. Wilson gave her devoted affection
to the children and grandchildren of her husband, who was a widower at
the time of their marriage.
It has been observed that the stories of Augusta Evans have no
location. They happen in any place where the people chance to be and,
given that kind of people, the story would evolve itself in the same
way anywhere else. But for her there was always a place in which
flowers grew and trees waved their branches to the breeze and made
mystic aisles of purpled glooms, shot through with glimpses of sun
amid silences broken happily by the songs of birds. There were always
the wide sky and dim reaches of space and great walls of majestic
mountains against the horizon. However gifted might be her maidens in
roaming amid the stars or delving in philosophic depths, they, like
herself, had always eyes for the beauties which Nature sets in place,
and why should all these things be geographically bounded and
designated by appellations to be recorded in the Postoffice Guide?
Being in Mobile some years ago, I called upon Mrs. Wilson after her
husband had passed on and left her alone in the charming home. She was
in her work-room, if a place so decoratively enchanting can be
connected with a subject so stern and prosaic, so crowded with
every-day commonplaceness, as work. It was a bower of beauty, with
light, graceful furniture, and pots of plants making cheerful greenery
at every available spot. Vases of flowers cut from her garden, tended
by her own care and love, were on desk and table and in sunny alcoves,
filling the room with a glory of color and a fragrance as of incense
from jewelled censers swung in adoration of the goddess of the
exquisite shrine.
Remembering that charming study as I saw it then, blossoming and
redolent with the flowers beloved of the heart of its mistress, I
wonder at times if all that beauty is still there and if some bright
soul, as in the dead days, is sunning itself in that warmth and glow.
The old home has passed into stranger hands, as Mrs. Wilson was
persuaded to sell it after the death of her husband and her removal to
the city.
In Magnolia Cemetery in the home city so dear to her, Augusta Evans
Wilson rests beside the brother whom she was seeking when her midnight
song thrilled the hearts of the defenders of the Stars and Bars on
Look-out Mountain. On her laurel-wreathed monument are the lines
written by Mr. De Leon when the dawn of one May morning brought him
the sad tidings that his friend of many years had passed from earth:
Dead, in her fulness of years and of fame,
What has she left?
High on the roll of fair Duty, a name:
Love, friends devoted as few mortals claim:
A Nation bereft!