dear, that oft-quoted mother of invention taught us an althea switch
made a fairly good toothbrush; of course, it was both scratchy and
stiff, but we never found a better substitute for the necessary article.
As for tea, we Southerners have never been addicted to the tea habit;
however, we soon became disgusted with the various coffee substitutes.
We tried to vary our beverages with draughts of catnip tea, that the
darkies always give their babies for colic; and orange leaf tea, that
old ladies administered to induce perspiration in cases of chills; and
sassafras tea we had drunk years gone by in the spring season to thin the
blood. We did not fancy posing as babies or ague cases—the taste of each
variety was highly suggestive. I wonder if any lady of to-day ever saw a
saucer of home-made soft soap on her washstand? After using it one had to
grease (no use saying oil, for it was generally mutton tallow) the hands
to prevent the skin cracking. I never used that soap, but traveling in
out-of-the-way roads I saw it on many a stand. Clothes, too, wore out,
as is their nature, and the kind we were used to wearing were not of the
lasting variety like osnaburgs and linseys.
Quite early in the war Cuthbert Slocomb and De Choiseul stopped over a
night with us on their way to the front. With them was another young man
whose name escapes me now, who was suffering from chills, so he remained
a few days as our guest. We dosed him with orange-leaf tea, which was
about the best we could do, having no quinine on hand. In his kit he
had a lot of chamois skins, which he laid out before me with the modest
request I make a pair of pantaloons out of them. We talked the project
over and decided overalls were the only thing in that line that could be
made of chamois skins, that, of course, had to be pieced lengthways,
crossways and sideways. The result was satisfactory, and the young man
proudly carried off his overalls. I hoped, but did not expect, that he
would escape a rain or two on his expedition clad in chamois skins!
However, I was amply repaid for my ingenuity and skill, for I had scraps
enough of the skins left me to supply tobacco pouches and gloves to lots
of soldier friends thereafter.
At one time, in dire need, I paid one dollar a yard for thin coarse
muslin, white with black dots, which looked distressingly bad after a
wetting or two, but my crowning extravagance was paying thirty dollars a
yard for common blue denim; that was in Houston. Thus went the last of my
Confederate money. After that for a while we did without things.
Mr. James Phelps of New Orleans—scores of us must remember genial Jim
Phelps—made a call on me in Texas, introducing himself with the whimsical
remark that I must look at him from shoulder up and not down, for he had
on a brand new paper collar, and had borrowed the use of a razor, and was
now out making ceremonious calls! Oh, dear me! we lived through all of
these privations, and the few remaining survivors are not afflicted with
nervous prostration, or any of the fashionable ills of the day. Their
nerves were strengthened, their spirits brightened. They bravely bore the
fires of trouble and privation that make them placidly content with the
comforts and solaces of their declining years.
XXXV
AN UNRECORDED BIT OF NEW ORLEANS HISTORY
Since there are still living descendants of the persons concerned in this
incident, I have omitted names. The story is entirely true and well known
to many old residents of New Orleans.
More than sixty-five years ago, a man I shall not name, was tried and
convicted of fraud against the State Land office. He was in the prime
of life, educated, a West Point graduate, of good parentage, splendid
physique, gracious though a trifle pompous and self-asserting in manner
and of presumed wealth. Of course, his case, when it came to trial, was
bravely contested inch by inch. Rich relatives, influential friends,
and the best legal talent were enlisted, but it was too plain a case
of fraud. So, after tedious trial, conviction and sentence to the
Penitentiary at Baton Rouge resulted. There were the usual delays, a stay
of sentence, a wrangle as to final commitment, a question of length of
sentence. His sureties were caught in the net, and tremendous efforts
they made to dodge liability for the amount of the bond. Two of the
sureties did escape, but the third made good. In steamboat parlance, he
“went to the clerk’s office and settled.”
[Illustration: THE CALABOOSE.]
Meanwhile the convicted man—he was called “Colonel,” not by courtesy
only, for, unlike most Southern Colonels of that date, he had had
military training and might have been even more if he had waited till
Generals were in dire demand in Dixie—the Colonel was behind bars in the
Parish Prison. The horrid old calaboose down by Congo Square, where more
than one Confederate languished two decades later, when the prison was
twenty years older and forty years dirtier. The Colonel’s devoted wife,
who had worn out the energies of a dozen wives, and was still alert and
active in behalf of her unfortunate mate, never relaxed her vigilance.
When the coils of the law wrapped tighter and tighter around the doomed
man, she rose to every emergency. No personal appeals, nothing her
fertile mind had suggested, had availed to stay the process of the law.
Now that worse had come to the worst, and the Colonel was under lock and
key, awaiting the final decision as to length of sentence, Madam and the
Colonel’s oldest daughter (her step-daughter, by the way) went daily to
the calaboose to visit the prisoner. Their visits were made always in the
afternoon. The two cloaked and heavily veiled ladies remained till the
closing of the gates.
It was in the fall of the year, and election times, when politics were
rife. Madam was not only bright and intelligent, but endowed with
remarkable tact, and brim full of schemes and resources. At every visit
she stopped at the gate and had converse with the warden or turnkey, or
whoever was on duty, and related to him the latest news and political
gossip and bantered him on his political bias, no matter what that bias
was. This course she pursued daily and vigorously. The daughter, still
in her teens, was a mere figurehead, always heavily veiled and enveloped
in a voluminous long coat. With the slightest nod of recognition to
“the powers that be,” she proceeded rapidly to her father’s cell,
leaving her mother, so bursting with talk and information that she could
neither enter nor depart without first unburdening herself of the latest
political news.
One evening, when matters at court were nearing the crisis, the two
ladies rushed into prison, almost breathless, they had hurried so! They
had had all sorts of detentions. They realized they were late, and would
only have a minute, but they could not let the day pass without the
customary visit to the Colonel, etc., etc. While madam was endeavoring to
explain to the warden the cause of the delay, and tell also some anecdote
anent the election which was too good to keep, the quiet young girl
proceeded at once to the cell of her father. The turnkey came in sight,
significantly rattling his keys, which roused madam to the consciousness
that she had not been in to kiss the Colonel good-night, after all.
She had been so interested in Mr. Warden, he was so entertaining, and
had such queer views and opinions of the candidates, etc., etc. So, to
the Colonel she rushed, returning immediately to the gate, where her
friend was impatiently waiting to lock up, signal to do so having been
given. The dim lamps about Congo Square had been lighted and a darkening
November day was fast closing around them. “Lavinia, come, the jailor
is waiting to lock up.” “Yes, ma,” was the reply from the cell. A moment
later: “Lavinia, it is getting too dark for us to be out; come at once.”
“Yes, ma, I’m coming right now.” “That girl can’t bear to leave her
father.” As the madam said this, out rushed Lavinia. Her mother caught
her arm and both parties darted through the closing gate, with a wave
from madam’s hand and a “Good-bye, we will be early to-morrow and never
keep you waiting again.”
The lock-up took his rounds at the usual time to close the cells for
the night. The Colonel seemed to be quietly sleeping in his narrow cot,
trousers and stockings carelessly thrown upon the chair. The door was
securely fastened by the officer.
Next morning, when it was opened, a gruff voice called to the sleeper,
who seemed to be stupidly half awake. Miss Lavinia rose from the bed,
showing her face to the attendant for the first time in all these weeks.
The Colonel, disguised in his daughter’s cloak and veil, had flown!
There were no telegraphs, or wireless, nothing, in fact, but nimble legs
and more nimble horses to facilitate the frantic search. The bird had
flown afar.
Long before the cage door was opened the prisoner was beyond the reach of
the long arm of the law. Madam had for weeks been skillfully planning
escape, how skillfully, the result proved. She had engaged the services
of the captain of a fruit schooner to take a lady passenger on his next
trip to Havana. To insure results, she had privately conveyed provisions
and necessary articles for the passenger’s comfort to the vessel, bribed
the captain to secrecy, and it was planned he would give her timely
notice when the tides and winds were favorable to raise sail, and put
rapidly and silently to sea from Lake Pontchartrain.
He fulfilled his promises so to do.
When the two (supposed) women rushed into the hack awaiting them round
the corner from the jail, the driver whipped up his horses and trotted
rather faster than usual down the old shell road he had conveyed these
ladies more times than he could remember, right from that old corner to
the schooner landing.
Years after these events had ceased to be talked of, or even remembered,
and the ladies who bore the colonel’s name had vanished from Louisiana,
from the deck of an incoming steamer in the harbor of Havana my husband
was frantically hailed by a stout old gentleman standing in a lighter.
The gray-haired man, who did not dare venture into an American vessel,
recognized my husband, whom he had slightly known in the days of his
prosperity. He was now an exile, a runner for a Cuban hotel. How eagerly
and gladly he took possession of us and our belongings; how he piloted us
through the narrow streets; how he domiciled us in the best rooms, and
how assiduous he was in attention to our comfort, I cannot tell.
A few years thereafter the poor old man, who had one daughter with him to
solace his declining years, passed sadly away, and I was summoned from
my plantation home to the stricken girl. She tearfully told me the story
of his flight, which had never been revealed before, and, together, we
turned the leaves of the worn and faded diary he had kept during that
exciting voyage to the Spanish Dominion, where there was no extradition
treaty to compel his deliverance to his country. In the early days, when
there were no telegraphs, no cables, he managed to support his wife and
daughters in New York by acting as commercial correspondent for several
newspapers, both in New York and New Orleans, and Charleston also, I
think; but that business died out, and he gradually became too infirm for
any active or sustained occupation.
His death was a blessed release.
XXXVI
CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES
Not a Confederate who was stranded in Havana in the ’60’s but can
recall with grateful feelings the only hotel there kept by an American
woman and kept on American lines. Every Confederate drifted under that
roof-tree. If he possessed the wherewithal he paid a round sum for the
privilege. If he was out of pocket, and I could name a score who were
not only penniless but baggageless, he was quite welcome, well cared for
and in several instances clothed! Some, notwithstanding her “positive
orders,” exposed themselves to night air, when mosquitoes were most in
evidence, and came in with headache and yellow fever. They were cared for
and nursed back to health. No one knew better than Mrs. Brewer how to
manage such cases. I could call the roll of the guests who came—and went,
some to Canada, some to Mexico: Gen. and Mrs. Toombs of Georgia, Gen.
Magruder, Gen. Fry and his beautiful wife, who was a Micou of Alabama;
Commodore Moffitt and Ex-Gov. Moore of Louisiana; Major Bloomfield
and his wife—some of us still remember Bloomfield. He had for years a
blank-book and stationery shop in New Orleans. I have one of his books
now, a leather-bound ledger. He was in service on somebody’s staff. There
were some not of the army, but on business bent, blockade running and so
on.
My gracious! I can’t begin to tell of the crowd that promenaded the
galleries and _azotea_ of Hotel Cubano toward the end of the war. They
all talked and talked fight, the ex-army men declaring they would not
return to their homes with sheathed swords. Alas! They did, though.
Before their talks came to an end the Confederacy did. J. P. Benjamin
arrived on a sailboat with Gen. Breckinridge. They were wise as owls and
had nothing to say. I remember the news came of the assassination of
President Lincoln while a large party of the braves were dining at our
house—on the _cerro_ of Havana. Some of them were jubilant, but a quiet
word from Gen. Breckinridge: “Gentlemen, the South has lost its best
friend,” and a quieter word from Mr. Benjamin: “We will let the painful
subject drop,” acted as a quietus for our boisterous guests....
But I must not wander from our hostess of Hotel Cubano. A strange mixture
was she of parsimony and prodigality, vindictiveness and gratitude, a
grand woman withal, capable of doing heroic things. She knew intimately
and had entertained the family of Pierre Soulé, who tarried at the Cubano
en route to Spain, when Soulé was minister. The Slidells also were
her friends, Jeff Davis’ family and scores of other prominent people.
She made the first donation of $500 to the Jefferson Davis Monument
Association. With vigorous, watchful management she accumulated a large
fortune in Havana, though she maintained a host of parasites, poor
relatives from the States. She had four girls at one time belonging to
her kindred who were too poor to educate them. But her business methods
were too queer and unconventional for words. She had leased the large
hotel long before the war in the United States, for what was, even in
those dull days in Havana, considered a low sum, for the chance of making
it pay was a trifle against her. She kept it American style—had batter
cakes and mince pies—so that, though her prices were, as we say now, “the
limit,” every refugee and newspaper correspondent who was sick of garlic
and crude oil diet, felt he had to live at the American hotel. Havana was
then the refuge of defaulters and others of lax business methods, there
being no extradition treaty between the United States and Spain.
In Cuba when you rent a house, you pay by the month, and so long as you
meet the payments, you cannot be dispossessed. (I do not know what the
law may be now; I write of forty years ago.) Not long after Mrs. Brewer’s
venture proved a success, the owner tried every possible way to make
her throw up the lease. Anyone knowing Mrs. Brewer as I did, could well
understand there was no coercing her. She maintained her rights, paying
rent with utmost promptness, and when paper currency made its unwelcome
advent and was legally declared of equal value with gold, the payments
were made in paper. That currency depreciated steadily and so greatly,
too, that Mrs. Brewer told me the rent of her basement to the German
consulate for storage purposes, which rent she exacted in gold, was, when
exchanged for paper currency, sufficient to pay the rent of her entire
building. When I remonstrated with her as being unjust, she explained
that all the years she had occupied the building the owner refused to
make necessary repairs and alterations. She had been compelled to put
in modern plumbing, repairs, painting—in fact, everything—at her own
expense, and now she was simply reimbursing herself. When she amassed
a fortune, tired of the life, she threw up the lease, returned to the
United States and a few years ago died at an advanced age. Her previous
history is like a “story told by night.”
She was the wife of a United States army officer, stationed at
Charleston, who eloped with his wife’s seamstress. She did not know nor
did she take steps to inform herself, where they fled. He had cashed
his bank account and gone. In her shameful abandonment she took passage
on the first vessel leaving port for foreign lands. She arrived, a
young, deserted wife, in Havana, years before I knew her, homeless
and friendless, and was removed from the schooner on which she made
the voyage from Charleston ill of yellow fever. When she was ready to
leave the hospital, it was found not only the small amount of money in
her purse, but her jewelry as well, was barely sufficient to pay her
expenses. When she recovered, she speedily found work in Havana, sewing
in the house of a Spanish _marquesa_, who became deeply interested in
the case of the forlorn woman, eventually assisting her in getting an
independent start at keeping a boarding house for foreigners in the city
who chafed at Cuban cooking.
A proposition had been made to Mrs. Brewer by two or three American
refugees to keep house for them, they to furnish everything, but the
generous _marquesa_ vetoed the plan and offered to finance a better
scheme. So Mrs. Brewer rented and furnished a small house, and the men
came to her as boarders, thereby placing herself in a more independent
position. From that small beginning sprung the largest, best equipped and
most expensive—for her charges were exorbitant—hostelry in the island.
Meanwhile the kindly _marquesa_ went her way gaily in the fashionable
wealthy society of Havana, Mrs. Brewer working and managing, toiling and
accumulating in her own domain. They rarely met.
When my family went to Cuba it was to escape from war troubles at home.
We sought for rest and peace, but it was not long before we felt we may
have “jumped from the frying pan into the fire.” Rebellion soon became
rife on the island. We, being neutrals, had occasional visits from both
parties of the guerilla type. The captains-general sent at frequent
intervals from the mother country ruled with severity.
One morning while I was visiting Mrs. Brewer, the _marquesa_ called,
in a terrible state of mind. Her young son, an only child, had been
arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to be executed as a rebel sympathizer.
She declared to Mrs. Brewer that she and her friends were powerless to
do anything in the case, and she implored Mrs. Brewer’s assistance. It
was grand to see how the American woman responded. “Go to your home,
possess your soul in peace, if you can. I will intercede with the
Captain-general.” She did, too. As I remember, Mr. Henry Hall was the
American consul. A messenger was sent with flying feet to summon him.
By the time she had dressed herself in her finest finery and decked
her person with all the jewels she could muster and had her carriage
and liveried coachman ready, Mr. Hall had put on his official dress,
both knowing how important it was to create an impression on the wily
Spaniard. They looked as if they might be more than count and countess,
marquis and _marquesa_ themselves.
Arriving at the palace, our consul obtained immediate access to the
potentate. Mrs. Brewer was introduced with a flourish, and she at
once proceeded to tell her story. She told of the extreme youth of
the prisoner, too immature to be a volunteer on either side, too
inexperienced to have any opinion, and so on, imploring him to spare
the life of “an only son, and his mother a widow.” The stern old man
only shook his head and repeated that his orders were absolute and
unchangeable. Mrs. Brewer fell upon her knees before him, declaring she
would not rise until he at least commuted the sentence to banishment to
Spain. She told him her own story; how she, a friendless woman, had been
succored and comforted and assisted by the boy’s mother years before.
She had been grateful, but had never had the opportunity to prove the
depth of her gratitude.
I was still at Hotel Cubano, waiting, oh, so anxiously, to know the
result of the mission, when Mrs. Brewer returned radiant. She had gone
from the palace with the sentence of banishment in her hand to the
_marquesa’s_ home. The young boy sailed the following day to Spain. Mr.
Hall told me afterwards he had never witnessed such a scene; had never
heard such an impassioned appeal. “It would,” he said, “have moved an
image of stone.”
XXXVII
“WE SHALL KNOW EACH OTHER THERE”
Did you ever hear the old Methodist hymn, “We Shall Know Each Other
There”? It appeals to me rather strongly now, when I read a long list of
the names of those already “there,” who attended a meeting in New Orleans
over sixty years ago, in behalf of Gen. Zach Taylor’s nomination for the
United States Presidency. Every name is familiar to me. Each one calls to
mind the features of a friend, and every blessed one of them has long ago
joined the immortals. I trust they “know each other there.”
Here’s the name of Glendy Burke, who promised me a gold thimble when I
was a little girl making my first attempt at cross-stitch, if I would
finish the footstool for him. I earned the gold thimble, large enough for
my finger, long after I was grown and married.
Cuthbert Bullitt and Levi Peirce! It seemed to require the presence
of both to make a mass meeting a complete success. They lived almost
side by side on St. Charles Street at that time. It was only the other
day dear Mrs. Peirce died. She was born in 1812. I loved to visit the
Peirces, though the daughters, Cora and Caroline, were at least ten
years my senior. They never married, so managed to “keep young,” though
Caroline was an invalid. She laughingly told me she had rheumatism of the
heart and inner coating of the ribs, whatever that may mean.
In 1849 her doctor ordered her to Pass Christian, so early that the
hotel, which I have attempted to describe in a previous chapter, was
not open for the season. I was invited to accompany the two sisters. At
first we were the only guests in the hotel, but presently there arrived
J. DeB. De Bow of “Review” fame, and another bachelor, lacking the
giddy and frivolous elements, a Mr. De Saulles. Mr. Pierce had sent us
forth in style, with a mature maid, as duenna, to look after the three
frisky misses, also a pack of cards and a bag of picayunes, to play that
elevating and refining game of poker. I never enjoyed an outing more than
those two out-of-season weeks at the old hotel at Pass Christian.
The two bachelors did not bother us with attentions, but, strange to say,
Mr. De Bow and I actually felt congenial, and after our return to the
city he made me several calls, and as the forgetful old lady remarked,
“Might have been calling till now,” but some busybody—I always had my
suspicions who—sent me at New Year’s, with Mr. De Bow’s card, a gaudily
bound volume of “Poems of Amelia,” the silliest of love trash. I still
have the book; it’s of the kind you never can lose. I showed it to him—so
innocently, too, and thanked him the best I could for the uncomplimentary
present. My old beau never called again. He was sensitive to ridicule,
and seemed to have taken it _au sérieux_....
However, all this is a sidetrack. Mr. De Bow was not at that meeting, but
Col. Christy and J. A. Maybin were. They were not of the De Bow type, but
their familiar names are on the list before me. Both the Christys and
Maybins lived near the Strawbridges, way off Poydras Street.
Here’s the name of Maunsel White, too. Both he and Christy were
colonels—I believe veterans of the battle of New Orleans—the anniversary
of which, the 8th of January, is always celebrated on the spot, and
nowhere else I ever heard of. I never heard of one of Gen. Jackson’s men
that was just a plain soldier in the ranks. They all had titles, from
Gen. McCausland, who lived near Laurel Hill, down. I was a friend of
Col. White’s daughter, Clara, and recall a delightful visit I made to
their plantation, “Deer Range.” It must have been in March, for the dear
Irish gentleman had a holiday. All the bells were ringing the day in,
when I rose the first morning, and the old gentleman, after singing for
our benefit “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning,” proclaimed a plantation
holiday. It was all great fun.
S. J. Peters I knew after my marriage. He was a lifelong friend of my
husband’s. As long as he lived, and we were on our plantation, he sent us
every New Year’s a demijohn of fine Madeira, by that universal express of
the day, the _Belle Creole_. I forget how Mr. Peters looked, or anything
I ever heard him say, but one does not easily forget a yearly present of
five gallons of choice old wine.