A VIRGINIA GIRL IN THE
CIVIL WAR
A VIRGINIA GIRL
IN THE CIVIL WAR
1861-1865
BEING A RECORD OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCES
OF THE WIFE OF A CONFEDERATE OFFICER
_COLLECTED AND EDITED BY_
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published February, 1903_
INTRODUCTION
This history was told over the tea-cups. One winter, in the South, I
had for my neighbor a gentle, little brown-haired lady, who spent many
evenings at my fireside, as I at hers, where with bits of needlework
in our hands we gossiped away as women will. I discovered in her
an unconscious heroine, and her Civil War experiences made ever an
interesting topic. Wishing to share with others the reminiscences she
gave me, I seek to present them here in her own words. Just as they
stand, they are, I believe, unique, possessing at once the charm of
romance and the veracity of history. They supply a graphic, if artless,
picture of the social life of one of the most interesting and dramatic
periods of our national existence. The stories were not related in
strict chronological sequence, but I have endeavored to arrange them
in that way. Otherwise, I have made as few changes as possible. Out of
deference to the wishes of living persons, her own and her husband’s
real names have been suppressed and others substituted; in the case of
a few of their close personal friends, and of some whose names would
not be of special historical value, the same plan has been followed.
Those who read this book are admitted to the sacred councils of close
friends, and I am sure they will turn with reverent fingers these pages
of a sweet and pure woman’s life--a life on which, since those fireside
talks of ours, the Death-Angel has set his seal.
Memoirs and journals written not because of their historical or
political significance, but because they are to the writer the natural
expression of what life has meant to him in the moment of living, have
a value entirely apart from literary quality. They bring us close to
the human soul--the human soul in undress. We find ourselves without
preface or apology in personal, intimate relation with whatever makes
the yesterday, to-day, to-morrow of the writer. When this current
of events and conditions is impelled and directed by a vital and
formative period in the history of a nation, we have only to follow
its course to see what history can never show us, and what fiction can
unfold to us only in part--how the people thought, felt, and lived who
were not making history, or did not know that they were.
This is the essential value of A Virginia Girl in the Civil War: it
shows us simply, sincerely, and unconsciously what life meant to an
American woman during the vital and formative period of American
history. That this American woman was also a Virginian with all a
Virginian’s love for Virginia and loyalty to the South, gives to her
record of those days that are still “the very fiber of us” a fidelity
rarely found in studies of local color. Meanwhile, her grateful
affection for the Union soldiers, officers and men, who served and
shielded her, should lift this story to a place beyond the pale of
sectional prejudice.
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY.
NEW YORK, _November 1, 1902_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN HARBOR 1
II.--HOW I MET DAN GREY 12
III.--THE FIRST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY 22
IV.--THE REALITIES OF WAR 38
V.--I MEET BELLE BOYD AND SEE DICK IN A NEW LIGHT 51
VI.--A FAITHFUL SLAVE AND A HOSPITAL WARD 59
VII.--TRAVELING THROUGH DIXIE IN WAR TIMES 69
VIII.--BY FLAG OF TRUCE 83
IX.--I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE BLOCKADE 91
X.--I CROSS THE COUNTRY IN AN AMBULANCE AND THE
PAMUNKEY ON A LIGHTER 101
XI.--THE OLD ORDER 113
XII.--A DANGEROUS MASQUERADE 124
XIII.--A LAST FAREWELL 139
XIV.--THE LITTLE JEW BOY AND THE PROVOST’S DEPUTY 144
XV.--I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 150
XVI.--THE FLOWER OF CHIVALRY 172
XVII.--PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES 188
XVIII.--WITHIN OUR LINES 211
XIX.--MY COMRADE GENERAL JEB STUART 230
XX.--“WHOSE BUSINESS ’TIS TO DIE” 244
XXI.--RESCUED BY THE FOE 263
XXII.--WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE 285
XXIII.--“INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH” 297
XXIV.--BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH 315
XXV.--THE BEGINNING OF THE END 330
XXVI.--HOW WE LIVED IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE
CONFEDERACY 349
XXVII.--UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES 365
A VIRGINIA GIRL IN THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN HARBOR
Many years ago I heard a prominent lawyer of Baltimore, who had just
returned from a visit to Charleston, say that the Charlestonians were
so in the habit of antedating everything with the Civil War that when
he commented to one of them upon the beauty of the moonlight on the
Battery, his answer was, “You should have seen it before the war.” I
laughed, as everybody else did; but since then I have more than once
caught myself echoing the sentiment of that Charleston citizen to
visitors who exclaimed over the social delights of Norfolk. For really
they know nothing about it--that is, about the real Norfolk.
Nobody does who can not remember, as I do, when her harbor was covered
with shipping which floated flags of all nations, and her society was
the society of the world. Milicent and I--there were only the two of
us--were as familiar with foreign colors as with our own Red, White,
and Blue, and happily grew up unconscious that a title had any right
of precedence superior to that of youth, good breeding, good looks,
and agreeability. That all of these gave instant way to the claims of
age was one of the unalterable tenets handed down from generation to
generation, and punctiliously observed in our manner and address to the
older servants. The “uncle” and “aunty” and “mammy” that fall so oddly
upon the ears of the present generation were with Southern children and
young people the “straight and narrow” path that separated gentle birth
and breeding from the vulgar and ignorant.
My girlhood was a happy one. My father was an officer of the Bank of
Virginia, and, according to the custom that obtained, he lived over the
bank. His young assistant, Walter H. Taylor (afterward adjutant to
General R. E. Lee), was like a brother to Milicent and me. Father’s
position and means, and the personal charm that left him and my mother
cherished memories in Norfolk till to-day, drew around us a cultivated
and cosmopolitan society. Our lives were made up of dance and song and
moonlit sails. There were the Atlantic Ocean, the Roads, the bay, the
James and Elizabeth rivers, meeting at our very door. And there were
admirals, commodores, and captains whose good ships rode these waters,
and who served two sovereigns--the nation whose flag they floated and a
slim Virginia maiden. In all the gatherings, formal and informal, under
our roof, naval and military uniforms predominated. Many men who later
distinguished themselves in the Federal and Confederate armies, sat
around our board and danced in our parlors; others holding high places
in Eastern and European courts were numbered among our friends and
acquaintances.
Some years after Commodore Perry through a skilful mixture of gunpowder
and diplomacy had opened the ports of Japan to the commerce of all
nations, Ito and Inouye--not then counts--had brought into existence
an organized Japanese navy which sailed out of these same ports to
the harbors of the world on tours of inspection. One of my most vivid
memories is of the Japanese squadron which lay at anchor in our harbor,
of the picturesque dress and manners of these Eastern strangers, and
the polished courtesy of the two men whose names are now a part of
history.
But the handsomest sailors I ever saw were the Prussians. When the
Prussian navy was in its infancy two Prussian vessels, the frigate
Gaefion and a corvette, dropped anchor in Norfolk harbor; they, too,
were visiting the ports of different nations on tours of inspection.
All the officers on these vessels, including the midshipmen, were
noblemen, and all of them were magnificent-looking men. Then, too,
their brilliant uniforms and the state and ceremony with which they
invested every-day life made them altogether charming to a young,
romantic girl. I shall never forget how they used to enter the room.
They would appear in full regimentals, march in military form, the
frigate’s captain in command, and salute Milicent before they
permitted themselves to talk, dance, and sing. Upon leaving, the same
order was observed. They went out into the hall, donned their hats,
sword-belts, and swords, returned, saluted, and withdrew in military
form. At this time I was a little girl who played on the piano for
grown-up people to dance. On formal occasions we had military bands,
but for the every-evening dance my playing did well enough. When the
Prussians were our guests, one of them always sat by me while I played.
Baron von der Golz, since Admiral of the German navy, was the gentleman
who was oftenest kind enough to turn over my music. I play now, for my
children to dance, a Prussian gallop he taught me, with some of the
music I played for those officers, and some which they used to play
when they took my place at the piano that I might have my share of the
dancing. Another Prussian officer of whom I was very fond was Count von
Monts, afterward Admiral of the German navy, Von der Golz succeeding at
his death.
I shall never forget the day my Prussian friends sailed away. From
the roof of our residence over the bank, there was a good view of
the harbor and river: Milicent, Emily Conway, and a number of girls
who wanted to see the last of the gallant, handsome Prussians went
up on the roof, and I was permitted to go with them. We turned our
spy-glasses on their ships as they sailed toward Hampton Roads, and
there were our friends on deck, their glasses turned upon the housetop
where we stood in the full glare of the midday sun. Even I was visible
to them. Milicent placed me in front of our spy-glass, and I looked
through and singled out Baron von Golz, to whom I waved my handkerchief
vigorously. A little snow-storm fluttered on the deck, and the baron
not only waved, but saluted. According to the fashion of the time,
young ladies wore low-necked dresses in the middle of the day--never,
however, at any hour, so low as ladies at the opera wear them now.
Milicent and her friends who went to the housetop were bare-necked, and
the sun blistered their throats and shoulders; and mother had to bathe
Milicent with buttermilk all the afternoon to make her presentable for
the dance that night, which, by special permission, Count von Monts
attended, coming up from Fortress Monroe to escort Milicent. They made
a pretty picture when they danced their last dance together. The Count
would not permit their friendship to cease with that last dance, and
a correspondence was long kept up between them. At parting, she gave
him her little Catholic prayer-book with her name on the fly-leaf, and
years after, when revisiting Norfolk, he had that prayer-book and tried
to find her; but times were changed, and Norfolk no more our home. Many
a titled sailor sought my sister’s favor, but in our day Virginia’s
daughters, undazzled by coronets, were content to wed Virginia’s sons.
The almost limitless hospitality of those days made all the sharper the
distinction between “open house” and open hand. In the forties, the
reserve of the American girl was more like that of her English sister
than it is at the present day. Society did not sanction the freedom
which it countenances now. The gentlewoman of the old South was a past
mistress in the art of tact, but had little knowledge or practise in
it to further her own private ends. Its office, as she understood
it, was to relieve painful situations not her own, to contribute to
the comfort and pleasure of others. To rid herself of a disagreeable
third person to secure a _tête-à-tête_ with a lover was not within its
province. Lovers had to make their own opportunities--indeed it was
not her part even to conceive that they wanted to make opportunities.
Taking all this into consideration, the freedom with which Southern
children entered into the social life must have often made them thorns
in the flesh of their elders. I have often wondered since those happy
days if my favorites among my sister’s visitors did not find me a great
nuisance in spite of the caresses they lavished upon me.
The New Year’s reception of that period was not an afternoon and
evening affair. It began in the morning and lasted all day; it meant
pretty girls fluttering in laces and ribbons and feathers and sparkling
with jewels and smiles; stately matrons who, however beautiful and
young they were, never indulged even in the innocent coquetry that
neither deceives a man nor wounds a woman--the married belle was
unknown to Virginia; and gallant men, young and old, ready to die
for them or live for them; it meant the good things to eat for which
Virginia is famous, and, I am sorry to say, often more than enough of
good things to drink. I remember one of these New Year’s days when the
ardor of my affections prevented a young officer who had come to bid
us good-by from exchanging a word with anybody unhampered by my close
attendance. I was brimful of nine-year-old love for him. I proposed
to him and was promptly accepted; I made him drink punch with me
dipped from the old punch-bowl that had been presented to father by
the military companies of Norfolk, and I told him how Admiral Tucker
had made the presentation with flags flying and bands playing and wine
flowing, and how the admiral tried to ride his horse up the front steps
into the house, and how the sober animal wisely and firmly refused to
perform the feat. Through a long day he did not once escape me. This
young officer was Lieutenant John L. Worden. He was one of the gallant
“boys in blue” who made my sister’s girlhood happy. A most charming
gentleman he was, and everybody in my father’s house loved him.
Another young sailor--the handsomest of them all, whom everybody in
my father’s house loved--was Captain Warren. How well I remember that
evening when the order came bidding him report at once to his ship,
which was to set forth on a long cruise in Eastern waters! Shall I
ever forget the look in his eyes as he turned them upon Milicent! How
beautiful she was that night! How gracious and sweet, how greatly to be
desired! And how many desired her!
Milicent had been married several years and I was in the raptures of
my first winter in society when my father died, and mother decided
that we should leave Norfolk--Norfolk where river and bay and ocean
had sung our cradle-songs--and go to Petersburg to live. In this day
of independent women it sounds absurd to say that it was scarcely
considered wise or delicate for women to live without the protection
of a male relative in the house, and to add that as far as possible
they were shielded from the burden of business responsibilities. Uncle
Henry considered it imperative that we should be under his care; he
could not come to Norfolk, so we went to him. We could scarcely have
been strangers anywhere in Virginia, and in Petersburg we had many
friends. The Lees and the Randolphs, the Pegrams and the Pages, the
Stringfellows, the Hamiltons, the Witherspoons, the Bannisters, the
Donnans, the Dunlops, and a score of others made it easy to exercise
the genius for friendship which in Virginia hands down that relation
from generation to generation.
It was in Petersburg that my trousseau was made. Much of it was the
work and embroidery of loving, light-hearted girls whose feet were set
to music and dancing, and most of it was worn by women who trod instead
fields red with the blood of their friends and kinsmen. During the
long, dreary years in which the Northern ports were closed, and the
South clothed itself as best it could, or went in rags, that trousseau
constituted my sole outfit, and it reinforced the wardrobes of some
comrades in war and want.