THE OLD ORDER
We found fresh straw and hot bricks in the bottom of our ambulance
when we were ready to leave the next morning, an excellent luncheon
and two bottles of wine. Soon after we started the wind changed, the
clouds disappeared, and the sun came out. By the time we reached the
Chickahominy there was sunshine in plenty--and wind, too.
Not a boat was in sight, and no figure on either bank of man or beast.
I thought the lieutenant and the driver would split their lungs
hallooing, but there was no response. Nobody answered and nobody came.
We waited on the bank an hour without seeing anybody. Then an Indian
came by in a skiff and we hailed him. He paddled to the shore, and we
asked him if he knew where we could get a boat and some one to put us
across. He knew of nothing and nobody of the kind within reach.
“I must hire your skiff then,” said the lieutenant.
The Indian grinned.
“You no get cross in it. You spill out.”
“Never mind that, so you get paid for your skiff. I am an old sailor.”
Powhatan didn’t think the lieutenant could manage that skiff; however,
he got his price and gave in.
When he saw the three of us squeezing ourselves into the skiff he
remonstrated again.
“Squaws spill out. Squaws git sick,” he insisted. He told the
lieutenant that we would be frightened out of our lives before we got
across the river. He didn’t know that Millie and I had been brought up
on the coast and were as used to water as ducks.
Whoever has rowed an Indian skiff may have some idea of what a
cockle-shell it was that took us across the Chickahominy. I sat in one
end, Milicent in the other, and Lieutenant Johnston in the middle,
paddle in hand, while our little craft switched and wriggled and
rocked itself about in a manner that was as extraordinary as it was
dangerous, and that was nearer perpetual motion than anything I ever
saw.
At last the lieutenant stood up and straddled the boat to balance her.
How he ever balanced himself I can’t say, but he stood with one foot
on each of her sides and managed her somehow. No one but an old sailor
could have done it. I expected every minute to see him fall over into
the water.
The sun was shining down, silvering the waters of the Chickahominy.
The strong winds churned the waves and blew our hats and veils almost
off our heads, and almost blew our breath away--when the rocking skiff
left us any. And out on the wide, turbulent, bright river we tossed and
tumbled, and laughed and got wet and came near drowning. I never had
more fun in any sail. But at last we were safely across, and waiting
by the York River Railroad for our train. The half-breed gave us our
trunks, and took back his skiff and our money. In a few hours we were
in Richmond, where the lieutenant saw us to our hotel, and left. I
sent a letter by him to Dan, begging Dan’s pardon for having my own way.
The next day found us in Petersburg. Our business here was to provide
ourselves with money with which to buy Yankee goods--particularly a
Confederate uniform--in Yankeeland. I wanted as much gold as our broker
could let me have, but he advised me against taking more than enough to
make the trip with, and a small margin for contingencies.
“It will be in your way and increase your danger,” he said.
“Confederate notes will get you to the Potomac. From there you need
a little gold to take you to Baltimore. After you are there I will
contrive any sum you want to your trustees in Norfolk. They, being
inside the Yankee lines, can send it to Baltimore.”
Our next objective point was Mrs. Rixey’s in Culpeper. Blockade-runners
were continually setting out from there, and we thought we would have
no difficulty in attaching ourselves to a party. After a rest in
Petersburg of a day and a half, we started for Culpeper, reaching Mrs.
Rixey’s at nightfall. We told her husband that we wanted to join a
party of blockade-runners.
“Mrs. Otis and her two daughters start north to-morrow; perhaps you can
go with them,” he said, and went out to see about it.
Unfortunately--or fortunately--the Otis party was complete--there was
no vacant seat in their wagon.
“I will be on the lookout for you,” Mr. Rixey said. “Somebody else will
be along soon.”
Before breakfast he knocked at our door.
“There are two gentlemen downstairs who are going north,” he said, when
Millie stuck her head out. “They give their names as Captain Locke and
Mr. Holliway, and they seem to be gentlemen. That is all I know about
them. You might see them and talk the matter over.”
We finished dressing hurriedly and went down to the parlor, where we
met Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway, and after a brief talk decided to
go with them.
The best vehicle we could get was a wagon without springs, and instead
of a body four planks laid across the axles, one plank set up on each
side, and no ends at all.
Over the rude floor we had a quantity of straw piled, and two chairs
were set up for Milicent and me. The gentlemen seated themselves on our
baggage, which consisted of two small trunks into which we had crowded
a few articles for each of them. The wagoner, a rough mountaineer, sat
on a plank which had been laid across the two uprights at the sides.
It was a bitterly cold day. Milicent and I wore thick cloaks, and
the wagoner supplied a blanket which we wrapped about our feet. In
addition, the gentlemen contributed a large blanket shawl which they
insisted upon folding about our shoulders, declaring that their
overcoats protected them sufficiently. Now and then they got out of the
wagon and walked and stamped to keep their legs from getting stiff with
cold, and at last Milicent and I were reduced to the same device for
keeping up our circulation. We got so stiff we couldn’t move, and the
gentlemen had to lift us out of the wagon, pull us about, and drag us
into a walk and a run.
It was dark when we reached the house at which it had been suggested we
should stop. Lights were in every window and we could see much moving
about. Mr. Holliway went in to ask for lodgings.
He returned quickly and jumped into the wagon, saying to the wagoner:
“Drive on.”
Milicent and I were almost freezing.
“What’s the matter?” we asked in keen disappointment.
Just then the wagon made a turn, and we saw distinctly into the house
through an uncurtained window. There was a long white object in the
middle of the floor and over it stood a weeping woman.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “somebody’s dead there.”
“Yes, I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “It’s a dead soldier.
I was afraid it might make you feel badly. Ladies are sometimes
superstitious, and I feared you might take it as a bad omen for our
journey.”
But we found out afterward that it was he who had taken it for a bad
omen. He was going north to see his family, and he was so anxious
about them that he talked of little else. Captain Locke’s mission was
not so clear. He called it business--we little knew what dangerous
business it was!--and we troubled our heads no further about it.
It was very late when we at last came upon a tumble-down farmhouse,
where we were taken in for the night. The family who lived there did
their best for us, but they were far from being comfortable themselves.
By this time, however, any quarters and any fare were acceptable. We
slept in the room with a goodly company, all fortunately of our own
sex, and the gentlemen, as we heard afterward, in even more crowded
quarters.
Our poverty-stricken hosts did not wish to charge us, but before we
left the next morning we insisted upon paying them.
That morning a little Jew boy was added to our party. Just how, or
when, or where we picked him up, I can not recall, and I should
probably never have thought of him again if he had not impressed
himself upon me most unpleasantly afterward at Berlin.
Our second night we spent according to our program, in Fauquier
County, with Mr. Robert Bolling, a friend of my husband’s.
“I am astonished at your trying to run the blockade, Mrs. Grey,” he
said.
“Why?” I asked. “And why are you more astonished at me than at
Milicent?”
I had been hearing similar remarks, and was becoming curious.
“Because you look like a little girl. I am surprised at such nerve in
so youthful a lady.”
“I want a new uniform for Dan,” I said. “He’s promoted.”
Mr. Bolling laughed heartily.
“And I am quite as brave as Milicent,” I insisted.
“Well, I am surprised at you both. It is a dangerous undertaking.”
Our wagoner was invited to take supper with us. He was rough and
ill-clad, and he felt out of place, but Mr. Bolling charmed him into
ease and talked over our prospective journey with him.
“It is well for you to be on good terms with your wagoner,” he said to
us privately, when he sent out the invitation.
Mr. Bolling was old and gray-haired, or he would have been in the
field. His home was one of the most celebrated country-seats in
Fauquier, and he himself full of honors and one of the best-known men
in the State.
The night we spent at this old Virginia homestead was repetition of
a night previously described, with variations. Here were the same
old-fashioned mahogany furniture with claw feet and spindle legs, and
wax lights in brass and silver candelabra, and rare old china, and
some heirlooms whose history we were interested in. Several of these
had come with the first Bollings from England. There was a sword which
had come down from the War of the Roses, and on the wall, in a place
of special honor, hung the sword of a Bolling who had distinguished
himself in the Revolution. Mr. Bolling took it down and laid it in
Milicent’s outstretched hands with a smile.
“I am a believer in State’s rights, and I am a Secessionist, I
suppose,” said the old man with a sigh, as he hung the sword back in
its place. “But--I hate to fight the old flag. I hate that.”
Above the sword was the portrait of the Bolling who had worn the sword,
a soldierly looking fellow in the uniform of a Revolutionary colonel.
“He saved the old flag once at the cost of his life,” the aged man
said, sighing again. “He is buried out yonder in the graveyard,
wrapped in the folds of the very flag he snatched from the hands of
the British. If we were to open his grave to-night, we would find his
bones and ashes wrapped in that flag he died to save. Yes, I am sorry
to fight the old flag.”
“Then,” I said innocently and without thinking, “it is well that you
are exempted from service in the field.”
His eyes flashed.
“Ah, no, my dear! Since fighting there is, I wish I could be in it.
If I were young enough and strong enough I’d take that sword down and
follow Robert Lee. Virginia is invaded.”