RESTORING ORDER--SCENES OF VANDALISM--PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
No one, who has not had the experience, knows what a litter and
indescribable confusion of dirt and _débris_ is left after twenty-four
hours’ occupancy of a house and grounds by a host, such as I have
attempted to describe. For days the negroes were cleaning up, and
restoring some kind of order. We moved around in a melancholy way,
ministering to the wants of our reluctant guests as far as we could,
and bidding them Godspeed when one by one they recovered sufficient
strength to pick up their additional little burden and creep away
to join their own friends, and to collect as far as they could the
remnants of their scattered (in many instances shattered) belongings,
or to erect other hearthstones over the remains of what had once been
not only comfortable but luxurious homes.
Though the days were prolonged by our constant anxiety, the remainder
of the summer gradually wore away. We stayed quietly at home; the
horses, except a small pony, had been given away, and we had no means
of locomotion except behind heavy wagon-mules, quite unfit for our
landau; and we were reluctant to yield with grace to that order of
things, so we kept at home. Books, portraits, and family plate had
already been sent to remote places of safety. Poultry was all devoured.
Some sheep and cattle remained, perhaps enough to supply the plantation
with food for some months longer. So we had nothing tangible to afford
us occupation or entertainment; no crop to cultivate, the planted cane
having been plowed up by the waters. Corn was put in the ground, but
the worms which invariably appear on a submerged field devoured it as
fast as it sprouted. The negroes, in a half-hearted way, as if they
foresaw the doom that awaited the plantation, repaired only a few
bridges, leveled some ruts, and in a listless manner pottered around as
though they knew perfectly well “it was no use”; we realized the same,
but felt the necessity of furnishing these dependent laborers with
occupation.
It is difficult at this distant day for me to realize how isolated
we were. Having relied almost entirely on the Mississippi River
packets for intercourse with the world beyond, all facilities of
communication through that medium were now suspended. The post-office
might as well have been closed so far as we were concerned, for no
mails were received from, or dispatched to, any point outside of
the Federal lines. Near relatives sickened, died, and were buried
within a day’s ride of our home, of whose extremity we did not know
for weeks--receiving the information then through a casual passer-by.
People journeying from point to point avoided towns on the river-bank
and sought hospitality at plantation or farm houses. So frequent were
the demands made upon Arlington by lonely and forlorn travelers, that
a couple of rooms in the rear of the house were set apart for their
convenience.
Occasionally small companies of Federals made raids in the
neighborhood, under some pretext or other; notice of the intended visit
was often mysteriously conveyed to the planter in time for him to
prepare.
On one occasion, word was brought to my husband of an intention to
search Arlington for arms and accoutrements. Our two soldier brothers
had crept home under shadow of night, a few days after the battle, with
guns captured on the field; William had secreted them in our attic. As
he was absent, I went in search of them. The attic covered the entire
house; it was never used, and was not floored. Carefully stepping from
beam to beam in the darkness, trusting more to the sense of touch than
sight, in search of the guns, by an unlucky step one foot went through
lath and plastering. I was alone, and struggled desperately, sinking
deeper with every effort, until I was actually in danger of descending
bodily into the room below. Finally extricating myself, I hobbled
in a very scratched and bruised state down-stairs, to find that the
accident had occurred immediately over the bed where one of the sick
brothers lay unable to rise, his bed covered with the _débris_, and he
convulsed with laughter. We eagerly watched the small detachment of
soldiers approach our gate, and without even pausing, ride by. When
we left Arlington, the arms were still secreted in the attic; and as
the substantial homestead still stands--dismantled, shutterless, and
perhaps in many places floorless though it be--those guns are doubtless
lying in some remote corner under the roof, mute witnesses of the
horrors of war.
When the Federals left the town I do not remember, but after a while
they did leave, and we had something to say about a barren victory,
forgetting that Baton Rouge was no strategic point. In those days, to
us Baton Rouge was a considerable place, only second in importance to
New Orleans, and that city ranked with Richmond in our estimation. One
fine day the fleet of gunboats steamed away, accompanied by transports
loaded to the edge with their black freight. Negroes from every
direction flocked in after the battle, old and young and of both sexes.
Some went from Arlington, too; several women, in their eagerness,
and desiring to be unencumbered, left their sleeping babies in the
cabin beds. The Federals, in acknowledgment of their loyalty, took
them to New Orleans, and the general who first gave them the title of
_contraband_ must have been well-nigh overwhelmed by the motley crew
that hastened to put themselves under his protection.
For many weeks we had not passed beyond our plantation limits. My
husband’s business, which formerly took him daily to the little city,
was suddenly and disastrously terminated when the Federals took
possession. During this depressing interval, General Clark’s wife
arrived at Arlington from his plantation in Mississippi, after a six
days’ ride through a very rough country. The distracted woman had heard
that her husband was seriously wounded--no more; but we were able
to comfort her with the assurance that he was alive and in General
Butler’s care. It was hard to recognize, in the heart-broken, weary
traveler, the robust, cheerful woman, who formed one of the party when
we accompanied our delegate husbands to the Democratic Convention at
Charleston in April, 1860.
The incidents of those stormy days can never be effaced from my mind.
From my favored seat in the gallery I witnessed the proceedings every
step of which led to more tumultuous excitement, culminating at last in
the disruption of the convention, and opening the way for a momentous
future of which we had little conception. How well I remember my
intense emotion while leaning over the gallery rail, listening to the
roll-call of States to ratify the adoption of the platform, seeing one
Southern delegation after another, with a few words of explanatory
protest from its chairman, rise and solemnly file out of the hall!
How my heart beat at the call “Louisiana!” how intently I listened to
catch the words of grand old Governor Mouton, as with French accent,
made ten times more unintelligible by his vehement manner and rapid
utterance, he explained the attitude of his State! Pointing a tremulous
finger at the seated representatives of Louisiana, with emphatic
delivery and quivering voice he concluded: “Louisiana instructed her
delegation to vote as a unit; two of the number refuse to act with the
majority; they can retain their seats, but they have no voice, they can
not represent the State.” The impetuous old gentleman descended from
the bench on which he stood, to command attention to his remarks, and
strode out of the assembly, followed by nine of his _confrères_. To my
unspeakable dismay--for I was too hot-headed to be reasonable amid so
much excitement--I saw my husband and his colleague remain seated, the
delinquents toward whom the defiant finger of the creole Hotspur had
been directed. General Clark’s attitude in the Mississippi delegation
was scarcely less conservative than that of my clear-headed husband.
Poor Mrs. Clark was detained several days, until a flag of truce could
be obtained from the nearest Confederate post to escort her to New
Orleans, and we had ample time to talk over the rush of events since
the exciting period when we had last sat side by side.
After the Federals evacuated we were induced to go to Baton Rouge to
inquire concerning the welfare of certain friends who had returned
to town, and of others who remained during the conflict witnesses of
the struggle. Pickets commanded all the approaches during the Federal
occupation, and at first only the _loyal_ were permitted to pass. It is
needless, perhaps, to say what class composed the “truly loyal,” thus
early in the war, in an extreme Southern State. Ignorant and brutal
negroes, who for generations had been kept under some kind of control,
rushed past the pickets without a challenge, and no doubt contributed
no small share to the indiscriminate robbery and devilish destruction
which we in our indignation attributed to the common soldiers, who,
by the death of General Williams (unfortunately killed in the battle
of Baton Rouge), were left under officers certainly unequal to the
task of keeping them in subordination. It was only after the place
had been _sacked_--I believe that is the word, though it is scarcely
comprehensive enough--that the former residents were allowed to enter
and view the abomination of desolation. More than one distressed
man returned to his wife, detained at Arlington by the claims of
maternity, with a few broken articles or a bag of willfully mutilated
clothing, and reported, “This is all I could find at home.”
Several days after the evacuation we ventured to enter the gates of
our sweet little city, on errands of mercy, mingled with no little
curiosity to see the condition in which it had been left by its
unwelcome and turbulent visitors. The tall, broad-spreading shade-trees
that lined the streets had been felled and thrown across all the
leading thoroughfares, impeding travel so that our landau made many
ineffectual attempts to thread its way. At last I descended and walked
the dusty, littered, shadeless streets from square to square. Seeing
the front door of the late Judge Morgan’s house thrown wide open,
and knowing that his widow and daughters, after asking protection
for their property of the commanding general, had left before the
battle, I entered. No words can tell the scene that those deserted
rooms presented. The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic
family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past
generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering head-dresses,
and quaint golden chains--ancestors long since dead, not only valuable
as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works
of art--these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear
across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way!
The contents of store-closets had been poured over the floors;
molasses and vinegar, and everything that defaces and stains, had
been smeared over walls and furniture. Up-stairs, _armoires_ with
mirror-doors had been smashed in with heavy axes or hammers, and the
dainty dresses of the young ladies torn and crushed with studied,
painstaking malignity, while china, toilet articles, and bits of
glass that ornamented the rooms were thrown upon the beds and broken
and ground into a mass of fragments; desks were wrenched open, and
the contents scattered not only through the house, but out upon the
streets, to be wafted in all directions; parts of their private letters
as well as letters from the desks of other violated homes, and family
records torn from numberless bibles, were found on the sidewalks of the
town, and even on the public roads beyond town limits!
Judge Morgan’s was the only vacated house I entered. It was enough:
I was too heart-sick and indignant to seek another evidence of the
lengths to which a conquering army can go in pitiless, unmeaning
destruction, when nothing can result from such vandalism but hatred and
revenge.
All the devastation that harrowed my soul on that visit was not
entirely due to the conquering army. The Confederate attack, on that
day so full of sad and tender memories, was made from the rear of the
city. The men in gray sprung over the fences and swarmed through the
cemeteries, trampled down the graves, rushed over the little crosses
and demolished and scattered the larger monuments that marked the
resting-place of their own beloved dead, making, in that wild and
desperate onslaught, ruins that tender hands and loving hearts have
never yet been able to entirely repair.
My husband soon found that the distracted state of the country, the
upheaving of the very foundation upon which our domestic life was
based, and the idleness into which the negroes lapsed, partly from lack
of steady work caused by the destruction of the growing crops, was more
than he could endure.
So, in direct violation of military orders issued from headquarters in
New Orleans, prohibiting the transfer of slaves from one plantation to
another, a number of our negroes were sent to my brother’s plantation,
where work was provided for them, by which they could at least earn
their food, and at the same time partially relieve us of an element of
querulous discontent that was fast becoming dangerous.
Our experience before and after the battle was so painful and harassing
as to lead to the determination never again to be placed under the
arbitrary rule of the army of occupation, whose frequent arrests and
incarcerations in the common jail of unoffending citizens under the
most frivolous pretexts, and often with no pretexts at all, made
our very lives insecure. Believing that at no distant day we would
have to accept the only alternative, voluntary exile, preparations
for departure were quietly matured. The landau was exchanged for
a rockaway, and this, with the curtains buttoned down, and some
alterations in the seats to render a sleeping-place possible, made a
reasonably comfortable traveling vehicle. A stout wagon, with a cotton
cover, was put in order, to carry food and such articles as were
necessary in camping out during a long journey, and six of the best and
strongest mules were stabled with their harness hanging beside them for
use at a moment’s warning. We did not have long to wait.