SECOND VISIT OF THE ENEMY--MIDNIGHT FLIGHT--FAREWELL TO ARLINGTON.
The only exact date I can remember, and _that_ I can never forget, was
the 17th of December.
The weather was warm for the season, a thick fog hung over the river,
obscuring objects only a few yards distant. As I stood by the window,
in the early morning, completing my toilet, the white, misty curtain
rolled up like a scroll, revealing a fleet of gunboats. Far as the
eye could reach, up and down and around our point, the river was
bristling with gayly flagged transports, anchored mid-stream, waiting
for the dissipation of the mist to proceed. In a twinkling all was
excitement with the hurry and bustle of preparation for our immediate
departure. A breakfast eaten “on the fly,” as it were, a rushing here
and there, and packing of necessaries for our journey, God only knew
whither, we did not care where, so we escaped a repetition of scenes
that had made us old before our time, and life a constant excitement
that was burning us up. William was dispatched to the city on a tour
of observation. He returned, to report ten thousand men and the most
warlike demonstrations that the darky’s genius could invent; pickets
to be stationed away beyond Arlington, and all of us to be embraced
within the lines and made to “toe de mark.” “Mars Jim, and every white
man what harbored a Confederate soldier de time of de fight, was to be
tuk prisoner.” The more William told, the more he remembered to tell;
and, long before he was through with his recital, I was perplexed,
bewildered, and almost distracted.
The negro men were summoned from their quarters to help load the wagon.
We put in cooking-utensils, some dishes and plates, bedding and a small
mattress, a few kegs and boxes of necessary provisions, a trunk of
clothing, some small bags and bundles--that was all.
I wandered through the dear old rooms of the house where we had lived
ten happy years, taking a mournful farewell of a whole _armoire_ of
dinner and ball dresses, that were of no use to me now, packed a trunk
full of laces, flowers, feathers, and other such useless things that
were found here and there in boxes and drawers, leaving the packed
things in a front room. The only thing among them I specially remember
was a partly made album quilt that bore the signatures of numberless
friends and of some distinguished personages. When Baton Rouge was
threatened, and indeed after its capture, trunks, bags, and bundles,
belonging to men off “on service,” were at various times conveyed to
Arlington for safe-keeping. These I now opened, and all the letters and
papers they contained were destroyed.
The mules safely locked in the stable, the harnesses all ready to
slip on, extra straps and ropes thrown into the wagon--too excited to
sleep, we threw ourselves on our beds for the last time; too tired to
talk, sore at heart, too worn out to weep. There we lay in a fitful
and uneasy slumber. In the dead stillness of the night there came a
low tap at our chamber-door. “Mars Jim!” My husband was on his feet
with a bound. “Your niggers is all gone to de Yankees; de pickets is
on our place, and dey done told your niggers you would be arrested at
daylight!” The speaker was head sugar-maker on an adjoining plantation,
himself a slave. “Call Dominick and tell him to get my buggy ready
while I put on some clothes,” was the only response. I lighted the
candle and hurried my husband off, while he whispered directions for
me to join him immediately after breakfast at the house of a neighbor
five miles back of us, which he could speedily reach by going through
the woods, and to have one of the men drive the wagon and one drive the
ambulance through the longer but better wagon-road.
That was all--and he was gone! Knowing that my husband’s disregard
of military orders by the removal of negroes from Arlington to my
brother’s plantation rendered him liable to immediate arrest, it was
an untold relief to feel that he was safe beyond Federal reach.
I did not lie down again, but wandered around in an aimless sort of
way, too excited and nervous to sit still a moment, and too distracted
to do a useful or sensible thing. At the first appearance of dawn I
aroused William to prepare breakfast, and Charlotte to get the table
ready. Before the children were awake, I was down at the stable, having
William and Willy hitch up the teams. I saw with half an eye that
William was not in sympathy with our plans, and knew intuitively that
my husband distrusted him, else he and not Dominick would have been the
one to pilot him through the canebrake and woods the previous night.
Incidentally William dropped remarks to the effect that he “could
lend a hand at harnessing, but he never _druv_ mules; he _know’d_ a
_smatterin’_ ’bout _hosses_, but _mules_ (with a sneer) was clean away
from him.” With difficulty I repressed my disappointment regarding
further help from him in my emergency. He who had been my husband’s
valet in his gay bachelor days and our confidential servant, our very
aid and help in all my bright married life, had had his poor woolly
head turned by that one trip to town, and asserted his independence
at the first shadow of provocation. William failing me, I knew I
must seek other help. Some of the negroes had left during the night,
but I was aware that others remained who might seek exemption from
service now that they were in sight of the flag whose brilliant stars
and stripes were plainly visible floating from the dome of the State
Capitol. Being ready and eager to start, I immediately went down to
the quarters a half-mile distant; there I waited, going from cabin to
cabin, and walked to the dwelling-house and back again. Willy stood by
the hitched-up teams, and Sabe, near by, held the baby in her arms,
while little Henry clung to her skirts. Then back to the quarters.
This man “had a _misery_ in his back--had it ever since the crevasse”;
that man “never _druv_ in his life--didn’t I know he was de engineer?”
Another man “wouldn’t drive old Sall--she was de _balkinest_ mule on
de place; you won’t git a mile from here ’fore she takes de _studs_
and wont budge a step.” “Well, drive us that mile.” “Not me! I don’t
’low to walk home wid dis here lame foot.” I could have sat down and
wept my very heart out. It was long past noon; the harnessed mules had
to be fed, and William made out to say: “We had better take a little
_snack_ and give it up; if we stayed home, Mars Jim would come back;
the Yankees didn’t have nothing ’gin him.”
I could hardly hold my tongue by almost biting it off--so helpless--so
worried; and ever and anon the thought of my husband’s impatient
waiting almost crazed me. At last old Dave said he “warn’t no hand
wid mules, but he ’low’d he could tackle old Sal till she balked.”
There was no time for bargaining for another driver now. I caught at
Dave’s offer before he knew it, only stopping long enough to bid all
the deluded creatures a hasty good-by. Old “Aunt Hannah” (that was
my mother’s laundress long before I was born, and who had been given
a cabin to herself to sun away her half-blind and grumbling old age)
stood in her little cabin-door, as straight as an arrow; she always
complained of _rheumatiz_, and I don’t think I ever saw her straight
before; but there she stood, with the air of one suddenly elevated to
an exalted position, and waved me a “Good-by, madam--I b’ar you no
malice.”
Dave was hurried by my rapid steps back to the stable, and Sabe came
out with the tired children. Just as I thought we were fairly off,
William announced, “Sence you was gone, a Yankee gunboat is cum down
and I see it’s anchored ’tween us and Kernel Hickey’s.” A peep around
the corner of the house confirmed the truth of his statement. Hastily
grasping a carpet-bag, lying ready packed in the ambulance, I ascended
to my bedroom, took from it two large pockets quilted thick with jewels
which I secured about my person, while Charlotte put the breakfast
forks and spoons in the bottom of the bag. When I returned to the
teams, everybody was standing about, apparently waiting to see what
“Miss ’Liza” would do _now_. Summoning every effort to command a voice
whose quaver must have betrayed my intense emotion, I directed Willy
to mount the wagon, a few last baskets and packages were tossed into
the ambulance, and Henry’s little pony tied behind. I got in, then
the little ones and Sabe; Dave shambled into his place in front; the
curtain cutting off the driver’s seat was carefully rolled up, so I
could have an unobstructed view, and Willy was told to lead the way.
Twice I had bidden Charlotte, whose mournful eyes had followed me all
day, a tearful farewell, and twice I had returned from a fruitless and
unsuccessful tramp to the negro quarters. At the last moment I waved
her good-by as she stood sobbing by William’s side on the veranda,
watching us as with bowed heads and heavy hearts we drove through the
gate of our once lovely home.
So I rode away from Arlington, leaving the sugar-house crowded to its
utmost capacity with the entire crop of sugar and molasses of the
previous year for which we had been unable to find a market within “our
lines,” leaving cattle grazing in the fields, sheep wandering over
the levee, doors and windows flung wide open, furniture in the rooms,
clothes too fine for me to wear now hanging in the _armoires_, china in
the closets, pictures on the walls, beds unmade, table spread. It was
late in the afternoon of that bright, clear, bracing day, December 18,
1862, that I bade Arlington adieu forever!