There was great excitement at Oakland during the John Brown raid, and
the boys' grandmother used to pray for him and Cook, whose pictures
were in the papers.
The boys became soldiers, and drilled punctiliously with guns which
they got Uncle Balla to make for them. Frank was the captain, Willy
the first lieutenant, and a dozen or more little negroes composed the
rank and file, Peter and Cole being trusted file-closers.
A little later they found their sympathies all on the side of peace
and the preservation of the Union. Their uncle was for keeping the
Union unbroken, and ran for the Convention against Colonel Richards,
who was the chief officer of the militia in the county, and was as
blood-thirsty as Tamerlane, who reared the pyramid of skulls, and as
hungry for military renown as the great Napoleon, about whom the boys
had read.
There was immense excitement in the county over the election. Though
the boys' mother had made them add to their prayers a petition that
their Uncle William might win, and that he might secure the
blessings of peace; and, though at family prayers, night and morning,
the same petition was presented, the boys' uncle was beaten at the
polls by a large majority. And then they knew there was bound to be
war, and that it must be very wicked. They almost felt the "invader's
heel," and the invaders were invariably spoken of as "cruel," and the
heel was described as of "iron," and was always mentioned as engaged
in the act of crushing. They would have been terribly alarmed at this
cruel invasion had they not been reassured by the general belief of
the community that one Southerner could whip ten Yankees, and that,
collectively, the South could drive back the North with pop-guns. When
the war actually broke out, the boys were the most enthusiastic of
rebels, and the troops in Camp Lee did not drill more continuously nor
industriously.
Their father, who had been a Whig and opposed secession until the very
last, on Virginia's seceding, finally cast his lot with his people,
and joined an infantry company; and Uncle William raised and equipped
an artillery company, of which he was chosen captain; but the infantry
was too tame and the artillery too ponderous to suit the boys.
They were taken to see the drill of the county troop of cavalry, with
its prancing horses and clanging sabres. It was commanded by a cousin;
and from that moment they were cavalrymen to the core. They flung
away their stick-guns in disgust; and Uncle Balla spent two grumbling
days fashioning them a stableful of horses with real heads and "sure
'nough" leather bridles.
Once, indeed, a secret attempt was made to utilize the horses and
mules which were running in the back pasture; but a premature
discovery of the matter ended in such disaster to all concerned that
the plan was abandoned, and the boys had to content themselves with
their wooden steeds.
The day that the final orders came for their father and uncle to go to
Richmond,--from which point they were ordered to "the Peninsula,"--the
boys could not understand why every one was suddenly plunged into such
distress. Then, next morning, when the soldiers left, the boys could
not altogether comprehend it. They thought it was a very fine thing to
be allowed to ride Frank and Hun, the two war-horses, with their new,
deep army saddles and long bits. They cried when their father and
uncle said good-bye, and went away; but it was because their mother
looked so pale and ill, and not because they did not think it was all
grand. They had no doubt that all would come back soon, for old Uncle
Billy, the "head-man," who had been born down in "Little York," where
Cornwallis surrendered, had expressed the sentiment of the whole
plantation when he declared, as he sat in the back yard surrounded by
an admiring throng and surveyed the two glittering sabres which he had
no one but himself to polish, that "Ef them Britishers jest sees dese
swodes dee'll run!" The boys tried to explain to him that these were
not British, but Yankees,--but he was hard to convince. Even Lucy Ann,
who was incurably afraid of everything like a gun or fire-arm, partook
of the general fervor, and boasted effusively that she had actually
"tetched Marse John's big pistils."
Hugh, who was fifteen, and was permitted to accompany his father to
Richmond, was regarded by the boys with a feeling of mingled envy and
veneration, which he accepted with dignified complacency.
Frank and Willy soon found that war brought some immunities. The house
filled up so with the families of cousins and friends who were
refugees that the boys were obliged to sleep in the Office, and thus
they felt that, at a bound, they were almost as old as Hugh.
There were the cousins from Gloucester, from the Valley, and families
of relatives from Baltimore and New York, who had come south on the
declaration of war. Their favorite was their Cousin Belle, whose
beauty at once captivated both boys. This was the first time that the
boys knew anything of girls, except their own sister, Evelyn; and
after a brief period, during which the novelty gave them pleasure,
the inability of the girls to hunt, climb trees, or play knucks, etc.,
and the additional restraint which their presence imposed, caused them
to hold the opinion that "girls were no good."