REFUGEE DAYS IN GEORGIA
Our stay in Macon, where it had been my intention to remain but a few
weeks, lengthened into months; for, upon his arrival in Richmond,
Senator Clay found the conditions such as to render my joining him, if
not impracticable, at least inadvisable. The evils of a year agone had
multiplied tenfold. Food was growing scarcer; the city’s capacity was
tested to the uttermost, and lodgings difficult to obtain. The price of
board for my husband alone now amounted to more than his income. Feeling
in legislative circles was tense, the times engendering a troublesome
discontent and strife among eager and anxious politicians. Complaints
from the army poured in. Our soldiers were suffering the harshest
deprivations. Wearing apparel was scarce. Many of our men marched in
ragged and weather-stained garments and tattered shoes, and even these
were luxuries that threatened soon to be unattainable. Our treasury was
terribly depleted, and our food supply for the army was diminishing at a
lamentable rate.
“You will be surprised to know,” wrote General Tracy from Vicksburg, in
March, 1863, “that in this garrisoned town, upon which the hopes of a
whole people are set, and which is liable at any time to be cut off from
its interior lines of communication, there is not now subsistence for
one week. The meat ration has already been virtually discontinued, the
quality being such that the men utterly refuse to eat it, though the
contract continues to be worth between one thousand and fifteen hundred
dollars per diem.”
“A general gloom prevails here because of the scarcity and high price of
food,” ran a letter from my husband, written in the same month from
Richmond. “Our soldiers are on half rations of meat, one-quarter pound
of salt, and one-half pound of fresh meat, without vegetables, or fruit,
or coffee or sugar! Don’t mention this, as it will do harm to let it get
abroad. Really there is serious apprehension of having to disband part
of the army for want of food. In this city the poor clerks and subaltern
military officers are threatened with starvation, as they cannot get
board on their pay. God only knows what is to become of us, if we do not
soon drive the enemy from Tennessee and Kentucky and get food from their
granaries.... I dined with the President yesterday at six P. M., _en
famille_, on beef soup, beef stew, meat pie, potatoes, coffee and bread.
I approved his simple fare and expressed the wish that the army in the
field had more to eat and that out of the field less!”
The receipt of this news stirred me to the core. Spring was in its
freshest beauty in Macon. Its gardens glowed with brilliant blossoms. A
thousand fragrant odours mingled in the air; the voices of myriad birds
sang about the foliaged avenues. I thought Aunt Comer’s home a
terrestrial Paradise. The contrast between the comfort in this pretty
city of lower Georgia, a city of beautiful homes and plentiful tables,
and our poverty-stricken capital and meagre starving camps, was terrible
to picture. I wrote impulsively (and, alas! impotently) in reply to my
husband’s letter:
“Why does not the President or some proper authority order on from here
and other wealthy towns, and immediately at that, the thousands of
provisions that fill the land? Monopolists and misers hold enough meat
and grain in their clutches to feed our army and Lincoln’s! Put down the
screws and make them release it! Talk of disbanding an army at a time
like this? No! empty the coffers and graneries and meat houses of every
civilian in the land first!”
Many an eager and impatient hour my sister and I spent in those months
of waiting for the call from our husbands to join them in the capital.
Her sprightly wit and unfailing courage made her a most enjoyable
companion, and a great favourite with all who knew her. “Give my love to
your sunbeam of a sister,” Secretary Mallory wrote me during those dark
days. “If not one of the lost Pleiads, at least she is a heavenly body!”
And when I quoted this to dear “Lushe” Lamar, he answered from the
fulness of his heart: “Mallory’s compliments grow languid in their
impotence to do justice to that beautiful embodiment of bright thoughts
and ideal graces, your sister, Celeste.” I found her all this and more
in that spring we spent together in Macon, as we daily sat and planned
and compared our news of the battle-fields, or discussed the movements
of the army. We did a prodigious amount of sewing and knitting for our
absent husbands, to whom we sent packages of home-made wearing apparel
by whomsoever we could find to carry them. I remember one such which
gave us considerable anxiety; for, proving too large to impose upon
General Alf. Colquitt, who had undertaken to deliver another to Senator
Clay, we sent the bundle by express. The robe which General Colquitt
carried was soon in the hands of its future wearer, but not so the
express package, which contained a pair of much-needed boots for Colonel
Clay. It lingered provokingly along the road until we were filled with
apprehension for its safety.
“Won’t it break us if all those things are stolen?” I wrote my husband.
“A thousand dollars would not buy them now!” And I said truly, for the
prices of the commonest materials were enormous. “Men’s boots here are
from sixty to eighty dollars,” wrote Mr. Clay from Richmond; and in
Macon all goods were a hundred per cent. higher than they had been in
Huntsville. Ordinary fifteen-cent muslin now sold in Georgia at two and
a half dollars per yard, and “sold like hot-cakes” at that. My sister
and I bought what we could and made our husbands’ shirts—knitting the
heavier ones—and hemmed their handkerchiefs; and we rose to such a
proficiency with the needle that we did not hesitate to undertake the
manufacture of vests and trousers of washable stuffs. I made a pair of
the last-named for my husband’s little god-son, Joe Davis, and sent them
to Richmond by Colonel Lamar; but I think the dear child did not live to
don them. He died tragically at the Executive home within a year, the
waves of the war quickly obscuring from the world about the remembrance
of the sweet baby face.
April had arrived when, journeying from Macon to Richmond, I had my
first real experience of war-time travel. By this time people were
hurrying from place to place in every direction, some to seek refuge,
and some to find or to bring back their dead. The country beyond the
Georgia boundary was alert, apprehending the approach of the steadily
advancing Federals. Throughout the spring the feeling had been rife that
a crucial period was approaching. My husband wrote cautioning me to
prepare to meet it. “During the months of April and May,” he said, in a
letter dated March 22d, “the result of the war will be decided by at
least four of the greatest battles the world has ever witnessed, near
Charleston or Savannah, Fredericksburg, Murfreesboro, and Vicksburg or
Port Hudson. If they triumph on the Mississippi, the war will continue
for years; if they fail there, I cannot think it will last longer than
Lincoln’s administration, or till March of 1865.[29] I regard events
there as the most important, because the Northwest will not aid the war
much longer if the Mississippi is not opened to their trade. The result
of the grand battle to come off at the first opportunity between Bragg
and Rosecrans will determine our movements during the recess of
Congress, and, it may be, our destiny for life. If we whip the enemy,
our home will again be open to us; if he whips us, it will fall under
his dominion for many months to come, and nothing will be left to us
that he can use or destroy.” Almost as Mr. Clay wrote, Huntsville was
again invested by Federal soldiery, and we could not, if we had wished,
have returned to it.
When my sister and I departed from Georgia, passenger-cars generally
were impressed for the use of soldiers, sick or wounded, or for those
who were hurrying to the front. I heard of instances in which
travellers, unable to find room in the regular cars, and eager to get to
some given point, begged for the privilege of squeezing into the car in
which express packages were carried.
Having held ourselves for some months in readiness for the journey, we
had kept informed as to the presence of possible escorts in Macon. Once
we planned to travel under the protection of Captain Harry Flash, a poet
who had won some distinction for his affecting lines on the death of
General Zollicoffer, and his stirring verses on the Confederate Flag. It
fell to our lot, however, to travel with two poets, who in days to come
were to be known to a wider world. They were Sidney and Clifford Lanier,
young soldiers, then, on their way to Virginia. Sidney’s sweetheart
lived in the town, and the brothers had stopped at Macon to make their
adieux. Upon learning of the objective destination of the young men, my
sister and I held out the bribe to them, if they would undertake to
escort us, of a fine luncheon _en route_; “broiled partridges, sho’ nuf’
sugar and sho’ nuf butter, and spring chickens, ‘quality size,’” to
which allurements, I am glad to say, the youthful poets succumbed with
grace and gallantry, and we began our journey.
The aisles of the cars were crowded. At many stations, as we came
through North Carolina, women entered the car with baskets of “big
blues,” the luscious native huckleberries, with full, deep bloom upon
them; these and other tempting edibles were brought aboard at almost
every station along the way. When our pleasant party separated at
Lynchburg, and the youths sat alone in their tents, they recalled in
pages truly characteristic the memories of that long journey, in which,
like tired children, they had sometimes fallen asleep, Clifford’s head
upon my sister’s shoulder, and Sid’s upon mine.
“I will wait no longer,” wrote Clifford,[30] from the camp near Suffolk
(Virginia), on April 17th, “but at once, and without _cérémonie_, write
the little love-letter I have promised, disarming (if men, as some one
says of flowers, ‘be jealous things’) the jealousy of your Lieges, by
addressing it to my _Two Dear Friends_ and quondam fellow-travellers.
What a transition is this—from the spring and peace of Macon, to this
muddy and war-distracted country! Going to sleep in the moonlight and
soft air of Italy, I seem to have waked imbedded in Lapland snow. Yet,
as I would not be an Antony, with a genius bold, and confident in Egypt,
but a trembler and white-livered, in presence of Octavius at Rome, I
summon all my heroism, doff that which became me when environed by
flowers, poetry, music and blooming maidens, and don shield and mail
(that’s figurative for Kersey), prepared to resist ruder shocks than
those of love’s arrows. Par _parenthese_, how the Yankees would suffer,
if we could do our _devoirs_ as bravely and as heartily in the heat and
dust and smoke of battle, as in the charmed air of ladies!
“Enough about us. I wonder what this will find our friends doing? My
dear Mrs. Celeste? Embroidering the Senatorial _laticlave_ or musing on
sweet Macon, sweeter Huntsville? Mrs. Virginia? In whatever mood or
occupation, it is agreed you have this advantage of us: you carry your
sunshine with you; we men, being but opaque and lunatic bodies, can give
light only by reflection. Imagine, then, in what ‘Cimmerian darkness’ we
revolve here. If you would throw a ray through this darkness, show us
one glimpse of the blue sky through all this battle-smoke, write to us,
directing care General French, Franklin, Virginia. I shall regard, most
affectionately, the carrier who brings such intelligence from that
office to these headquarters. The huge shell that has just shrieked
across the intervening distance from the enemy’s trenches to our
pickets, and exploding, is not yet done reverberating, reminds me that I
might tell you a little of our situation here.
“The reticence of our General forbids all knowledge of his plans and
ultimate designs. I can only say that our army, embracing three
divisions, closely invests Suffolk on three sides, its water and
railroad communications into Norfolk being still complete, except that
General French, having possession of one bank of the river, is working
hard to get into position guns of sufficient calibre to destroy their
gunboats. That, in the meantime, large foraging parties and immense
wagontrains have been sent out for provisions. So that this of forage
may be the grand design after all, and instead of living that we may
fight, are fighting that we may live, the latter being a very desperate
situation, but the more laudable endeavour of the two, perilling our
lives, not only for the vitality of our principles as patriots, but for
the very sustenance of our lives as men, seeking corn and bacon as well
as the ‘bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth.’ But I began a
love-letter; I fear I am ending most unetherially. Starting to wing a
flight across the sea, Icarus-like, my wings have proved to be of wax,
melting with a too near approach to the sun, and I find myself
floundering, and clearing my nose and eyes and mouth of the enveloping
salt water. Being not even a swimmer, I escape drowning by ending
(Icarus found nereids and yellow-haired nymphs to assist him), with much
love to your husbands, and an infinite quantity to yourselves,
Yours,
“CLIFF LANIER.”
“God bless you both. Write to us!” said Sid., our dear Orpheus of the
South. “Have you ever, my Two Good Friends, wandered, in an all-night’s
dream, through exquisite flowery mosses, through labyrinthine grottoes,
‘full of all sparkling and sparry loveliness,’ over mountains of unknown
height, by abysses of unfathomable depth, all beneath skies of an
infinite brightness caused by no sun; strangest of all, wandered about
in wonder, as if you had lived an eternity in the familiar contemplation
of such things?
“And when, at morning, you have waked from such a dream and gone about
your commonplace round of life, have you never stopped suddenly to gaze
at the sun and exclaimed to yourself, ‘what a singular thing it is up
there; and these houses, bless me, what funny institutions, not at all
like my grottoes and bowers, in which I have lived for all eternity; and
those men and women walking about there, uttering strange gibberish, and
cramming horrid messes of stuff in their mouths, what dear, odd
creatures! What does it all mean, anyhow, and who did it, and how is one
to act, under the circumstances?’ ...
“If you have dreamed, thought and felt _so_, you can realise the
imbecile stare with which I gaze on all this life that goes on around me
here. Macon was my twoweeks’ dream. I wake from that into Petersburg, an
indefinitely long, real life....
“SID LANIER.”
Of the after months of ’3, the story of my life is one of continuous
change. I migrated between Richmond and our kin at Petersburg, paying an
occasional visit to Warrenton, North Carolina, so long as the roads were
open, or sometimes visiting our friends, the McDaniels, at Danville;
sometimes, accompanied by our sister, I made a visit to the nearby
camps, or to the multiplying colonies of the sick and wounded. He was a
fortunate soldier in those terrible days, who fell into the hands of
private nurses. Patients in the hospitals suffered, even for necessary
medicines. Sugar was sold at fifty Confederate dollars a pound.
Vegetables and small fruits were exceedingly scarce. My visits to the
hospital wards were by no means so constant as those of many of my
friends, yet I remember one poor little Arkansas boy in whom I became
interested, and went frequently to see, wending my way to his cot
through endless wards, where an army of sick men lay, minus an arm, or
leg, or with bandaged heads that told of fearful encounters. The
drip—drip of the water upon their wounds to prevent the development of a
greater evil is one of the most horrible remembrances I carry of those
days. I went through the aisles of the sick one morning, to see my
little patient, a lad of seventeen, not more. Above the pillow his hat
was hung, and a sheet was drawn over the cot—and the tale was told.
In Richmond, Miss Emily Mason (sister of John Y. and James M. Mason),
and Mrs. General Lee were indefatigable in their hospital work; and Mrs.
Phoebe Pember, sister of Mrs. Philip Phillips, was a prominent member of
a regularly organised Hospital Committee, who, afterward, recorded her
experiences in an interesting volume, reflecting the gay as well as the
grave scenes through which she had passed; for, happily, in the
experiences of these self-sacrificing nurses there was often a mingling
of the comical with the serious which had its part in relieving the
nerve-tension of our noble women. On every side the inevitable was
plainly creeping toward us. The turmoil in the governmental body
augmented constantly. The more patriotic recognised that only in
increased taxation lay the prolonging of our national life; but, at the
mention of such measure, protests poured in from many sides. Our poor,
wearied citizens could ill sustain a further drain upon them. To the
credit of my sex, however, we never complained. No Roman matron, no
Spartan mother, ever thrilled more to the task of supporting her
warriors, than did we women of the South land! To the end we held it to
be a proud privilege to sacrifice where by so doing we might hold up the
hands of our heroes in field or forum.
“I pity those who have no country to love or to fight for!” wrote Mrs.
Yulee, the “Madonna of the Wickliffe sisters,” from her home in Florida.
“It is this very country of yours and mine that induces me to write this
letter. I want you to use your influence (you have much) to induce those
law-makers to come up to our necessities. Tax! tax! tax our people to
half we have, if necessary, but let the world know we are paying! Ten
victories will not give the Yankees such a blow as this fact. Now, Mrs.
Clay, God has given you many friends. Stir them up to their duty!...
Bragg’s defeat fills us all with gloom, yet we are not discouraged. I
have never felt a doubt of my country, but dark and painful trials are
yet before us, perhaps!”
Alas! Alas!