C. C. CLAY, JR., DEPARTS FOR CANADA
I was in Richmond at my husband’s side when Dahlgren’s raid was made.
Early one morning the cry of danger came. We were still at breakfast,
when Senator Henry, of Tennessee, hurried in. “No Senate to-day, Clay!”
he cried. “A big force of the enemy is at Lyons’s, and every man in the
city is needed! Arm yourself, and come on!” and he hastened on his way
to warn others. Members of Congress shouldered guns, where they could
get them, and mounted guard around the capital. They were an untrained
mass, but they came back victors and deliverers of the city.
The armies having gone into winter quarters, as the close of Mr. Clay’s
Senatorial career in Richmond drew near, he seriously contemplated a
period of needed rest from public duties. Bent upon this, he declined a
judgeship in the Military Court, which had been pressed upon him by Mr.
Davis. We dallied with enticing invitations that reached us from
Florida, and planned what was to be a veritable vacation at last,
together.
“Mr. Yulee is delighted with the hope of seeing you!” wrote the lovely
_chatelaine_ of “Homosassa.” “He will fish with Mr. Clay, and _we_ will
do the same! Just think how good oysters will be in these sad times! Do
come, dear Mr. and Mrs. Clay, just as soon as Congress adjourns! My dear
sister, Mrs. Holt, had a tender and sincere affection for you....”
The prospect of a visit to that lovely retreat, built upon an island,
deep in the green glades of Florida and far away from the political and
martial strife of the intervening States, was very tempting to my
wearied husband, a true lover of woods and trees and the sweet solitudes
of a bucolic life; but we were destined not to enjoy it. Early in the
spring of ’4, Mr. Clay felt it his duty to accept the high
responsibility of a diplomatic mission to Canada, with a view to
arousing in the public mind of this nearby British territory a sympathy
for our cause and country that should induce a suspension of
hostilities. Despite the failure of our representatives in European
countries to rouse apathetic kings and dilly-dallying emperors to come
to our aid, it was hard for us to believe that our courage would not be
rewarded at length by some powerful succour, or yielding.
“I send you my speech,” wrote dear Lamar to me from his sick-bed in
Oxford, Georgia, so late as June,’64. “The views presented in reference
to Louis Napoleon may strike you as at variance with some of the acts,
in which his Imperial Highness has done some very uncivil things in a
very civil way. But his sympathy is with us. It is his policy to
frighten the Yankees into acquiescence in his Mexican enterprise, and he
no doubt would be glad to give French neutrality in American affairs for
Yankee neutrality in Mexican affairs. In this he will fail, and he will
sooner or later find his policy and inclinations jump together. After
all, the British people are more friendly to us than all the world
besides, outside of the [question of] Southern Confederacy. This
friendship, like most national friendships, is mixed up with a large
part of alloy, fear of the Yankees forming the base. But respect for the
South and admiration of her position is the pure metal, and there is
enough of it to make their good-will valuable to us.”
So thought many of our noblest statesmen, when, early in the Spring, Mr.
Clay started on his way through our blockaded coast for Canada. “I
earnestly desire that his services may prove effectual in securing a
permanent peace to our bleeding country; that his efforts may be
recorded as one of the brightest pages in its history,” wrote one; and
from every quarter Mr. Clay and his companions were followed by the
prayers of a people, wrung from hearts agonised by our long, exhausting
strife. When the parting came, the shadow of impending evil fell so
blackly upon my soul, I hastened away from disturbed Petersburg,
accompanied by my faithful maid, Emily, and her child, determined to act
upon Mr. Clay’s suggestion and seek my kin in Georgia. Petersburg was in
the greatest confusion, guns resounding in every direction. Our dear
Aunt Dollie Walker, the saint, whose faith (her Bishop said) had kept
Episcopalianism alive in Virginia through those troublous times, told us
in after days of having been literally chased up the streets by cannon
balls. It was one of the best cities in the Confederacy at that period
to get away from.
I began my journey southward, pausing a day or two at Danville; but,
fearing each moment to hear news of the appearance of impeding armies,
blocking my way through the Carolinas, I hastened on. The news from the
capital which reached us while in Petersburg had been of the worst.
“You have no idea of the intense excitement,” wrote my sister. “I am so
nervous I know not what to write! No one goes to bed here at night. For
several nights past no one could have slept for the confusion and noise.
The city has been in a perfect uproar for a week. We have heard firing
in two directions all the morning, on the Brook Turnpike and at Drewry’s
Bluff. The wounded are being brought into the city in great numbers.
General Walker is wounded! Poor General Stafford’s death cast a gloom
over the city. I went with Mr. Davis to his funeral, and carried
flowers!... General Benning is wounded, and Colonel Lamar, our dear L.
Q. C.’s brother, also.... At the wedding” [of Miss Lyons] “you never saw
such disorder in God’s house before in your life. Mrs. Davis and Mrs.
Mallory and Mrs. Most-everybody-else, stood up in the pews, and you
could not hear one word of the service for the noise. Mr. Davis was
there—Mrs. Chestnut sat with me. She is going home very _soon_, so the
Colonel told me. He said it was impossible for her to remain in Richmond
with nothing to eat!”
To my sister’s panorama of horrors, our brother, who was stationed in
Richmond, added a masculine picture.
“The enemy press us sorely with powerful forces of cavalry and
infantry,” he wrote. “The former cut off our communications everywhere,
hoping to reduce Lee to starvation, and the presence of the latter keeps
from him reinforcements that otherwise would be promptly sent. We have
lost severely around the city. General Stuart was shot by a Yankee
soldier who fired upon him at ten paces as he galloped past him. He died
last night, about twenty-eight hours after he received the wound.
Brigadier General Gordon, also of the cavalry, had his arm shattered
yesterday above the elbow, and ’tis said will probably have to suffer
amputation. Mr. Randolph, the ‘Sir Anthony Absolute’ of your play, was
wounded yesterday in the shoulder and thigh, and will lose the limb
to-day. All the clerks of the office are in the intrenchments and no
work goes on!”
Upon learning of my determination to push on to Georgia, our sister put
away her anxiety and grew facetious at my expense. “I am inclined to
think you are a great coward,” she wrote. “Why did you run from
Petersburg?... I am almost ashamed of you! You never catch me running
from Yankees! Georgia is certainly a _safe_ place.... When we have
killed _all the Yankees_ and the city is perfectly quiet, I invite you
to come on and see us.... I am weary from walking (not _running_) to see
the wounded!”
A month or so later and my sweet sister, speeding _to overtake me_,
joined me at Macon, in time to accompany me to the home of our friend,
Mrs. Winter, in Columbus. Here, to compensate for the tribulations of
the past months, we were promised the most care-free of summers.
Refugees were flocking to that land of safety and plenty just then, and
whether in Macon or Columbus, our time was spent in welcoming
late-comers, in visiting and exchanging news or comment of the times, or
making little excursions to nearby towns. Once we formed a party and
visited the “White Farm” of Augusta Evans, then unmarried. It was a
unique place and celebrated for the unsullied whiteness of every bird
and beast on the place.
Upon our arrival at our friend’s home in Columbus, we found a very
active field awaiting us. It was now mid-summer of ’4, somewhat after
the bloody battle of Atlanta. In anticipation of our coming, Mrs. Winter
had prepared her largest and coolest rooms for us. All was ready and we
about due to arrive, when an unforeseen incident frustrated our
hostess’s plans in regard of our intended pleasuring, and put us all to
more serious work. It was in the late afternoon when our friend, driving
in her calash along the boundaries of the town, came upon a pitiful
sight. Near a group of tents a sick man, a soldier, lay writhing upon
the ground in a delirium, while near by and watching him stood his
alarmed and helpless coloured servant. Mrs. Winter, aroused to pity by
the sight, immediately gave orders that the sufferer be carried to her
home, where he was placed in the room that had been prepared for me.
When my sister and I arrived, a few hours afterward, our sympathies,
too, were at once enlisted for the unfortunate man. He proved to be
Captain Octave Vallette, a Creole, who, previous to his enlistment, with
his brother, had been a ship-builder at Algiers, Louisiana.
A physician was already in attendance when my sister and I arrived, and
an examination of the invalid’s wounds was making.
A week had elapsed since the first hasty dressing of the wound, and the
blackened flesh now suggested the approach of the dreaded gangrene.
The cleansing of the dreadful wound was a terrible ordeal. For days the
patient raved, and to us, just from the camps and hospitals of Virginia,
his frenzied words conveyed most vivid pictures of the experiences our
men were meeting in the deadly fray.
“God! What a hole for soldiers to be in!” he would cry; and then would
mumble on incoherently until, in an accession of fevered strength, he
would burst out, “Give them hell, boys!” while his negro man stood by,
blinded by tears.
Finally, however, our care was rewarded, and our invalid began slowly to
recover. The first day he was able to endure it, we took the Captain to
drive in Mrs. Winter’s calash. He was still weak, and very melancholy;
the injured arm was stiff and all but a useless member. We tried to
cheer him by merry talk. “Surely,” we said at last, as we drove by a
new-made cemetery, with its bare little whitewashed head-boards, “weak
as you are, isn’t this a great deal better than lying out there with a
board at your head marked ‘O. V.’?” At this he smiled, but grimly.
The ensuing months to me were a time of indecision. My sister departed
to rejoin her husband in Richmond, and I, feeling quite cut off from
those nearest to me, formed numerous plans for leaving the Confederate
States. I wished to go to Mr. Clay in Canada, or to England, where so
many dear friends were already installed; and so earnestly did this
desire fix itself in my mind that wheels were set in motion for the
securing of a passport. My friends in Richmond and in Georgia urged me
to reconsider. Mr. Clay might even then be on his way home; would I not
come to the capital and wait? But I declined, and kind Secretary Mallory
acceded to my wishes, though cautioning me against our enemies on the
seas. “I only wish I could send you abroad in a public vessel,” he
wrote, as he inclosed Mr. Seddon’s passport, “but I have not a blockade
runner under my control.
“You will, of course, avoid Bermuda and Nassau. The yellow-fever still
rages and embraces new-comers at the very beach; and knowing that
nothing on earth would ever fail to embrace you that had the power of
doing so, and having a painful experience of his warm and glowing
nature, I am anxious that you shall keep out of his way.... Angela and
Ruby send their love. They regret, with me, that your promised visit to
us is not to be paid.”
Yet, after all these preparations I remained; for, as the weeks passed,
it seemed clear Mr. Clay was likely to arrive at any time. His
associate, Professor Holcombe, had already returned, though wrecked off
the coast of Wilmington. Whole ship-loads of cotton, which had succeeded
in running the blockade and which we fondly hoped would replenish our
pocket-books, had gone to the bottom. On the whole, travel by sea grew
less and less attractive. I concluded to remain on _terra firma_, but to
go on toward Augusta and Beech Island, South Carolina, that I might be
nearer the coast when Mr. Clay should arrive. Ere I left Columbus I had
a ludicrous adventure. Upon coming downstairs one morning, I saw,
approaching the outer, wide-open door, a large, portly figure clad in
Macon Mills muslin. Beyond him, in the street, a wagon stood, or was
passing. It was loaded with watermelons. As I noted them and the figure
approaching, I connected the two at once, and called back to my hostess,
with all the enthusiasm for which I was ever famous at the near prospect
of a “million,” “Cousin Victoria! Don’t you want some melons? Here’s a
watermelon man!” To my surprise, as I neared the door a hearty laugh
rang out; a cordial hand was extended to me, and I recognised before me
genial, jovial General Howell Cobb, who had left his military duties for
the moment, in order to welcome me to Georgia. His long beard, which he
declared he never would shave until our cause was won, together with the
copperas and unbleached suit of muslin, had quite disguised him for the
moment.