AGAIN IN WASHINGTON
By September I had reopened correspondence with many Washington friends.
As will have been seen by a perusal of certain preceding letters, the
question of giving me permission to return to the capital already had
been broached to the President and Secretary of War, by Judge Black and
others. It was now again brought to the attention of Mr. Johnson, by Mr.
Duff Green, a long-time friend of ex-Governor Clay, of my husband, and
of the President’s. It was the first application of all that had been
sent to the Government to bring a response. The Executive’s reply was
couched as follows:
“I am directed by the President to say that an application for
permission to visit Washington, made by Mrs. C. C. Clay, Jr., over her
own name, will be considered by him.
R. MORROW,
“Major and A. A. G., Secretary.”
In forwarding this communication to me, Mr. Green wrote:
“We think there is nothing to prevent your coming at once. To wait for
permission may delay you weeks, and perhaps months. Your coming would
not prejudice either yourself or your husband, and you can do more by a
personal application to the President than by an application ‘over your
own name.’”
Two months dragged by, however, ere I could complete arrangements for
the journey and detach myself from our clinging parents, who, deprived
of all of their other children, now placed their dependence upon me.
Notwithstanding their hearts ached for some assurance of Mr. Clay’s
safety, they were ill-disposed to look upon my projected trip with
favour. Huntsville was in complete subjugation to the Federal
representatives. We had numerous reasons to realise the pitiless and
cruel policy that had been inaugurated by our conquerors, and few to
lead us to look for kinder things at the hands of the powers at
Washington. The reports that reached us of the treatment accorded to
those Southerners who had already proceeded to the capital, even
allowing for the prejudice of editors unfriendly to us, were not of a
kind to encourage a hope for clemency or justice there. The efforts of
the wives of other prisoners to communicate with their husbands, their
applications to the Government to grant them the right of trial, not
only had been of no avail, but, in some instances, had made them the
direct objects of attack from those inimical to them. “I have had a
weary time,” one wrote late in October, “but of that, if you knew how
weary, you would cry out ‘No more an’ you love me,’ rather than bear the
infliction of the retrospect, so I will not torment you.” ... President
Johnson’s remarks to the South Carolina Delegation, concerning Mrs.
Davis’s efforts, became the talk of the country. I was astonished when I
learned that she had never written a line without consultation with Mr.
Schley and his, in turn, consulting General Steedman upon the tenor of
her letters, and receiving the approval of both on the manner of
presenting the subject. It was the old fable of the lamb whose
grandfather muddied the stream.
Such news served further to convince my husband’s parents of the
futility of the trip I was contemplating. They urged that I would be
attacked on every side so soon as I entered the Federal capital; they
pleaded, too, alas! the stringency of our present means, a very vital
objection just then to us whose every possession had either been
“confiscated” or otherwise rendered useless to us. Nevertheless, every
moment anxiety was consuming me. I resolved to act while I had the
strength, and made known my resolve to our parents.
The middle of November had arrived ere, by the aid of Mr. Robert
Herstein, a kindly merchant of Huntsville (“may his tribe increase”),
who advanced me $100 in gold (and material for a silk gown, to be made
when I should reach my destination), I was enabled to begin my journey
to the capital. Under the escort of a kind friend and neighbour, Major
W. H. Echols, of Huntsville, who, having in mind the securing of a
certain patent, arranged his plans so as to accompany me to Washington,
I bade father and mother “good-bye” and stepped aboard the train. My
heart sometimes beat high with hope, yet, at others, I trembled at what
I might encounter. Fortunately for the preservation of my courage, I had
no forewarning that I had looked, for the last time, upon the sorrowful
face of our mother. Her closing words, in that heartbreaking farewell,
were of hope that I would soon return bringing with me her dearest son.
With the desire to cheer them both, I wrote back merrily as I proceeded
on my way; but, indeed, I had small need to affect a spirit of buoyancy;
for, from the beginning, I was the recipient of innumerable kindnesses
from fellow-travellers who learned my identity. In many instances my
fare was refused by friendly railroad conductors.
“I have paid literally nothing thus far,” I wrote from Louisville,
Kentucky, which city I reached early in the morning of November 15th.
“At Nashville,” my letter added, “we took sleeping cars, which were as
luxurious as the bed that now invites me. I had, however, an amusing,
and, at first blush, an alarming nocturnal adventure. I was waked by the
rattling of paper at my head, and, half unconsciously putting out my
hand, it lighted on the hairy back of some animal! I sprang out of bed,
raised the curtain, and there sat, in the corner of my berth, the most
monstrous _coon_ you ever saw! The black around his eyes at first made
him appear like an owl, but he proved to be a genuine old ‘zip coon.’ So
I got out one of ‘Mammy ’Ria’s’ nice biscuit, which have been greatly
complimented by my friends, and asked him please to come out of my bed
and eat some supper. But he wouldn’t! And I had to wake Major Echols in
the gentlemen’s apartment, who forcibly ejected him after a good laugh
at me!”
A day later and we reached Cincinnati, where, owing to the late arrival
of the boat, the _St. Nicholas_, on which we had travelled from
Louisville, through banks of fog, we were delayed some twelve hours. Our
trip on this river steamer was, in its way, a kind of triumphal
progress, very reassuring to me at that critical moment. As I wrote back
to father, “We found the captain a good Southerner and a noble old
fellow! Had one son in the Federal Army and lost one at Shiloh! Mr.
Hughes, of the Louisville _Democrat_, was aboard; he said his paper had
been suppressed, but he would now be permitted to go South. He is a
rabid secessionist, and promised to copy the _News_[53] articles
concerning my husband.” On board, too, was Mrs. Gamble, of Louisville, a
wealthy woman whose name was associated with innumerable kindnesses to
our soldiers, and generous gifts to our cause. She was a sad woman, but
sympathised greatly with Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay, and begged that upon my
return from Washington we would make our home with her “until better
times.”
Upon learning the length of time we must spend in Cincinnati, I went at
once to the Spencer House, whence I wrote and immediately despatched
notes to my old friends, Mrs. George E. Pugh, wife of the ex-Senator,
and to Senator and Mrs. George H. Pendleton (the first a resident of the
city, the last-named residents of Clifton, a suburb), telling them of my
unexpected presence in the city, and hoping to see them during the day.
On my way to the hotel, I had looked about the city with increasing
interest and pleasure. How different it was from our devastated country!
“You never saw the like of the fruit!” I wrote enthusiastically to
mother. “Grapes, oranges, apples; such varieties of nuts—cream, hazel,
hickory, and English walnuts—as are on the beautiful stall just at the
entrance of the hotel! The Major has just entered, laughing heartily at
Yankee tricks and Yankee _notions_! He says a man said to him, ‘Insure
your life, sir?’
“‘For what?’ says the Major.
“‘For ten cents!’ replies the man. ‘And if you are killed on the cars,
your family gets $3,000 cash!’
“‘Three thousand?’ rejoins Major Echols, contemptuously. ‘What’s that to
a man worth a _million_!’ at which all stare as if shot. I laugh, too,
but tell him I fear we will be made to pay for his fun, if they think us
_millionaires_!”
The day was half gone when dear Mrs. Pugh, only a few years ago the
triumphant beauty of the Pierce and Buchanan administrations, but now a
pale, saddened woman, clad in deep mourning, appeared. God! what private
sorrows as well as national calamities had filled in the years since we
had separated in Washington! The pathos of her appearance opened a very
flood-gate of tears, which I could not check. But Mrs. Pugh shed none.
She only put out a restraining hand to me.
“No tears now, I beg of you. I can’t endure it. Tell me of yourself, of
your plans. Where are you going? What of Mr. Clay? How can I aid you?”
she asked, turning away all discussion save as to the object of my
journey.
The afternoon was already nearly spent when Senator and Mrs. Pendleton
arrived, having driven in from their suburban home upon the receipt of
my note, sent at mid-day. Their welcome was cordial and frank as in the
old days. They had come to take me home to dinner, where, they assured
me, we might talk more freely than at the hotel. They would take no
refusal, but agreed with Major Echols, who was unable to accompany us,
to see me safely to the station in ample time to take the midnight train
for Washington. In the hours that followed, I learned somewhat of the
experiences in the North, during the bloody strife of the four years
just closed, of Southern sympathisers, even where their sympathy was
restrained from announcing itself by an open espousal. Senator
Pendleton’s known friendliness for Clement L. Vallandigham, whose
fearlessness and outspoken zeal in our behalf had cost him so dearly,
had brought its own penalties. At times, he told me, when feeling ran
highest, neither his home nor that of Senator Pugh had escaped certain
malodorous missiles of the lawless!
We spent much of the evening in scanning the problems that lay before
me. I told my host of the numbers of brilliant men who had volunteered
their aid to Mr. Clay, mentioning among others the name of Judge Hughes,
of Washington, whose friendly proffer of counsel had reached me just
previous to my departure from Huntsville.
“By all means,” said Senator Pendleton, as we drove at last to the
station, “see Judge Hughes first! He is strictly non-partisan, is a
friend of the President’s, and, moreover, is under obligations to Mr.
Clay, which I know he would gladly repay!”
It was already a late hour when we rejoined the waiting Major Echols.
With a warm “God bless you, dear friend!” Senator and Mrs. Pendleton
bade me “good-bye,” and I stepped aboard the train for Washington. What
that name called up, what my thoughts were, or what my sensations, as I
realised our approach to the city once so attractive, but now seeming to
represent to me a place of oppression and the prison in which for six
months Mr. Clay had been incarcerated, may better be imagined than
described. Early the following morning our train began to thread its way
through familiar country. By mid-day we had reached war-scarred Harper’s
Ferry, and passed over into old Virginia! A short journey now, and I
found myself once more driving up Pennsylvania Avenue in the company of
tried friends, _en route_ to Willard’s.