BULL RUN AND FAIR OAKS
We had small faith in my uncle's wireless telegraphy, but in a short
time we had confirmation of his news.
Then came the details of the first great battle of the war. "Glorious
news!" everybody said. A glorious triumph for the South,—an utter rout
of the enemy; but my heart sank within me at the tale of blood. How
about those boys I had seen march away? What would life hold for some
of the wives and mothers and sweethearts at home?
What was glory to the gallant Colonel Bartow, lying in state at the
capitol in Richmond? Could glory dry his widow's tears or console his
aged mother? We gathered details of the last moments of the men who
fell. It was all so strange! _Could_ it be true that these things had
actually happened in Virginia?
Our men, when the bodies were brought home, could tell many stories of
officers—but how about the boys in the ranks? Bartow had been unhorsed
in the fight, and his aide, young Lamar, dashed across the field amid a
hail of bullets to procure another mount for his Colonel. Suddenly Lamar
was seen to fall with his horse. Extricating himself, and perceiving
that his horse was shot, he started to proceed on foot; the wounded
animal tried to rise and follow. Our men saw Lamar turn in that deadly
fire, stoop down, and pat the poor horse on the neck. Another volley of
bullets ended the noble animal's life, and Lamar returned just in time
to bear Bartow's body from the field.
I grew so restless and unhappy that I turned my face homeward to
Petersburg. My resolution was taken. I steadily withstood all the
entreaties of my friends, and determined to follow my husband's regiment
through the war. I did not ask his permission. I would give no trouble.
I should be only a help to his sick men and his wounded. I busied myself
in preparing a camp equipage—a field-stove with a rotary chimney, ticks
for bedding, to be filled with straw or hay or leaves as the case might
be, a camp chest of tin utensils, strong blankets, etc. A tent could
always be had from Major Shepard, our quartermaster. News soon came that
the Third Virginia had been ordered to Smithfield. McClellan was looking
toward the Peninsula, and Major-General Joseph E. Johnston was keeping
an eye on McClellan.
When I set forth on what my father termed my "wild-goose chase," I found
the country literally alive with troops. The train on which I travelled
was switched off again and again to allow them to pass. My little boys
had the time of their lives, cheering the soldiers and picnicking at
short intervals all day.
But Smithfield would not hear of the camp outfit. The great box was
trundled away to the warehouse, and I was hospitably taken into one of
the homes of the little town.
After a while things looked as if I would probably stay in Smithfield
the rest of my natural life. So I rented a small furnished house,
bought a cow, opened an account with Mr. Britt, the grocer, also with
a fisherman who went out every night on Pagan Creek with a light in
his boat, drew his blanket around him and dozed, while the fat little
mullets jumped in for my breakfast. Until the mullet species becomes
extinct nobody need starve in Smithfield.
The Third Virginia and its Colonel were giving themselves up to murmurs
and discontent at being "buried in Smithfield" while gallant fighting
was going on elsewhere, meanwhile studying Hardee and Jomini with
all their might. Not one of the officers or men had ever before seen
military service. The daily drill was the only excitement.
Here they were, fastened hand and foot, strong, ardent fellows, while so
much was going on elsewhere,—Stonewall Jackson marching on his career
of glory, Beauregard ordered to active service in the West, Fort Henry
and Fort Donelson surrendered to the enemy, our army falling back from
Manassas, the mighty Army of the Potomac divided and scattered. Then
came news that General Lee, whose first appointment was from Virginia,
was to have command of all the armies of the Confederacy.
Major-General Pemberton (the gallant hero who held Vicksburg against
such odds) was then our commanding officer at Smithfield. His wife and
her sister, Miss Imogene Thompson, were our grand dames,—deserving the
admiration we accorded them. The beauty of the town was Mary Garnett;
the spirited belle who wore brass buttons and a military cap, Miss
Riddick. Despite all the discouraging news, these young people mightily
cheered the spirits of the officers and helped them to bear inglorious
inaction with becoming fortitude.
General Pemberton varied our own routine somewhat by giving an
occasional dinner party. Once he invited us to an early morning drive
to Cooper's Point, opposite Newport News, where the warships _Congress_
and _Cumberland_ were anchored, with whose guns (so soon to be silenced
by the iron-clad _Merrimac_) we were already familiar. We were a merry
party, assembled in open wagons on a frosty morning, and we enjoyed the
drive with fleet horses through the keen air. Miss Imogene Thompson's
lover was a prisoner of war on board one of the ships. "Look out for
the ball and chain, Imogene!" said the General, as we arrived in sight
of the ships. Through a glass we could see the brave fellows, so soon
to go down with their colors flying before the relentless _Merrimac_,
but not with pretty Imogene's lover, who lived to make her happy after
the cruel war was over.
Another event of personal interest was the presentation to the Colonel
by the ladies of Petersburg of a blue silken state flag. The party
came down the river in a steamboat, and we stood on the river bank in
a stiff breeze while the presentation speech covered the ground of all
the possibilities in store for the Colonel, ending with, "And, sir, if
you _should_ fall," and promises of tears and true faithful hearts to
love and honor him forever. In his answer of thanks he expressed all
the gratitude and chivalry of his heart, but craved sympathy for his
present state of enforced idleness—"for the dearest sacrifice a man can
make for his country is his ambition."
Soon afterwards he was called to Richmond to take his seat in
Congress—and as there was nothing to keep him with the regiment, he left
it with his Lieutenant-Colonel.
But I did not return with him. I had enlisted for the war! For some
reason, which was not explained at the time, he suddenly returned,
and my only knowledge of his coming was a peremptory official order to
change my base—to leave Smithfield next morning at daybreak! The orderly
who brought it stood before me as I read, and looked intensely surprised
when I said: "Tell the Colonel it is impossible! I can't get ready by
to-morrow morning to leave."
"Madam," said the man, gravely, "it is none of my business, but
when Colonel Pryor gives an order, it is best to be a strict
constructionist."
Mr. Britt proved a tower of strength. He closed his store and brought
all his force to help me. My cow was presented with my compliments to
my neighbor, Mrs. Smith, under promise of secrecy (for I knew I must
not alarm the town by my precipitate departure), my camp equipage
brought from the warehouse, my belongings all packed. As the sun rose
next morning, I greeted him from my seat on a trunk in an open wagon on
my way to Zuni, the railway station fifteen miles away. I never saw a
lovelier morning. The cattle were all afield for their early breakfast
of dewy grass, a thin line of smoke was ascending from the cottages on
the wayside. The mother could be seen within, preparing breakfast for
the children, who stood in the door to gaze at us as we passed. The
father was possibly away in the army, although the times were not yet so
stern that every man became a conscript. These humbler folk who lived
close to the highway—what sufferings were in store for them from the
pillage of the common soldier! What terror and dismay for the dwellers
in the broad-porticoed, many-chambered mansions beyond the long avenues
of approach in the distance! I could but think of these things when I
heard the boom of guns on the warships at Newport News, sounds to which
my ears had grown accustomed, but which now took on, somehow, a new
meaning.
I soon learned that the Third Virginia Regiment moved the day after I
received my own marching orders.
McClellan had landed about one hundred thousand efficient troops on the
Peninsula for the movement upon Richmond. General Joseph E. Johnston's
line of about fifty-three thousand men extended across the narrow neck
of land between the York and the James. They gave McClellan battle May 5
at Williamsburg, captured four hundred unwounded prisoners, ten colors,
and twelve field-pieces, slept on the field of battle, and marched off
the next morning at their leisure and convenience. After this my Colonel
was brevetted Brigadier-General.
The news of his probable promotion reached me at the Exchange Hotel in
Richmond, whither I had gone that I might be near headquarters, and thus
learn the earliest tidings from the Peninsula. There the Colonel joined
me for one day. We read with keen interest the announcement in the
papers that his name had been sent in by the president for promotion.
Mrs. Davis held a reception at the Spotswood Hotel on the evening
following this announcement, and we availed ourselves of the opportunity
to make our respects to her.
A crowd gathered before the Exchange to congratulate my husband, and
learning that he had gone to the Spotswood, repaired thither, and
with many shouts and cheers called him out for a speech. This was
very embarrassing, and he fled to a corner of the drawing-room and hid
behind a screen of plants. I was standing near the president, trying to
hold his attention by remarks on the weather and kindred subjects of
a thrilling nature, when a voice from the street called out: "Pryor!
_General_ Pryor!" I could endure the suspense no longer, and asked
tremblingly, "Is this true, Mr. President?" Mr. Davis looked at me with
a benevolent smile and said, "I have no reason, Madam, to doubt it,
except that I saw it this morning in the papers," and Mrs. Davis at once
summoned the bashful Colonel: "What are you doing lying there _perdu_
behind the geraniums? Come out and take your honors." The next day
my bristling eagles, which had faithfully held guard on the Colonel's
uniform, retired before the risen stars of the Brigadier-General.
On May 31 "Old Joe" and "Little Mac," as they were affectionately called
by their respective commands, again confronted each other, and fought
the great two days' battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines.
This battle was said to have been one of the closest, most hotly
contested, and bloody of the war. A few miles from Petersburg the
cannonading could be distinctly heard, and ten or twelve of the Federal
observation balloons could be seen in the air.
McClellan had an army of one hundred thousand; Johnston had sixty-three
thousand. The afternoon and night before a terrible storm had raged,
"sheets of fire, lightning, sharp and dreadful thunderclaps, were fit
precursors of the strife waged by the artillery of man.
"All night long Zeus, the lord of counsel, devised them ill with
terrible thunderings. Then pale fear gat hold upon them."[13]
The roads were deep with mud. With many disadvantages Johnston attacked,
with vigor, the corps of Keyes and Heintzelman, drove them back, and
came near inflicting upon them a crushing defeat. Near the end of the
fight General Johnston was wounded and borne from the field, smiling
and saying, "I'm not sure I am much hurt, but I fear that bit of shell
may have injured my spine."
He had already been wounded by a musket-ball, his enthusiasm having
carried him nearer to the fight than a commanding officer has any right
to be.
A little later he had observed one of his colonels trying to dodge the
shell.
"Colonel," he said, "there is no use dodging! When you hear them, they
have passed."
Just then he fell unconscious into the arms of one of his couriers. A
shell had exploded, striking him on the breast. The moment he regained
consciousness his unwounded hand sought his sword and pistols. They were
gone!
"I would not lose my sword for ten thousand dollars," he exclaimed.
"My father wore it in the war of the Revolution." The courier—Drury L.
Armstead—dashed back through the storm of artillery, found both sword
and pistols, brought them safely, and received one of the pistols as a
token of the gratitude of his chief.[14]
In General George E. Pickett's report of this hard-won battle he says,
"Pryor and Wilcox were on my right; our men moved beautifully and
carried everything before them."
General Johnston was succeeded by General Lee. I did not know for a
long time (for, so absorbing were the events that rapidly followed, the
honors of battle were forgotten) that, after the capture at Fair Oaks of
the Federal brigade under General Casey, "General Roger A. Pryor went
around among the wounded, giving them whiskey and water, and told them
it was a repayment of the kindness with which the wounded Confederate
prisoners were treated at 'Williamsburg,'"[15]—an incident which I hope
I may be pardoned for relating, since the generous tribute affords
an example of the spirit of that true Christian gentleman, General
McClellan.
"He never struck a foul blow and never tolerated mean men or mean
methods about him. His was a high ideal of war, a high sense of chivalry
which is the duty of fighting the belligerent and sparing the weak. His
conduct was keyed to the highest point of honor and generosity in war."
When his march led him to the "White House," whence General Washington
took his bride, Martha Custis, he ordered a guard to be placed around
it; and finding himself alone in St. Peter's Church, where Washington
was married, he records in his diary, "I could not help kneeling at the
chancel and praying that I might save my country as truly as he did."
This was just before the battle at Seven Pines, in which there were
probably arrayed against him the near kindred of Martha Washington. What
would they have thought of the invading general's prayer to "save the
country"? And _his_ country! And at the altar he held in especial homage
because of their grandsire!
Like McClellan, Johnston had not the good fortune to be in accord
with his Executive. "Not only," said an Old Virginian to him as he lay
suffering from his severe wounds, "not only do we deplore this cruel
affliction upon you, General, but we feel it to be a national calamity."
"No, sir," said Johnston, fiercely, rising suddenly upon his unbroken
elbow. "The shot that struck me down was the best ever fired for the
Southern Confederacy, for I possessed in no degree the confidence of
this government, and now a man who does enjoy it will succeed me, and
be able to accomplish what I never could."
The man who succeeded him, General Lee, wrote to the Secretary of War:
"If General Johnston was not a soldier, America never produced one.
If he was not competent to command the army, the Confederacy had no
one who was competent." But even Lee could not control the opinions of
the Executive. General Johnston was relieved from his command in 1864.
General McClellan's treatment, as the world knows, was hardly less
severe and quite as undeserved.
Richmond heard the guns of this bloody battle. As soon as the storm
allowed them, crowds of anxious listeners repaired to the hills, from
which the cannonading and rattle of musketry could be distinctly heard.
The city waked up to a keen realization of the horrors of war. All the
next day ambulances brought in the wounded—and open wagons were laden
with the dead. Six thousand one hundred and thirty-four Confederate
soldiers had been killed; the Federal loss was five thousand and
thirty-one,—eleven thousand one hundred and sixty-five brave men gone
from the country that gave them birth!
The streets of Richmond presented a strange scene—ambulances of wounded
and dying men passed companies arriving on their way to the front, and
each cheered the other. Batteries of artillery thundered through the
streets; messengers and couriers ran hither and thither.
The streets were filled with a motley crowd, citizens hurrying to and
fro, negroes running on messages, newsboys crying "extras" printed on
short slips of the yellow Confederate paper; on one side of the street
regiments arriving from the far South, cheering as they passed; on the
other a train of ambulances bearing the wounded, the dead, the dying.
Now and then a feeble cheer answered the strong men going in to win the
victory these had failed to win, but for which they never ceased to look
until death closed the watching eyes.
Every house was opened for the wounded. They lay on verandas, in halls,
in drawing-rooms of stately mansions. Young girls and matrons stood in
their doorways with food and fruit for the marching soldiers, and then
turned to minister to the wounded men within their doors.
It has been estimated that five thousand wounded men were received in
private houses and hospitals from the field of Seven Pines. The city
was thrilled to its centre. The city had "no language but a cry"! And
yet there was no panic, no frantic excitement. Only that Richmond, the
mirth-loving, pleasure-seeking, was changed into a city of resolute men
and women, nerved to make any sacrifice for their cause.
At all times during the war the Capitol Square was a rallying place
where men met and received news and compared chances of success. They
would sit all day on the hills outside the city and congregate in the
square in the evening to discuss the events of the day and the probable
chances for the morrow.
My news of this battle was coupled with the information that my General
had fallen ill from malarial fever, and had kept up until the army
approached Richmond, but that he was now lying sick in his tent a few
miles from the city.
There I found him. It seemed strange to see the daisies growing all
over the ground on which his little tent was pitched. I obtained leave
to move him at once, and took him to the Spotswood Hotel in Richmond.
"He wants nothing now," said kind Dr. Dean, "except some buttermilk and
good nursing."
The hotel was crowded. President and Mrs. Davis were there, Mrs. Joseph
E. Johnston, Mrs. Myers, wife of the quartermaster-general, and many,
many more whose names are familiar in all the war histories. Everybody
was on the alert and on the _qui vive_.
From my windows I witnessed the constant arrival of officers from every
division of the army. The Louisiana Zouaves were an interesting company
of men. Their handsome young French Colonel Coppens was a fine example
of grace and manly beauty. He would dash up to the door on his handsome
horse, dismount, run up the stairs for a word with some official, run
down again, vault lightly into his saddle, and gallop down the street.
No one was more admired than Colonel Coppens.
I had not visited the drawing-room often before I became aware
that a bitter feud existed between the three eminent ladies I have
mentioned—indeed, the _Richmond Examiner_ gave a most amusing account
of one of their spicy interviews. Jealousy and consequent heartburning
had possessed the bosoms of these ladies—do they not intrude into every
court and camp? And here were court and camp merged into one. Had I
remained idle I should probably have ranged myself on the side of my
_ci-devant_ commanding officer, Mrs. Johnston; but matters of tremendous
importance soon filled every mind and heart.
This was the last reunion of old Washington friends we were to enjoy.
With some of the members of the Thirty-sixth Congress we parted at the
Spotswood Hotel to meet no more on earth. Others met on the battle-field
under circumstances of which they little dreamed when the "state of the
country" was under discussion.
One of the warmest secessionists was L. Q. C. Lamar. His devoted friend,
General Pryor, had parted with him immediately upon the secession of
South Carolina. Their next meeting was at the battle of Williamsburg.
This battle was fought in the woods, and the danger was enhanced by
the falling boughs of the trees. Behind the shelter of a stout oak my
husband found his old friend Colonel Lamar. "Oh, Pryor," he exclaimed,
as the shot and shell crashed through the branches, "what do you think
now of the right of peaceable secession?"