A WINTER OF WANT
I resolved to give my family a Christmas dinner. John invented a
method of making a perfectly satisfactory pie out of sorghum molasses,
thickened with a little flour, mixed with walnut meats, and baked in
a "raised" crust. He prepared a number of these. I bought a piece of
corned beef for fifty dollars. This was boiled with peas. But just as
we were about to gather around the table, we saw a forlorn company of
soldiers passing the door. They had gone out on some raid a week before.
The snow was falling fast, the soldiers walked wearily, with dejected
countenances. "Boys," I said, "are you willing to send the dish of beef
and peas out to them?" They agreed, if only they might carry it; and the
brave little fellows liked the pleasure they gave more than they would
have enjoyed the dinner. They were full of it for days afterward.
We had grown very fond of some of the men around us, and my boys were
so rich in their companionship, that they never complained of their
privations. They were good, wholesome comrades, interested in our books
and in the boys' studies. Captain Lindsay and Captain Glover of General
Wilcox's staff were great comforts. General A. P. Hill and Colonel
William Pegram came often to see us. General Lee often passed the door
on his way to the lines, and paused to inquire concerning our welfare.
I established a little circulating library for dear Colonel Pegram and
our own officers. The books were always faithfully returned, with warm
thanks for the comfort they gave.
The month of January brought us sleet and storm. Our famine grew sterner
every day. Poor little Rose, my cow, could yield only one cupful of
milk, so small was her ration; but we never thought of turning the
faithful animal into beef. The officers in my yard spared her something
every day from the food of their horses.
The days were so dark and cheerless, the news from the armies at a
distance so discouraging, it was hard to preserve a cheerful demeanor
for the sake of the family. And now began the alarming tidings, every
morning, of the desertions during the night. General Wilcox wondered
how long his brigade would hold together at the rate of fifty desertions
every twenty-four hours.
The common soldier had enlisted, not to establish the right of
secession, not for love of the slave,—he had no slaves,—but simply
to resist the invasion of the South by the North, simply to prevent
subjugation. The soldier of the rank and file was not always
intellectual or cultivated. He cared little for politics, less for
slavery. He did care, however, for his own soil, his own little farm,
his own humble home; and he was willing to fight to drive the invader
from it. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not stimulate him in
the least. The negro, free or slave, was of no consequence to him. His
quarrel was a sectional one, and he fought for his section.
In any war, the masses rarely trouble themselves about the merits of
the quarrel. Their pugnacity and courage are aroused and stimulated by
the enthusiasm of their comrades, or by their own personal wrongs and
perils.
Now, in January, 1865, the common soldier perceived that the cause was
lost. He could read its doom in the famine around him, in the faces
of his officers, in tidings from abroad. His wife and children were
suffering. His duty was now to them; so he stole away in the darkness,
and, in infinite danger and difficulty, found his way back to his own
fireside. He deserted, but not to the enemy.
But what can we say of the soldier who remained unflinchingly at his
post _knowing_ the cause was lost for which he was called to meet death?
Heroism can attain no loftier height than this.
Sir Charles Napier,[21] in his campaign against the robber tribes of
Upper Scinde, found that the hills-men had a custom of binding, with a
scarlet thread, the wrist of a leader who fell after some distinguished
act of courage. They thus honored the hand that had wielded a valiant
sword.
A party of eleven English soldiers were once separated from their
fellows, and mistook a signal for an order to charge. The brave fellows
answered with a cheer. On a summit in front of them was a breastwork
manned by seventy of the foe. On they went, charging up the fearful
path, eleven against seventy. There could be but one result. When their
comrades arrived to aid them, every one of the British soldiers was
dead—and around _both_ wrists of every one was twined the red thread!
And so I am sure that to every man who fell in that last hopeless fight,
our brave foes will award the red badge of honor—as our own hearts will
ever strive to deserve it for their sakes.
The horror of military execution was now upon us. Nothing so distressed
my father and myself. Finally General Lee offered the men who had
deserted a last opportunity to wipe out their disgrace and escape the
punishment of their crimes. He granted, by authority of the government,
amnesty to those who would report to the nearest officer on duty within
twenty days, thus giving them the privilege of reëntering the service
in companies where they would not be known.
"Let us," said the general, "oppose constancy to adversity, fortitude
to suffering, and courage to danger, with the firm assurance that He who
gave freedom to our fathers will bless the efforts of their children to
preserve it."
Alas! few availed themselves of this solemn appeal to their manhood.
Meanwhile we received occasional letters from our prisoner in Fort
Lafayette. He was confined in a casemate with about twenty men. A small
grate for burning coal sufficed for the preparation of their rations,
which were issued to them raw. They lay upon straw mats on the floor.
Once daily they could walk upon the ramparts, and my husband's eyes
turned sadly to the dim outlines of the beautiful city where he had
often been an honored guest. The veil which hid from him so much of
the grief and struggle of the future hid also the reward. Little did
he dream he should administer justice on the supreme bench of the
mist-veiled city.
His letters bore but one theme, his earnest prayer for exchange, so that
he might do his part in our defence.
One night all these things weighed more heavily than usual upon me,—the
picket firing, the famine, the military executions, the dear one "sick
and in prison." I sighed audibly, and my son, Theodorick, who slept near
me, asked the cause, adding, "Why can you not sleep, dear mother?"
"Suppose," I replied, "you repeat something for me."
He at once commenced, "Tell me not in mournful numbers"—and repeated
the "Psalm of Life." I did not sleep; those brave words were not strong
enough for the situation.
He paused, and presently his young voice broke the stillness:—
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy
name"—going on to the end of the beautiful psalm of adoration and faith
which nineteen centuries have decreed to be in very truth a Psalm of
Life.
I felt great responsibility in keeping with me my sons, now ten and
twelve years old. At a farmhouse about fifteen miles in the country a
member of the family was living, and availing myself of a passing wagon,
I sent the boys to share his plenty and comfort. A few days afterwards
they returned—a dusty, footsore pair of urchins. They had run away and
come home! Moreover, they had found an old horse left on the roadside
to die,—which Roger refused to leave,—had shared their luncheon with
him, given him water, assisted him to his feet, and by slow stages led
him home!
"Oh! _how_ shall we feed him?" I exclaimed, in despair.
"I'll help," said Captain Lindsay; "he shall be immediately introduced
to my mare, and she shall share her oats with him;" and a very
sober-minded, steady horse he proved to be, quite good enough to be
stolen, as he finally was, by the enemy.
My friend, General Wilcox, put my own friendship to a severe test
one morning. Standing by the mantel in his accustomed attitude,
he informed me that he had received many kind attentions from the
ladies of Petersburg (I was aware of an affair of the heart in which
a pretty widow was concerned), and he proposed to give a _déjeuner à
la fourchette_, and invite them out to his tent. Would I chaperon the
occasion, and might my parlor be used as a reception room?
"Of course, General!" I replied. "They will be welcome to me, and to the
parlor. The '_fourchette_' will be forthcoming without fail, but where,
oh, where can we find the '_déjeuner_'?"
"I have thought of all that," said the General. "I will send half a
dozen fellows out with guns to bring in birds. I'll get John to make
some cakes and biscuits, we'll brew a bowl of punch. _Voilà!_ What more
do you want?"
"That will be fine," I assured him, and accordingly his invitations were
sent, handsomely written, to about thirty people. A load of evergreens
was delivered at the tent, and all hands set to work to weave garlands.
Every candle in camp was "pressed." John made a fine success of his
sponge cakes, and also fruit and nut cake—the fruit, disguised dried
apples, the nuts, walnuts.
The day before the event the General leaned, a dejected figure, against
the mantel.
"Those—blamed—soldiers have returned. They didn't bag a bird."
"I feared that! Virginia partridges are hunted with dogs. Besides, where
can you find game within twenty miles of an army?"
"Well, it will take six months' pay, but we must buy oysters. I don't
know what else we can do."
"General," I said, "suppose you have a breakfast like one Mrs. ——, from
North Carolina, gave here when she stayed with me last month. She had
little _ménus_ neatly written, including various dishes. The dishes,
however, were imaginary. They did not appear! The guests left with the
impression that these things had been provided, but that accidents which
were to be counted on in time of war had spoiled them. Now, John could
easily announce a fall of soot from the chimney,—like Caleb Balderstone!
Aunt Jinny would make an admirable 'Mysie.' Have you never heard her
'skirl'? We might imagine partridges, turkey, and ham, and then imagine
the accidents. What could be simpler?"
The General's breakfast was a great success. The weather was fine. One
of his staff, who was not invited, confided to me his fear that there
would be nothing left! And, indeed, the guests brought noble appetites.
The General took in the pretty widow. General A. P. Hill honored me. A
gay procession of open wagons filled with merry guests left the door at
sunset, and sang "The Bonnie Blue Flag" as they wended their way home.
General Lee from his headquarters could hear the song, and doubtless it
cheered his sympathetic heart, albeit he knew a battle was near at hand.
He could not know that in that battle General Hill and Colonel Pegram
would fall with all their wounds in front, among the first of those
martyrs whose lives were sacrificed after the leaders _knew_ there was
no more life in the cause for which they died.
Our friends in town sent many invitations to us dwellers in tents. Of
course, I accepted none of them. I had no heart for gayety, and not
one moment's time to spare from my sewing. It is passing strange—this
disposition to revel in times of danger and suffering. Florence was
never so gay as during the Plague! The men of our army who had been
absent three years were now near their homes, and they abandoned
themselves to the opportunities of the hour. Some of them were engaged
to the beautiful young women of Petersburg. "This is no time for
marriage," said General Lee, "no time while the country is in such
peril;" and yet he granted a furlough now and then to some soldier who
was unwilling to wait.
There were parties, "starvation parties," as they were called on
account of the absence of refreshments impossible to be obtained. Not
even the lump of sugar allowed by Lady Morgan at her _conversaziones_
was possible here; but notwithstanding this serious disadvantage, ball
followed ball in quick succession. "The soldier danced with the lady
of his love at night, and on the morrow danced the dance of death in
the deadly trench on the line." There the ranks closed up; and in the
ball room they closed up also. There was always a comrade left for the
partner of the belle; and not one whit less valiant was the soldier
for his brief respite. He could go from the dance to his place in the
trenches with a light jest, however heavy his heart might be. And when
the beloved commander ordered him forth, he could step out with martial
tread and cheer and song—to the march or into battle. I think all who
remember the dark days of the winter of 1864-1865 will bear witness to
the unwritten law enforcing cheerfulness. It was tacitly understood that
we must make no moan, yield to no outward expression of despondency or
despair.
On January 30 General Wilcox came in, bringing great news. Three
commissioners authorized to meet representatives of the Federal
government had arrived in Petersburg _en route_ for Fortress Monroe.
They were Vice-President Stephens, Senator R. M. T. Hunter, and James
A. Campbell, former Assistant Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States, and now Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States.
"I thought," said the General, "you might come out and listen to the
cheering. It is echoed by the enemy. There seems to be no doubt of the
feeling on both sides."
I begged the General to lend me an ambulance, and drove out to the
front. The troops of Fort Gregg and Battery 45—just in the rear of my
garden—had come out and were cheering vociferously. There seemed to be
a truce for the moment. We could distinctly hear the answering cheers
from the opposing fortifications.
My ambulance drew up to the side of the road, and presently an open
carriage appeared, with the mayor and the three commissioners. They
paused for a few minutes before crossing the line. With my heart beating
painfully, I left my ambulance and walked to the carriage. There Mr.
Hunter greeted me kindly and introduced me to his companions. Trembling
with emotion, I said:—
"My errand is to you, dear Mr. Hunter. You are going to see President
Lincoln or his representative. I entreat you, I implore you, to remember
your friend General Pryor. He is breaking his heart in prison. Beg his
release from Mr. Lincoln."
"I will—we will," they promised. The carriage proceeded, and as it
crossed the line a mighty cheer went up from the hundreds of soldiers,
Confederate and Union, who were standing on duty and looking on.
In an instant we were enemies again, and I was hastening out of the
range of shot and shell.
On February 5 the commissioners returned from their bootless errand.
Mr. Hunter wrote me that they had "remembered Pryor as was promised,
but his release would not be considered."
An extract from Order No. 2, February 11, 1865, from General Lee,
explains the manner in which our proposals had been received:—
"The choice between war and abject submission is before us.
"To such a proposal, brave men, with arms in their hands, can have but
one answer.
"They cannot barter manhood for peace, nor the right of self-government
for life or property.
"Taking new resolution from the fate which our enemies intend for us,
let every man devote all his energies to the common defence."
I am afraid we were too faint from want of food to be as courageous as
our noble commander expected. Flour was now selling for $1500 a barrel;
bacon, $20 a pound; beef, $15 ditto: butter could be had at $20 a pound.
One chicken could be bought for $50. Shad sold for $50 a pair (before
the war the price was not more than ten or fifteen cents). One hundred
dollars was asked for one dollar in gold, making the price I had given
to save John from a negro trader $10,600!—news which he heard with such
concern that I hastened to tell him I had never regretted it.
John bethought himself of the fishes in the pond and streams, but not
a fish-hook was for sale in Richmond or Petersburg. He contrived, out
of a cunning arrangement of pins, to make hooks, and sallied forth
with my boys. But the water was too cold, or the fish had been driven
down-stream by the firing. The usual resource of the sportsman with an
empty creel—a visit to the fishmonger—was quite out of the question.
There was no fishmonger any more.
Under these circumstances you may imagine my sensations at receiving
the following note:—
"MY DEAR MRS. PRYOR: General Lee has been honored by a visit
from the Hon. Thomas Connolly, Irish M.P. from Donegal.
"He ventures to request you will have the kindness to give Mr.
Connolly a room in your cottage, if this can be done without
inconvenience to yourself."
Certainly I could give Mr. Connolly a room; but just as certainly I
could not feed him! The messenger who brought the note hastily reassured
me. He had been instructed to say that Mr. Connolly would mess with
General Lee. I turned Mr. Connolly's room over to John, who soon became
devoted to his service. The M.P. proved a most agreeable guest, a
fine-looking Irish gentleman with an irresistibly humorous, cheery fund
of talk. He often dropped in at our biscuit toasting, and assured us
that we were better provided than the commander-in-chief.
"You should have seen 'Uncle Robert's' dinner to-day, Madam! He had two
biscuits, and he gave me one."
Another time Mr. Connolly was in high feather.
"We had a glorious dinner to-day! Somebody sent 'Uncle Robert' a box of
sardines."
General Lee, however, was not forgotten. On fine mornings quite a
procession of little negroes, in every phase of raggedness, used to
pass my door, each one bearing a present from the farmers' wives of
buttermilk in a tin pail, for General Lee. The army was threatened
with scurvy, and buttermilk, hominy, and every vegetable that could be
obtained was sent to the hospital.
Mr. Connolly interested himself in my boys' Latin studies.
"I am going home," he said, "and tell the English women what I have seen
here: two boys reading Cæsar while the shells are thundering, and their
mother looking on without fear."
"I am too busy keeping the wolf from my door," I told him, "to concern
myself with the thunderbolts."
The wolf was no longer at the door! He had entered and had taken up
his abode at the fireside. Besides what I could earn with my needle, I
had only my father's army ration to rely upon. My faithful John foraged
right and left, and I had reason to doubt the wisdom of inquiring too
closely as to the source of an occasional half-dozen eggs or small bag
of corn. This last he would pound on a wooden block for hominy. Meal
was no longer procurable. As I have said, we might occasionally purchase
for five dollars the head of a bullock from the commissary, every other
part of the animal being available for army rations. By self-denial on
our own part, we fondly hoped we could support our army and at last win
our cause. We were not, at the time, fully aware of the true state of
things. Our men were so depleted from starvation that the most trifling
wound would end fatally. Gangrene would supervene, and then nothing
could be done to prevent death. Long before this time, at Vicksburg,
Admiral Porter found that many a dead soldier's haversack yielded
nothing but a handful of parched corn. _We_ were now enduring a sterner
siege.
Before daylight, on the 2d of March, General Lee sent for General
Gordon, who was with his command at a distant part of the line.[22]
Upon arriving, General Gordon was much affected by seeing General Lee
standing at the mantel in his room, his head bowed on his folded arms.
The room was dimly lighted by a single lamp, and a smouldering fire was
dying on the hearth. The night was cold and General Lee's room chill
and cheerless.
"I have sent for you, General Gordon," said General Lee, with a dejected
voice and manner, "to make known to you the condition of our affairs
and consult with you as to what we had best do. I have here reports
sent in from my officers to-night. I find I have under my command, of
all arms, hardly forty-five thousand men. These men are starving. They
are already so weakened as to be hardly efficient. Many of them have
become desperate, reckless, and disorderly as they have never been
before. It is difficult to control men who are suffering for food.
They are breaking open mills, barns, and stores in search of it. Almost
crazed from hunger, they are deserting in large numbers and going home.
My horses are in equally bad condition. The supply of horses in the
country is exhausted. It has come to be just as bad for me to have a
horse killed as a man. I cannot remount a cavalryman whose horse dies.
General Grant can mount ten thousand men in ten days and move around
your flank. If he were to send me word to-morrow that I might move out
unmolested, I have not enough horses to move my artillery. He is not
likely to send me any such message, although he sent me word yesterday
that he knew what I had for breakfast every morning. I sent him word I
did not think that this could be so, for if he did he would surely send
me something better.
"But now let us look at the figures. As I said, I have forty-five
thousand starving men. Hancock has eighteen thousand at Winchester.
To oppose him I have not a single vidette. Sheridan, with his terrible
cavalry, has marched unmolested and unopposed along the James, cutting
the railroads and the canal. Thomas is coming from Knoxville with thirty
thousand well-equipped troops, and I have, to oppose him, not more than
three thousand in all. Sherman is in North Carolina with sixty-five
thousand men.... So I have forty-five thousand poor fellows in bad
condition opposed to one hundred and sixty thousand strong and confident
men. These forces, added to General Grant's, make over a quarter of a
million. To prevent them all from uniting to my destruction, and adding
Johnston's and Beauregard's men, I can oppose only sixty thousand men.
They are growing weaker every day. Their sufferings are terrible and
exhausting. My horses are broken down and impotent. General Grant may
press around our flank any day and cut off our supplies."
As a result of this conference General Lee went to Richmond to make one
more effort to induce our government to treat for peace. It was on his
return from an utterly fruitless errand that he said:—
"I am a soldier! It is my duty to obey orders;" and the final disastrous
battles were fought.
It touches me to know now that it was after this that my beloved
commander found heart to turn aside and bring me comfort. No one knew
better than he all I had endeavored and endured, and my heart blesses
his memory for its own sake. At this tremendous moment, when he had
returned from his fruitless mission to Richmond, when the attack on
Fort Steadman was impending, when his slender line was confronted by
Grant's ever increasing host, stretching twenty miles, when the men were
so starved, so emaciated, that the smallest wound meant death, when his
own personal privations were beyond imagination, General Lee could spend
half an hour for my consolation and encouragement.
Cottage Farm being on the road between headquarters and Fort Gregg—the
fortification which held General Grant in check at that point—I saw
General Lee almost daily going to this work, or to "Battery 45." On
Sundays he regularly passed on his famous horse, Traveller, on his way
to a little wooden chapel, going often through sleet and rain, bending
his head to shield his face from the storm.
I was, as was my custom, sewing in my little parlor one morning, about
the middle of March, when an orderly entered, saying:—
"General Lee wishes to make his respects to Mrs. Pryor." The General
was immediately behind him. His face was lighted with the anticipation
of telling me his good news. With the high-bred courtesy and kindness
which always distinguished his manner, he asked kindly after my welfare,
and, taking my little girl in his arms, began gently to break his news
to me:—
"How long, Madam, was General Pryor with me before he had a furlough?"
"He never had one, I think," I answered.
"Well, did I not take good care of him until we camped here so close to
you?"
"Certainly," I said, puzzled to know the drift of these preliminaries.
"I sent him home to you, I remember," he continued, "for a day or two,
and you let the Yankees catch him. Now he is coming back to be with you
again on parole until he is exchanged. You must take better care of him
in future."
I was too much overcome to do more than stammer a few words of thanks.
Presently he added, "What are you going to say when I tell the General
that in all this winter you have never once been to see me?"
"Oh, General Lee," I answered, "I had too much mercy to join in your
buttermilk persecution!"
"Persecution!" he said; "such things keep us alive! Last night, when
I reached my headquarters, I found a card on my table with a hyacinth
pinned to it, and these words: 'for General Lee, with a kiss!' Now," he
added, tapping his breast, "I have here my hyacinth and my card—_and I
mean to find my kiss_!"
He was amused by the earnest eyes of my little girl, as she gazed into
his face.
"They have a wonderful liking for soldiers," he said. "I knew one little
girl to give up all her pretty curls willingly, that she might look
like Custis! 'They _might_ cut my hair like Custis's,' she said. Custis!
whose shaven head does not improve him in any eyes but hers."
His manner was the perfection of repose and simplicity. As he talked
with me I remembered that I had heard of this singular calmness. Even
at Gettysburg, and at the explosion of the crater, he had evinced no
agitation or dismay. I did not know then, as I do now, that nothing had
ever approached the anguish of this moment, when he had come to say an
encouraging and cheering word to me, after abandoning all hope of the
success of the cause.
After talking awhile and sending a kind message to my husband, to greet
him on his return, he rose, walked to the window, and looked over the
fields—the fields through which, not many days afterward, he dug his
last trenches!
I was moved to say, "You only, General, can tell me if it is worth my
while to put the ploughshare into those fields."
"Plant your seeds, Madam," he replied; sadly adding, after a moment,
"the doing it will be some reward."
I was answered. I thought then he had little hope. I now know he had
none.
He had already, as we have seen, remonstrated against further
resistance—against the useless shedding of blood. His protest had been
unheeded. It remained for him now to gather his forces for endurance to
the end.
Twenty days afterward his headquarters were in ashes; he had led his
famished army across the Appomattox; and, telling them they had done
their duty, and had nothing to regret, he had bidden them farewell
forever.