AFTER THE WAR.
In the fall of 1865--the year which saw the conclusion of the unhappy
war--I returned to Richmond and to my old home of Talavera, which I had
not seen in four years.
What a shock to me was the first sight of it! In place of the pleasant,
smiling home, there stood a bare and lonely house in the midst of
encircling fortifications, still bristling with dismantled
gun-carriages. Every outbuilding had disappeared. All the beautiful
trees which had made it so attractive--even the young cedar of Lebanon,
which had been our pride--were gone; greenhouses, orchard, vineyard,
everything, had been swept away, leaving only a dead level overgrown
with broom-straw, amidst which were scattered rusted bayonets and a few
hardy plants struggling through the trampled ground. The place was no
longer "_Talavera_," but "_Battery 10_."
In this desolate abode I remained some time, awaiting the arrival of
our scattered family, and with no protectors save a faithful old negro
couple. Each evening we would barricade as well as we could the entrance
to the fort, as some slight protection against the hordes of newly freed
negroes who roamed the country, living on whatever they could pick up.
One evening when we had taken this precaution, some one was heard
calling without, and, mounting the ramparts, I beheld a forlorn looking
figure in black standing upon the outer edge of the trench. It proved to
be Rosalie Poe; and when I had brought her into the light and warmth of
the fire, I saw how changed and ill she appeared. She told me of the
Mackenzies. Mrs. Mackenzie was dead. "Mat" (Mrs. Byrd) was a widow, with
a beautiful young daughter, and her brother, Mr. Richard, was in
wretched health. Miss Jane Mackenzie had died in England, leaving her
fortune to her brother, residing there, and the destruction of the war
had completed the poverty of the family. They lived on a little place in
the country, with a cow and a garden as their chief means of support.
"They have to work for a living now," Rose said, forlornly; "but I am
not strong enough to work. I am going to Baltimore, to my relations
there, and see what they can do for me."
I inquired after young Dr. Mackenzie, gay, handsome, genial "Tom," whom
everybody loved.
"Tom is dead," said Rose, sadly. "He died of camp-fever and bad food.
When he came home he had only the clothes which he wore, and a neighbor
gave us something to bury him in."
With a pang I thought of the gay wedding at Duncan Lodge, and the happy
faces that had been there assembled.
When Rose left me, I could but hope that she would be kindly received by
her relatives in Baltimore. But some months thereafter, being in New
York, I received from her a number of photographs of her brother, which
she begged of me to dispose of for her benefit at one dollar each. Mrs.
M. A. Kidder, of Boston, kindly interested herself in the matter, but
wrote me that she met with but poor success, at even the reduced price
of twenty-five cents, people saying that they had not sufficient respect
for Poe's character to care to possess his portrait. I found it to be
nearly the same in New York. And meantime Rose wrote me every few days.
"DEAR S----: Haven't you got anything for me yet? Do try and do
something for me, for I am worse off now than ever. I walk about the
streets all day" (trying to dispose of her brother's pictures), "and at
night have to look for a place to sleep. I feel like a lost sheep."
Thus the sister of Edgar A. Poe, in the year 1868, wandered homeless and
friendless through the streets of Baltimore, as more than thirty years
previous her brother had done.
We heard long afterward that, through some kind Northern lady, she
applied for admittance to the _Louise Home_, in Washington, which Mr.
Corcoran was willing to grant, but that certain of his "guests"--ladies
who had formerly occupied high social positions--were of opinion that,
considering Miss Poe's eccentricities, she would be better suited and
better satisfied in a less pretentious establishment. Finally she was
received into the "_Epiphany Church Home_," in Washington, where she
seems to have enjoyed a good deal of liberty, being often seen riding on
the street cars and visiting the offices of wealthy business men, who,
if they did not care to possess a photograph of Poe, were yet willing to
assist his penniless sister. It was never known what she did with the
money so collected; but from a letter to Mrs. Byrd, it would appear
that her intention was to purchase a grave for herself near that of her
brother. Mrs. Byrd wrote to me: "I think Poe's friends might lay Rose in
a grave beside him. It has always been her dearest wish."
Rosalie Poe died suddenly, with a letter in her hand but that moment
received, and which, when opened, proved to be from Mr. George W.
Childs, enclosing a check for fifty dollars; doubtless in answer to an
application for aid.
They gave her a pauper's grave in the cemetery of the Epiphany Church
Home. The record of her death by the Board is:
"_Rosalie Poe. Died June 14, 1874. Aged 64._"
Some years after the death of Rose Poe, I received a visit from Mrs.
Byrd, whom I had not seen since the war, and we talked over times past
and present. It had been Rosalie's own choice, she said, to go to
Baltimore. She did not like the country or the hard life which they were
leading. She must have collected considerable money, but never told
where she kept it; nor was it ever found.
She told me about her family. Her pretty daughter had married a poor man
in preference to a rich one who had offered, and they had two beautiful
babies and were very happy. Her brother Richard was infirm and able to
do but little work. They had a little place in the country, where they
raised their own vegetables, and sent poultry and eggs to market. She
and her son-in-law did all the hard work about the place. "I wash and
cook for six persons," said she, cheerily. "Yes," she continued, in her
old quaint way, "we are poor, but respectable, and I am more content
than ever I was at Duncan Lodge. I feel that I have something to live
for, and the working life suits me. Yes, we are happy; although there
are not two tea-cups in the house of the same pattern."
She spoke of Poe, whom she considered to have been always unjustly
treated. Everybody could see what his faults were, but few gave him
credit for his good qualities--his generous nature and kindly and
affectionate disposition, especially as exemplified in the harmony
always existing between himself and his wife and mother-in-law. While
giving the latter full credit for her devotion to Edgar, her impression
was that, except in the matter of his dissipation, her influence over
him had not been for good. Her mother and brother, John, believed that
the marriage with Virginia had been the greatest misfortune of his
life, and that he himself, while patiently resigning himself to his lot,
had come to regard it as such.
Some ten years after the death of Poe I received from Mrs. Clemm a
letter giving a pathetic account of her homelessness and poverty. But,
she added, she had been offered a home with her relatives at the South;
and she appealed to me, as a friend of her "Eddie," to assist her in
raising the money necessary to pay her expenses thither. A similar
appeal she made to other of Poe's former friends; but we heard of her
afterward as an inmate of the Church Home Infirmary in Baltimore, where
she died in 1871, having outlived her son-in-law some twenty-two years.
It is a curious coincidence that the building in which she died was the
same in which, as the Washington Hospital, Poe had breathed his last.
Her grave is in Westminster cemetery, and in sight of Poe's monument.