three brothers and two sisters, all of whom had seen so little of
"Sister" that they knew nothing of her shortcomings and thought she was
the greatest thing in the world.
Then lessons began in earnest and stern duties came to interrupt
childish diversions. When the course laid out for me at home was
completed, my father decided to take me to Lynchburg Seminary. It was a
serious epoch for me, as I was to go among strangers for the first time,
so the farewells were solemn.
As a parting present, "Uncle Charles" brought me a nest of guinea eggs,
a box of sweet gum which he had been collecting for months, a string of
chinquapins and some dried haws, saying as he gave them to me:
"Honey, don't fergit de ole man en bring him sump'n, en remember you's
born but you ain't dead yit."
Others of the servants came with blessings and farewell gifts.
Mary-Frances, who always received more presents than her twin sister and
was noted for her stinginess, bade me a pathetic good-bye, assuring me
that she was "gwine to be good en 'vide her light'ood and things wid
Arabella." As I had disapproved of her selfish refusal to share her
"light'ood" with her sister she thought this promise of generosity would
be the best gift she could bestow upon me as a parting keepsake.
After tender farewells from mother, sisters, and brothers I started off
with my father on what seemed to me a long, long journey.
At Richmond a man in uniform boarded the train. I looked at him with
admiration as he came down the aisle. He was tall and walked erectly
with graceful carriage and a commanding air not dependent upon his
military dress. He stopped and spoke to my father, who arose, greeted
him cordially and, turning back the seat, invited him to join us. He
accepted and my father introduced "Colonel Robert E. Lee." The Colonel
shook hands with me in a gentle way and began to barter for one of my
long curls. In my diffidence I did not close with any of his offers,
though I would have given every curl on my head for the asking, for even
then, to my romantic vision, Colonel Lee was a hero.
He said that he had just returned from Harper's Ferry, where there had
been great excitement. John Brown had descended upon the town and taken
possession of the United States Arsenal. Colonel Lee, home on furlough
from the West, had been sent with the marines from the Washington
barracks and four companies of troops from Fortress Monroe to dispossess
them and restore quiet to the little town in the Virginia hills. It was
not alone Harper's Ferry that had been terrorized; the entire state had
been thrown into a turmoil of excitement.
To a child whose infancy had shuddered at the story of the Nat Turner
insurrection of 1832, the John Brown raid in 1859 was a subject of
horrible fascination, and I listened intently as Colonel Lee talked of
this strange old fanatic and his followers.
"What do you think would be the effect upon the negro, Mr. Corbell,"
Colonel Lee asked my father, "if we should be compelled to hang John
Brown?"
My father replied, "Well, I've thought of that, too, Colonel, and I
asked my foreman, who is a representative of his race, if he did not
think we ought to hang old John Brown." He looked at me earnestly for a
while then, shaking his head slowly, said, "I knows, Marse Dae, dat po'
Marse John done en bruk de law, killin' all dem mens; but den, Marse
Dae, even ef po' Marse John did bre'k de law, don't you think, suh, dat
hangin' him would be a _li'l abrupt_?"
Colonel Lee laughed and replied, "I think that just about expresses the
sentiment not only of the colored people but of many others." They
agreed that John Brown was an honest, earnest, courageous old man and
that his friends ought to put him where he would be cared for.
My eyes were turned steadily toward Colonel Lee with a large measure of
that admiration he won from observers older and more experienced than
I. Yet I could not have told what manner of man he was, except that he
was impressive in appearance and that he drew people toward him with a
subtle attraction which was indescribable as well as irresistible.
The story of John Brown was graphically told and heard with absorbed
attention, but it is not likely that the Virginia planter with all his
knowledge of history and character, nor the great soldier with his
military training, recognized signs of the impending storm any more than
did the wide-eyed child lost in breathless wonderment over the thrilling
episode.
At the next station the Colonel left us and I went on into the hill
country.
X
THE BREAKING OF THE STORM
I was a student at Lynchburg Seminary when the storm that had begun to
lower at Harper's Ferry broke in full force. To a few prescient minds I
think it brought no shock of surprise. Some had watched the little cloud
on the horizon till it had overspread the zenith. But most of us, old as
well as young, had felt secure "in the land where we lay dreaming."
Virginia held longest by the Union, the bonds of which had clasped the
States together until the Old Dominion had forgotten that political ties
are not eternal. Since the brave Thirteen had banded together to fight
for liberty, Virginia had clung with unswerving tenacity to the central
idea that had kept the States together through many severe tests of
loyalty. Forged in the fires of the Revolution, the chain that bound her
to the Union of States had grown stronger with the years and with the
blood of many battles. The Mother of Presidents and of patriotic
Statesmen, her devotion to the welfare of the nation was of unusual
depth and ardor. Politicians sought to drag her allegiance from the flag
whose stars lit the path of her great sons, Washington, Jefferson,
Madison, and the many who had worthily represented her in the work of
building up the nation, but the people stood firmly by their historic
and hereditary faith. There was but one thing that could shake her
fidelity. When she was called upon for aid in a contest against her
sister States loyalty to the nation gave way to loyalty to the South and
home and kindred, and Virginia joined the Confederacy.
To some the bells which rang out the tidings of the rising of the new
star in the Southern flag were joy-bells of victory; to many they tolled
the death-knell of a long, proud era. But the new banner floated
gloriously to the breeze, huzzas rang out triumphantly and all was
glowing to the vision of hope.
The fires of patriotism burned hotly in the heart of youth and there
were Stars and Bars enough in Lynchburg Seminary to light a world of
new-born nations to victory and set up invincible barriers to the
universe. Some weeks later when the news of the battle of Manassas came
surging along the line, we felt that events had justified our
enthusiasm. In imagination we beheld our flag floating over a great new
country that should rival the nations of the world in beauty and glory.
We saw then only the bonfires of joy and heard only the pæans of
victory, but a few days later, when my friend, Major John W. Daniel, was
brought to his home in Lynchburg with a wound received in that battle
which we had celebrated with such triumphant delight, I began to feel
that war meant something more than the thrill of martial music and the
shouts of victory. Major Daniel had been my friend from childhood,
strong, handsome and gallant, and when I saw him in suffering
helplessness I felt for the first time something of the power of war to
strike down life with all its hopes and dreams and ambitions. He was
soon able to return to the field, doing brave service for the cause
until he was so badly wounded in the battle of the Wilderness that he
was forced to retire. Even more gratefully does Virginia cherish the
courageous work he has since done in the United States Senate, and
lovingly does she hold him in her heart now that his brave and beautiful
life has passed into the great Memorial Hall of her proudest history.
Through all the years he has been a loyal friend to me and mine.
The passing of the ordinance of secession was the signal for the return
of the martial sons of Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us,
from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to
the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity
of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.
In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army,
made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New
York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest
three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is
seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. Government
officers called there in search of him, but he was protected by a ruse
of his host and rode on the next morning, reaching Richmond September
13, 1861. He at once enlisted as a private, being immediately afterward
commissioned as Captain and a few days later promoted to a Colonelcy.
His military life from Richmond to Appomattox belongs to the history of
the nation.
By this time everyday life in Virginia had become invested with
difficulties even for those who might have been regarded as outside the
sphere of war. Not only the soldiers in the field had obstacles to
encounter; they loomed in the pathway of the school-girl.
My home being within the Federal lines, I spent a part of my vacations
with friends in Richmond. There I used to see General Robert E. Lee
riding along the street in the graceful way that years before had
brought people to their windows to see "the handsomest man in the United
States Army" ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The eyes of
Richmond followed him with equal admiration in these war days and I used
to recall my first meeting with him when the war was a dim prophecy. In
a short time he was sent away to Western Virginia, where he fought a
valiant but losing battle against mountains, rain, starvation, and
Southern editors who were gifted with a military genius never known to
the leaders of armies.
"I see that we have made a great mistake," the General lamented. "We
ought to have put the editors in the field and set the Generals to
managing the newspapers."
The streets of Richmond knew him no more until he returned in the late
autumn with no new laurels on his brow but with a strength of soul that
could abide the appointed time.
In our study halls we had fancied that we knew something of war. We had
cheered our flag, trembled for our soldiers at the front even while we
prophetically gloried in their future triumph, and celebrated with
great enthusiasm the battle of Manassas. We had made sacrifices for our
country, every girl of us having entrusted her jewelry to the principal
of the school to be sold for the benefit of our cause. She had accepted
the trust, saying that we might redeem our possessions if we wished.
Only one piece was ever reclaimed, a ring given to one of the girls by
her lover. When he was killed in battle she took back the ring, paying
in money for her treasure. Now I was to learn something of what war
meant.
XI
THE "VIRGINIA"
On a morning that was like ideal May, the 8th of March, 1862, I sat on
my horse by the river bank at Blinkhorn, opposite Newport News. My
uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, was stationed there, and I had come to
the camp and was one of the hundreds gathered on the bank of the
Nansemond River at that point, all eyes turned with eager interest
toward Hampton Roads, where lay our new battleship, the _Virginia_.
Like a phoenix, she had arisen from the wreck of the old frigate
_Merrimac_. Grim, solemn, weird, builded low upon the water, she was not
boat nor ram nor submarine, nor anything else hitherto known to the
waves. Newly clad in her robe of iron, she was a veiled mystery, a
forlorn hope, a theory, an armed engine, a steam battery protected by
armor, an experiment destined to change the course of naval warfare.
Being the first ship built in the Old Dominion, she was named for her
State, _Virginia_. Commanded by Captain Buchanan and manned by a crew
composed largely of landsmen who had volunteered from the Army, she had
waited in Hampton Roads for the dawning of her day.
Through my field-glass I watched the _Virginia_ gliding like a great
white bird hovering between the pulsing, scintillant blue of the heavens
above and the waters beneath. Accompanied by the gunboats _Raleigh_ and
_Beaufort_, she passed along amid the cheers of the enthusiastic
onlookers thronging both banks and of the troops at the batteries around
the harbor. An awesome feeling took possession of me, holding me silent
until the enthusiasm of the crowd thrilled me and I waved my
handkerchief in messages of Godspeed to the brave new craft.
Slowly she rounded Craney Island, lying like a blue-gray cloud over the
water, her batteries turned toward the Norfolk shore. The troops waved
their caps and sent up lusty cheers for the strange craft that looked,
as some one afterward said, "like a huge terrapin with a large round
chimney about the middle of its back." Having passed the island, she
turned into the south channel and slowly moved on toward Newport News
until, coming within firing range of the United States frigates
_Congress_ and _Cumberland_, she was greeted with broadsides from both.
A flash of fire, pale against the white day, a puff of smoke, widening,
drifting, wreathing around the mouth of the gun and floating off into
space, a deep roar of thunder showed us that our _Virginia_ was bearing
well her brave old name.
The enthusiasm which had greeted her appearance was as nothing compared
with the excitement that thrilled us now. Yells of encouragement and
defiance rent the air. Handkerchiefs fluttered; hats were thrown aloft.
Some of the men danced; others turned somersaults of enthusiasm. One
soldier rushed to Colonel Phillips shouting, "Say, Colonel, say; can't
we do something? Can't we help? For God's sake, let us do something to
help them!"
Fortunately there was no bridge from the shore to the scene of action.
Otherwise every man, woman and child among that seething crowd might
have rushed into the fight, to the embarrassment of the plucky little
_Virginia_. We could do our part only by going into paroxysms of
patriotism, in which we all excelled.
The _Virginia_ went on up the channel, turned and, coming back, ran full
against the _Cumberland_, penetrating her side with the sharp prow of
the Confederate ironclad. The frigate reeled, shuddered, and began
slowly to settle, her guns roaring from her deck. The _Congress_ came to
her assistance, but the shots which rained from the two frigates fell
harmlessly from the slanting sides of the _Virginia_.
With fascinated eyes I watched the _Cumberland_ tossing upon the waves,
gradually sinking, firing another volley as her bow went down, then
disappearing under the water, the flag that floated from her masthead
still fluttering above the sea.
For days we had seen that frigate with her mate, the _Congress_,
threatening us, a blot upon our waters, a monster, a thing of evil,
waiting for the moment of fate. But it was pitiful to watch her go down,
and I think every heart there felt a pride in that pennant waving
defiantly above the water, even while we cheered our victorious
_Virginia_. She went on, turned and came back to attack the _Congress_
which, in trying to escape, ran aground. She was soon ablaze, banners of
flame flapping out from her rigging. In an hour her flag fell.
We were told afterward that in one of the ships which we could dimly
descry in the distance, an old man waited for the battle and for tidings
of his son, commander of the _Congress_. When they told him that the
flag was down he said sadly, "Then Joe is dead!" He knew by that signal
that his son "Joe," Captain Joseph B. Smith, had fallen.
The _Raleigh_ and _Beaufort_ drew up beside the flaming _Congress_,
under a heavy fire from the Federal batteries on the Newport News shore
which not only did execution upon the crews of the Confederate gunboats,
but proved fatal to some of the prisoners from the burning frigate. The
_Virginia's_ launch rowed toward the _Congress_ and was struck by a
volley from the Federal battery.
Beyond the _Congress_ the _Minnesota_ lay aground. Before the surrender
of the _Congress_ the _Patrick Henry_, _Thomas Jefferson_ and _Teazer_,
the James River squadron, passed the Federal batteries, the _Patrick
Henry_ was struck through the boiler and was towed out of action by the
_Thomas Jefferson_, returning after repairs and running up close to the
grounded _Minnesota_, being light and able to come nearer than the
heavier ironclad. Till night fell we watched the gunboats raining shot
upon the _Minnesota_, the _Virginia_, from her greater distance,
occasionally firing ponderously upon the grounded frigate. When darkness
prevented correct aim the _Virginia_ and her sturdy little assistants
retired, slowly moving to Sewell's Point. We returned to our homes, awed
by the grandeur of the scene, sorrowful for the lost lives, but
triumphant in the victory won by our brave little craft.
Those who watched through the hours of darkness beheld a brilliant
fire-scene displayed against the velvety night. Steadily the _Congress_
had flamed upward, paling the stars in its red glow. At midnight banners
of flame, showers of stars, fiery serpents writhing upward in sinuous
pathways through the dense columns of smoke, marked the end.
That night a new-comer arrived and next morning was lying behind the
grounded _Minnesota_--a queer object, afterward described as "a tin can
on a shingle." It was Erickson's little _Monitor_, commanded by Captain
Worden and manned by a volunteer crew, for no one was ordered for
service on the odd little craft with its revolving turret. The position
was risky and no officer wanted to reflect later that he had sent men to
death on a wild experiment.
Those who could get a clear view of the stranger thought that she was a
raft sent to save the crew of the _Minnesota_, but she steamed up toward
the _Virginia_ with a war-like expression which left no doubt as to her
real character. From tidings sent from New York we had expected the new
invention down in our waters, but our imagination had not wound itself
around anything so funny looking and we did not recognize her until she
revealed herself.
I was early at my post, eager to see the end of the fray. My uncle had
his boat ready to put out to the scene of action.
"Oh, uncle, may I go?" I cried, running after him.
"No, no!" he shouted. "Go back!"
He stepped into the boat and pulled off without looking behind and did
not see that I followed and took a seat in the boat, with sketch-book
and pencil, prepared to take battle views at first hand. Perhaps an
artist of to-day might regard my sketch-book with some degree of scorn,
constructed as it was of wall paper, turned plain side out, cut into
leaves of convenient size, and bound together, the handiwork of my
ingenious grandmother. It was the best the Confederacy could afford just
then and perhaps it served the purpose as well as a more artistic outfit
might have done. I shall never forget the look of horrified amazement
that overspread my uncle's face as he chanced to look backward.
"You little dare-devil, you!" he called out, "I've a good mind to drown
you!"
The absurdity of the situation flashed upon him and his shout of
laughter rang over the water. We were too far out to admit of turning
back to put me ashore and there was nothing he could do but endure my
company.
"You needn't think I am going to try to keep you out of danger, you
disobedient, incorrigible little minx," he said indignantly. "It would
serve you right if you were shot."
I was not thinking of danger. It was my first chance at a sea-fight and
I was not going to miss it.
Thus I watched the first battle of iron-clad warships. Apparently
recognizing the fact that they had in a moment become useless lumber,
the old-time wooden structures drew aside and observed the novel
contest. The two little giants were almost touching and broadside after
broadside poured into each other. My uncle was absorbed in watching the
scene.
"Let me see! Let me see!" I cried all aquiver with excitement.
"I will not let you see, you miserable little wretch!" he replied.
Then relenting, he gave me the field-glass. "Well, here; look! Be
careful or you will lose your balance and fall overboard, though I
reckon it would be a good thing if you did. Teach you better than to put
yourself where you have no business."
His sense of humor, as usual, saved the situation, and he laughed again.
I think there was never a time since I routed him out at midnight to
take a neck-breaking ride in a hail-storm that I was not an amusing, as
well as a terrifying conundrum to my unfortunate uncle. He
good-naturedly shared his glass with disobedient little me and I watched
the contest.
The storm that rained upon the _Virginia_ was of solid shot and shell,
while it had been impossible to provide the Confederate ram with
anything but shell. The armor of the _Monitor_ was thicker than that of
her antagonist but the inclination of the sides of the _Virginia_,
causing the shot to glance harmlessly, offset that advantage. The
_Virginia_ suddenly ran aground and the _Monitor_ was quick to avail
herself of the mishap, but before we were certain of the peril of our
champion she was off and making an effort to run down the _Monitor_. The
bow of the _Virginia_ was directly against her antagonist and we saw the
Federal ship careen dangerously. When they separated a shell from our
ironclad struck the pilot-house of the _Monitor_. We afterward learned
that her commander, Lieutenant Worden, was disabled.
The _Minnesota_ was helpless and as the _Virginia_ turned toward her we
expected that she would be sunk. But, probably to the delight of those
on board the frigate as well as to the infinite dismay of us who looked
on, our little steamer went on her way toward Sewell's Point and then
to the Navy Yard. Our disappointment was very great and as we were
rowing home my uncle said reflectively:
"By George, it looks as if the Lord was on the side of those damned
Yankees."
It was the first time I had ever heard him admit the possibility that
Providence could be on the wrong side of anything.
We heard later that, so certain seemed the destruction of the
_Minnesota_, her captain was making preparations to fire and abandon her
when, to his surprise, the _Merrimac_, or _Virginia_, as we renamed her,
turned homeward.
Our captain afterward explained that he thought his last shot had
disabled the _Monitor_ and he dared not stay any longer in those waters
because the _Virginia_ had so heavy a draught that it was impossible for
her to cross the bar after ebb-tide.
XII
RICHMOND AFTER SEVEN PINES
In the Battle of Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1, 1862, Pickett's Brigade
played a most important and gallant part, an account of which may be
seen in General Joseph E. Johnston's report and in General Pickett's own
report as given in "Pickett and His Men."
While the battle yet raged darkness came on to force a truce. General
Johnston ordered his troops to sleep on their lines to be ready for the
morning. Shortly after seven he was slightly wounded by a musket shot. A
little later he remarked to one of his Colonels who dodged a shell:
"There is no use in dodging like that, Colonel. When you hear the things
they have passed."
At that moment a shell exploded, striking him in the breast. He fell
unconscious into the arms of Drewry L. Armistead, one of his couriers.
On regaining consciousness he missed his sword and pistols, and said:
"My father wore that sword in the Revolutionary War and I would not
lose it for ten thousand dollars. The pistols Colonel Colt, the
inventor, gave me."