A VISIT FROM GENERAL GRANT AND GENERAL McPHERSON.
A FEW days after the surrender of Vicksburg, I called at General Grant’s headquarters on business.
Generals McPherson and Rawlins were the only officials present with him. I was received most cordially, and inquiries were made by General Grant at once, as to whether the house he had assigned to me was comfortable and satisfactory.
I assured him that it was, and spoke with great enthusiasm of the colored servants left in charge of the property by the owners, who had fled from Vicksburg before the siege. I was especially enthusiastic about the cook.
“Why don’t you invite us up to test her cookery?” questioned General McPherson. I hardly knew what to say, as I had made it a rule to shun all appearances of social life.
“Oh, you would not come; you are all too busy paroling prisoners,” I answered.
“Oh, yes! we would certainly come if you should invite us. Is not that so, General Grant?”
“I shall certainly come if invited,” was General Grant’s reply.
“Then I most cordially invite you.”
“When shall we come?” questioned General McPherson.
“To-morrow, if that will suit you.”
That being satisfactory, they agreed to come the next day at one o’clock, General Rawlins being included in the invitation, which he laughingly said, “We have given ourselves.”
When I returned to my quarters that noon, and announced that General Grant and two other generals were to dine with me the next day, there was great consternation and excitement. I had tented with Mrs. General Stone during the siege, and she had come into Vicksburg and occupied the house with me. She was dismayed at the news. She declared that there was not one decent tablecloth on the premises, that there were no two napkins alike, or two dishes that matched. “The fact is,” she said, “everything in this house mismatches. And how are you going to get them into the dining-room with all the steps torn away? Are they to walk up that inclined plane on the boards?”
I told her I did not know of any other way; but as we had to perform that feat three times a day, I had no doubt they could get up from the hall to the dining-room once. Aunt Dinah, the cook, who was at the head of the colored members of the household, was enthusiastic.
“I tell you, honey, I’ll mak ebery ding shine, an’ I’ll hab de tablecloth so slick a gnat’s heel would fly up on it.”
All the colored people were jubilant. It would be impossible to describe their antics. The little children danced a jubilee; jumping up and down, keeping up a chorus: “Ginnel Grant’s a-cummen! Ginnel Grant’s a-cummen! Ginnel Grant’s de bigest ginnel of dem all!”
It was not an hour till every colored man, woman, and child in that part of the town knew that at a certain hour the next day General Grant was to be at that house. The colored men searched every sutler’s shop for supplies, and Aunt Dinah did her best in the cooking line. The next morning I went out among the hospitals as usual, but came home before noon, so as to be there when my guests arrived. I found all the neighboring fences about the grounds lined with colored people.
Mrs. Stone said to me as soon as I came in,—
“Now, you must not laugh or object, but Aunt Dinah has sent and got two professional waiters; they are here now, dressed in broadcloth, with swallow-tailed coats and white vests and white gloves.”
Of course I did laugh, and she laughed quite as heartily as myself, at the incongruity of the arrangement. Here, in one of the deserted houses of Vicksburg, that a shell had crashed through, making it almost impossible to get into the dining-room, with nothing in the way of table-outfit but the most ordinary camping utensils, we had two professional waiters, rigged out in a style that could hardly be matched at a state dinner at the presidential mansion, we were to receive great generals. It was indeed laughable. Aunt Dinah felt she ought to explain the matter to me.
“Honey, I want to ’splain ’bout dese ’fessional watahs. Our common niggahs would never do to wait on fine gentlemen. You see, dey’s awkard an’ hain’t got no good close. So I just hir’d dese fashionable watahs case I wanted to have the thing done up right.”
Of course I made no objections. At the appointed hour, General Grant, dressed in military uniform, riding his little black horse that had carried him so often around the fiery lines of Vicksburg during the siege, and General McPherson, dressed in elegant military fashion, tall, stately, commanding, and splendidly mounted, rode up in front of our house.
General Stone, who had commanded the extreme right during the siege, and who had come up from his military camp to dine with us that day, went out and hitched their horses, as there were no orderlies with them.
General Rawlins, who was prevented at the last moment from coming, sent his regrets. Black faces were peeping out from the near houses, and the fences were black with colored people. It was perhaps the one chance of their lives to see their deliverer, the great captain who had opened the prison-house of Vicksburg, and given liberty to all the people.
Everything passed off very pleasantly. When dinner was announced, taking the arm of General Grant, I led the way to the dining-room. Mrs. General Stone took the arm of General McPherson, General Stone having already gone into the dining-room to help us up. The stairs being torn away, and the ascent being made on two planks that stood at an angle of forty-five degrees, he reached down his hands and helped us up. When the two great commanders reached the dining-room, they stood for some time by the broken walls and stairs, and discussed shells as destructive missiles, and speculated as to which battery sent that shell crashing through the house. They finally decided that it came from one of Admiral Porter’s gunboats.
The dinner followed, and was most thoroughly enjoyed. All the praise I had given our cook she justified in that grandest effort of her life.
Aunt Dinah held the door a little ajar so that she could see and hear all that was going on in the dining-room. She said to me afterwards, with a satisfied chuckle, “Oh! Laws a massa, didn’t dey praise my cooken! I never felt so big in my life. Seems to me I’se one of the biggest cooks in the world.”
The professional waiters were skilled and graceful, even though a napkin over a tin platter was used as a tray.
Aunt Dinah said very confidentially afterwards to me,—
“You see, honey, ’twould neber hab done to hab our niggahs done it. T’ey’d been most scar’t to death, and sure to spill something. It won’t do to hab common niggahs waten on high an’ mighty folks like big ginnels.”
The guests enjoyed the dinner and the after visit. The siege; the surrender; the terms of parole; the condition of the people who had been shut up in the city during the siege; their life in the caves; the condition of the hospitals; and “what next?” were freely discussed in that frank and easy way that characterized General Grant when he was surrounded by a group of friends he could trust.
When the two great generals took their leave, every colored person in the neighborhood knew that the smaller man was General Grant, and they were watching to get another glimpse of him. Both generals thanked us for inviting them, and assured us that it was the most restful, home-like visit they had enjoyed since the war began.
It was my privilege to dine with them on several occasions after that, and to dine with General Grant at the White House during his presidential terms; but there was not the enthusiasm and novelty on those occasions that clustered around the dinner and visit in the shell-wrecked house after the fall of Vicksburg.
General and Mrs. Stone live at their old home in Mount Pleasant, Iowa; but the two great captains of the Union hosts are gone—McPherson falling in the midst of the struggle on the bloody field of strife near Atlanta, Ga., and Grant, after passing through untold perils, passing peacefully away, and even in death immortalizing Mount McGregor.