“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.