Mr. Benton was a good neighbor of ours and assumed some authority over my household. He never failed to come over immediately whenever we had a visit from one of the gunboats, and to reprove me sharply for having any friendly interviews or even civilities with our “kidney-footed enemies,” as he called them, yet at the same time he would seize upon all the newspapers which these gentlemanly officers had given us, and carry them off for his own delectation, regardless of all objections and expostulations.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW WOMAN CAME TO THE RESCUE.
Mary Wall’s letter from Clinton, Louisiana, December 27th, 1863, contains some strong expressions showing the feeling and suffering among women at that period: “You must keep in good heart, my dearest friend, about your son David. I heard he was killed, but I have just seen Mr. Holmes, who has read in a Yankee paper: ‘Capt. Merrick, of Gen. Stafford’s staff, slightly wounded.’ When I heard your boy was killed I felt the blow, and groaned under it, for I know just how the iron hoof of Death tears when it settles down among the heart-strings. When my mother died last year I did not weep so bitterly, for my only disinterested friend was taken from the evil to come; but when my gifted, first-born soldier-boy, Willie—my pride and joy—was laid in a lonely grave, after a mortal gunshot wound, on the Atchafalaya, at Bute la Rose, that was my hardest trial. I could not get to him; yet he was decently buried; but of my brother, shot in the fight in Tennessee, we only know that he was killed on the battlefield at Franklin. My son Wesley was reported missing after the fight at Chickamauga; he may be a prisoner. I have heard nothing more, and my heart stands still when I think he too may have been killed, and his body thrown in some ravine or creek, as the Texans are said sometimes to do when they ‘lose’ their Yankee prisoners on the march. God knows, this is a wicked war! And there is Bowman, my third son; he may be dead, too, for I do not hear a word from him. I try to steady my aching heart, and go my way, and do my work with a quiet face; but often when I am alone I sink down, and the waves go over me. I can pour out my heart to you. I do hope your boy is but ‘slightly wounded,’ so that he may be sent home to stay with you for a long time. May God in mercy spare his life; but do not set your heart on him.”
General Leroy Stafford, on his last visit to his family, stopped at Myrtle Grove and gave me the particulars of the engagement at Payne’s Farm, Virginia, where David was shot, the ball entering his head above the ear and going out on the other side below the ear. He fell from his horse, it was supposed, mortally wounded. By careful medical attention he survived with the loss of the sight of one eye and power of hearing, the drum of one ear being perforated. He suffered temporarily much disfigurement from paralysis of the facial nerve.
When I saw my handsome boy in this condition my distress will not tax the imagination. “O mother,” he said, “you ought not to feel in this way! So many mothers’ boys can never come back to them, and I am alive and getting better every day. If you have felt cramped in expression, or anybody has ever done anything to you which rubbed you up the wrong way, throw down your gauntlet and I’ll fight your battles for you. Don’t shed tears over me!”
Judge Avery said, referring to David’s own letter from the hospital: “It is the letter of a hero—not one word of complaint in the whole of it.” The surgeon attributed my son’s extraordinary recovery to the purity of blood uncorrupted by the use of tea, coffee, tobacco or alcoholic drinks.
My brother Milton was surrendered with Port Hudson. July 25, 1863, he wrote as follows from Custom House Prison, No. 6, in New Orleans: “About 2,000 of us are confined here. Many have called to see me but only one has succeeded—a young lady who announced herself as my cousin; said she was determined to have some relative here. I never saw her before. The ladies are very kind and contribute to all our wants. Hundreds of them promenade daily before our windows; they look very sweet and lovely to us. Their hearts are all right, but when they motion to us with their fans, or wave their handkerchiefs, the guards take them away. The whole city is overrun with Yankee soldiers, and the citizens have a subdued look. We have no reason to complain of our treatment, and we are not wholly discouraged. General Lee’s successes are favorable to our cause, and I now feel hopeful of a speedy termination of our troubles, though I see no prospect of our release.