CHAPTER IV.
RUMORS OF OUR CIVIL WAR.
Mr. Merrick was elected chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in the year of 1855. I went with him to New Orleans for that winter and lived at the old St. Louis hotel, taking my maid with me, but leaving my children at home in the care of their grandmother. In a letter dated May 11th, 1856, my husband writes: “I bought a house yesterday, at public auction, which I think will do very well for us, but it will cost a good deal to make it as comfortable as our home at Clinton. The property is in Bouligny, a little out of the city, where we can keep our horses. There is a plank road to the city and the railroad station will be near the door. It is an old-fashioned French house built upon brick walls and pillars, with a gallery in front and rear. I send you a plan of it and a sketch of the situation. You will surely be pleased with the place after it is arranged. I dined with Mr. Christian Roselius yesterday and he congratulated me on the purchase; says it is delightful to live out of town. Bouligny is in the city of Jefferson, almost half a mile above Washington Street. There are six fireplaces in the house, and if Aunt Susan does not like any of those large rooms below we will finish off one above or build one for her. The girls will go to school in the city by the cars.”
We had done some house-hunting the winter before, and I was by no means sure I should like living out of town. In his next letter Mr. Merrick said: “I do not think you had better come down until you have somewhat recovered from your disappointment. I have read your letter while my colleagues are reading opinions, and now I take some of the precious time of the State to try to console you. The more I see of the house and its neighborhood the better I like it. You think it is an isolated place up-town, still uninhabited. Well, in twenty years everything will be different, and while I have you and the children in the house, it will be all right. Therefore, you must dry up your tears and be happy.”
It is evident that the home chosen was not such as I should have selected; but a residence in it for nearly half a century has made it very dear, filled as it is with precious memories of those I have loved and lost. So extensive are the surrounding grounds, abounding in flowers, fruit-trees and gardens, that it has been called “the Merrick Farm.” Now that Napoleon Avenue is built up with elegant residences, this large square with its spacious, old-fashioned, double French cottage presents a comfortable, unique appearance in the midst of its modern environment.
So, in November, 1856, I removed from Clinton to New Orleans. In a letter written to Mr. Merrick during the distresses of dismantling the old home, I said: “If it please heaven to give us a long life I hope it may never be our misfortune to move many times.” Heaven seemed to have been propitious to my wish, for here I am in the same loved home, chosen without my consent, but where I expect to fold my willing hands and be made ready for my final resting place.
I do not enter upon the subject of the civil war with a disposition either to justify or condemn; and it is with reluctance that I revert to a question that has been settled forever by fire and blood, and whose adjustment has been accepted even by the vanquished. But as this period came so vitally into my life, these recollections would be incomplete without it; besides, personal records are the side-lights of history and, in their measure, the truest pictures of the times. Years enough have elapsed to make a trustworthy historical perspective, and intelligent Americans should now be able to look upon the saddest war that ever desolated a land without favor or prejudice and to use conditions so severely cleared of the great evil of slavery as stepping-stones to our freedom from all further national mischief.
It must be remembered that the South was not a unit in regard to secession. The Southwest was largely a Whig area, and in the election of 1860 this element voted for Bell and Everett under the standard: “The Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of Law.” It has always been a question whether secession would have carried could it have been put to the test of a popular vote in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee; for whatever may have been personally believed respecting the right of secession, it is probable the majority of Whigs and some Democrats doubted its expediency. The most solemn, heart-breaking hour in the history of the States was that in which men, shaken with sobs, signed the ordinance which severed them from the Union. Up to that hour the fight by the press had been bitter. But when the fate of the State was sealed, the Stars and Stripes lowered and the State flag run up in its place, almost every man, irrespective of opinions, accepted its destinies, shouldered his musket and marched to the front—where he stayed until a bullet, sickness or starvation emptied his place in the ranks, or until the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.