In the early part of 1862 the McDowell Guards secured artillery and did excellent service in McIntosh's battalion of A. P. Hill's corps until the close of the war.
CHAPTER XXVII
OAKLAND—RETURN TO CAMP—OFF DUTY AGAIN—THE RACE FROM NEW MARKET TO FORT GILMORE—ATTACK ON FORT HARRISON—WINTER-QUARTERS ON THE LINES—VISITS TO RICHMOND
The desolation and dejection of the people of Lexington hastened my departure, but before returning to the army I spent two weeks most delightfully at "Oakland," the hospitable home of Mrs. Cocke, in Cumberland County, Virginia. This was the last opportunity I had of enjoying the "old plantation life," the like of which can never again be experienced. It was an ideal life, the comforts and advantages of which only those who followed it could appreciate. Two of Mrs. Cocke's sons, who had passed many years at school and college in Lexington, were at home—one on sick-leave; the other, still a youth, equipping himself for the cavalry service, which he soon entered. William, the eldest son, had been killed at Gettysburg and his body never recovered.
Every day at twelve o'clock sharp delicious watermelons were brought from the icehouse to the shade of the stately oaks which adorned the spacious lawn; then, two hours later, after a sumptuous dinner, a small darky brought from the kitchen a shovel of coals (matches were not a Southern product) to light our pipes. So the time passed. It was to this hospitable home that General Lee retired with his family immediately after Appomattox, and was living on this estate when he accepted the presidency of Washington College.
Robert Frazer
My wounds being now sufficiently, or rather temporarily, healed, I embarked about bedtime at Cartersville on the canal packet boat. On my way to a berth in the cabin I noticed, by the dim light, a striking-looking man clad in white lying in his berth. On the deck of the boat were a score or more of negroes, male and female, singing so boisterously that the other passengers could not sleep. Such conduct at this time was felt to be significant, and the more so as the officers of the boat refrained from interfering. Without intimation there was a leap from my neighboring bunk, a hurried scramble up the stairway, followed by a volley of—secular language, with a demand for instantaneous choice between "dead silence and dead niggers." Thenceforward stillness prevailed, broken at intervals when the plaintive windings of the packet horn, rising and falling with the motion of the tandem team, heralded our approach to a lock. Who that ever boarded that ancient craft, or dwelt within its sound, will cease to recall the associations awakened by the voice of the old packet horn?