Poor Mrs. Clark was detained several days, until a flag of truce could be obtained from the nearest Confederate post to escort her to New Orleans, and we had ample time to talk over the rush of events since the exciting period when we had last sat side by side.
After the Federals evacuated we were induced to go to Baton Rouge to inquire concerning the welfare of certain friends who had returned to town, and of others who remained during the conflict witnesses of the struggle. Pickets commanded all the approaches during the Federal occupation, and at first only the loyal were permitted to pass. It is needless, perhaps, to say what class composed the “truly loyal,” thus early in the war, in an extreme Southern State. Ignorant and brutal negroes, who for generations had been kept under some kind of control, rushed past the pickets without a challenge, and no doubt contributed no small share to the indiscriminate robbery and devilish destruction which we in our indignation attributed to the common soldiers, who, by the death of General Williams (unfortunately killed in the battle of Baton Rouge), were left under officers certainly unequal to the task of keeping them in subordination. It was only after the place had been sacked—I believe that is the word, though it is scarcely comprehensive enough—that the former residents were allowed to enter and view the abomination of desolation. More than one distressed man returned to his wife, detained at Arlington by the claims of maternity, with a few broken articles or a bag of willfully mutilated clothing, and reported, “This is all I could find at home.”
Several days after the evacuation we ventured to enter the gates of our sweet little city, on errands of mercy, mingled with no little curiosity to see the condition in which it had been left by its unwelcome and turbulent visitors. The tall, broad-spreading shade-trees that lined the streets had been felled and thrown across all the leading thoroughfares, impeding travel so that our landau made many ineffectual attempts to thread its way. At last I descended and walked the dusty, littered, shadeless streets from square to square. Seeing the front door of the late Judge Morgan’s house thrown wide open, and knowing that his widow and daughters, after asking protection for their property of the commanding general, had left before the battle, I entered. No words can tell the scene that those deserted rooms presented. The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering head-dresses, and quaint golden chains—ancestors long since dead, not only valuable as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works of art—these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way! The contents of store-closets had been poured over the floors; molasses and vinegar, and everything that defaces and stains, had been smeared over walls and furniture. Up-stairs, armoires with mirror-doors had been smashed in with heavy axes or hammers, and the dainty dresses of the young ladies torn and crushed with studied, painstaking malignity, while china, toilet articles, and bits of glass that ornamented the rooms were thrown upon the beds and broken and ground into a mass of fragments; desks were wrenched open, and the contents scattered not only through the house, but out upon the streets, to be wafted in all directions; parts of their private letters as well as letters from the desks of other violated homes, and family records torn from numberless bibles, were found on the sidewalks of the town, and even on the public roads beyond town limits!
Judge Morgan’s was the only vacated house I entered. It was enough: I was too heart-sick and indignant to seek another evidence of the lengths to which a conquering army can go in pitiless, unmeaning destruction, when nothing can result from such vandalism but hatred and revenge.
All the devastation that harrowed my soul on that visit was not entirely due to the conquering army. The Confederate attack, on that day so full of sad and tender memories, was made from the rear of the city. The men in gray sprung over the fences and swarmed through the cemeteries, trampled down the graves, rushed over the little crosses and demolished and scattered the larger monuments that marked the resting-place of their own beloved dead, making, in that wild and desperate onslaught, ruins that tender hands and loving hearts have never yet been able to entirely repair.
My husband soon found that the distracted state of the country, the upheaving of the very foundation upon which our domestic life was based, and the idleness into which the negroes lapsed, partly from lack of steady work caused by the destruction of the growing crops, was more than he could endure.
So, in direct violation of military orders issued from headquarters in New Orleans, prohibiting the transfer of slaves from one plantation to another, a number of our negroes were sent to my brother’s plantation, where work was provided for them, by which they could at least earn their food, and at the same time partially relieve us of an element of querulous discontent that was fast becoming dangerous.
Our experience before and after the battle was so painful and harassing as to lead to the determination never again to be placed under the arbitrary rule of the army of occupation, whose frequent arrests and incarcerations in the common jail of unoffending citizens under the most frivolous pretexts, and often with no pretexts at all, made our very lives insecure. Believing that at no distant day we would have to accept the only alternative, voluntary exile, preparations for departure were quietly matured. The landau was exchanged for a rockaway, and this, with the curtains buttoned down, and some alterations in the seats to render a sleeping-place possible, made a reasonably comfortable traveling vehicle. A stout wagon, with a cotton cover, was put in order, to carry food and such articles as were necessary in camping out during a long journey, and six of the best and strongest mules were stabled with their harness hanging beside them for use at a moment’s warning. We did not have long to wait.
CHAPTER VII.
SECOND VISIT OF THE ENEMY—MIDNIGHT FLIGHT—FAREWELL TO ARLINGTON.
The only exact date I can remember, and that I can never forget, was the 17th of December.