“Soon’s I kin git de preacher. I can’t wait for you; I ain’t got no preacher yit.”
That was a summons I had one hot day in early summer, in war times. Yankees in New Orleans; gunboats almost hourly reported “jist ’round de p’int”; and we people distractedly hanging on the ragged edge of alarm and anxiety, did not pause to think how impossible it was for us to know what was happening “jist ’round de p’int,” for all information about things beyond our physical eyesight was questionable. In the rush of uncertain and unlooked-for events, we could not plan any future, even one day ahead, so overwhelmed were we in mind and estate (not to mention body) with the strenuousness of the pitiful present.
I hastily changed my dress and was ready when my carriage was brought to the door. “Marse Green” (I will not give the full name; everybody in his old district knows who I mean), was a lawyer, a politician, a man of family, while not a family man, and his little cottage home in town was presided over, the best they knew how, by his three daughters, the eldest of whom was scarcely out of her teens. The disturbed state of the country had compelled me to stay quietly as I could at my plantation home, and in the absorbing and frequent rumor of Yankees coming, no real town news and gossip sifted in. Thus I had not heard that Miss Fanny’s fiancé, a wounded soldier, was at Marse Green’s.
I was driven at a rapid pace up the road and through the restless, crowded street throngs to the home of these motherless girls, whose New England governess had returned North. I had long been their mother’s dearest friend, and a refuge for her daughters in all their troubles and perplexities. We were completely cut off from any reliable information of the doings of the world, almost at our doors. Everybody knew New Orleans had fallen and Butler was treading the prostrate people with hoofs of iron, and also it was only a matter of time when his rule would reach our town only 130 miles off. As a matter of course, under such circumstances, we were alive to any startling rumor.
Marse Green, who did things by fits and starts, and did them very thoroughly, too, when he started, had announced to his daughters on the morning of my visit that they must be ready by early dawn the following day to move themselves and everything else they might need to his plantation on the Amite. Then the man of family shook the dust of further assistance from his feet and proceeded to his office for the day’s enlightenments. Of course, all business of a legal nature was suspended. The few able-bodied men lingering outside the rank of fighters, who were facetiously called “Druthers,” because they’d druther not fight, or in other words, would druther stay at home, had dropped in Marse Green’s office to while pleasantly away their idle time. The old gentleman hobbled on his crutches to his favorite chair and was telling his lounging visitors that gunboats being “jist ’round de p’int,” he was sending his family out of harm’s way, when some one casually remarked, “What you going to do with the Captain? He can’t stay here, a paroled soldier, and he can’t go with those young girls that way.” “By gracious!” Marse Green had not thought of that. The Captain must marry Fanny right away, or run the risk of being captured, for he had no place to go. In pursuance of that sudden plan, an emissary was dispatched to summon me, and to get the Methodist preacher. Messengers were also sent with flying feet among the few near neighbors, asking their presence that afternoon, while Marse Green himself rushed back home to announce the decision to his family.
I arrived in a scene of confusion beyond words to express. Already some kindly neighbors were there helping the distracted girls to pack. Trunks, boxes, bags, barrels, baskets, were in every room with piles and piles of household and personal articles to be stowed. Everybody was busy and everybody stumbling and tearing about in every other body’s way. Marse Green had already descended upon them with his ultimatum, and worse became the confusion with this new and unexpected element injected into it. Dear Fanny must be married in white, so every one declared. Then ensued a ransacking of trunks and drawers for a pretty white lawn she had—somewhere! At length it was brought to light in a very crumpled condition, not having been worn since the winter (the last Buchanan winter) Fanny spent in Washington with her father. There was no time or opportunity or place, apparently, to press the wrinkles out and make the really handsome gown presentable. Then there arose a clamor and frantic search for white stockings. Nobody had the temerity to mention white kid gloves. They were of the past, as completely as a thousand other necessities we had learned to do without. The black dress was laid aside. Fanny looked very lovely in her white gown, the most calm and composed of any of us.
The dazed, bewildered and half-sick Captain meandered around in his dingy Confederate gray, the only suit he had. His skull had been fractured in battle (I think at Shiloh), the hair had been shaved off one side of his head and a silver plate covered and protected the wound. Time was passing swifter than the motions of the little party, fast as they were. All the packing and loading of wagons had to be completed for the early morning start. The rest of us could stay in our homes and run our chances—which we did, woe is me!—but Marse Green’s girls must be off, in accordance with his dictum, and, of course, a Confederate officer had to get out of the enemy’s reach.
Meanwhile the other invited neighbors were arriving, and also an Episcopal minister. Mr. Crenshaw, the Methodist preacher, could not be found. He had spent hours haranguing the few peace-loving Jews, superannuated cripples and handful of “Druthers” remaining in town, telling those incapables or insufficients they were not patriotic to stand aside and let the enemy’s gunboats land at our wharf, but it appears when the latter really were “just behind de p’int,” the voluble gentleman’s discretion got the better of his valor, and he had ingloriously fled.
One kindly neighbor, a late arrival, whispered to another, who had been there all day helping, “Any refreshments?” Not a soul had thought of refreshments; we isolated housekeepers had not even heard the name for so long that it had not occurred to us to talk of furnishing what we could not procure. The late comer rushed home and quickly returned with the half of a cornmeal pound-cake and a pitcher of brown sugar lemonade. Then the minister required some one to give the bride away. That was not in Marse Green’s Methodist service, and besides Marse Green was getting mortally tired and fractious, so, without my knowing it, Mr. McHatton volunteered to perform that function. We guests who had been behind the scenes, and were getting to be mortally tired and fractious, too, assembled in the hastily-cleared parlor to witness the ceremony.