The news from the war became more and more exciting. I had letters nearly every week from my cousin, Hal Lesesne, who was captain in the army and stationed at Battery Wagner. They made me feel I was in the midst of the fighting, they were so vivid, although very short. One day one came, quite a long letter this time, but only a few words legible, the rest soaked with ink. On a scrap of paper he wrote: “Just as I finished this a shell burst near me and a fragment shattered the ink-stand. I send it because I do not know when I can write again and you may be able to make out some of it. Anyway, you will know that I have written.” I kept all these letters. They were such a picture of the life there; and, by a strange fate, they were stolen in 1870. It was a great regret to me, for he was killed almost with the last shot which was fired during the war. I was very fond of him. He was not a lover, only a dear friend and cousin; and, besides that feeling, the letters were history by that time, telling of the heroic defense of Batteries Wagner and Gregg and the other fortifications on Morris Island.
PART IV
WAR TIMES
CHAPTER XVI
THE WEDDING
I LEFT school on my birthday, May 29, 1863, and returned to my home in Charleston. There great activity and excitement reigned, for my sister was to be married June 24 and I was to be first bridesmaid. The wedding was very beautiful. To begin with, Della was lovely beyond words, an ideal picture of a bride, and the groom, Arnoldus Van der Horst, was a handsome and martial figure in his uniform, that of a major of the Confederate army. They were married by the assistant rector of St. Michael’s Church, the Reverend Mr. Elliot, in our beautiful oval drawing-room or ballroom. It had a very high ceiling and was papered in white with small sprigs of golden flowers scattered over it. There were four large windows on the south, opening on the iron balcony which ran round on the outside. And, on the opposite side of the room, two windows exactly like those opening on the balcony, running from the tall ceiling to the floor, but the panes of these were mirrors. It made you think you were looking into another crowded room. There was a high mantelpiece of white wood carved with exquisite figures of women dancing and holding aloft garlands of flowers, Adam’s most beautiful designs; the cornice around the ceiling was also beautiful; the furniture was rosewood, covered with blue velvet with little pink rosebuds, and the carpet was velvet with bouquets of pink roses tied with blue ribbons. The first groomsman, Lewis Van der Horst, brother of the groom, was also in uniform, that of a private in the Charleston Light Dragoons, C. S. A. He was killed the following spring in Virginia, fighting gallantly.
I have a foolish little journal I wrote at this time, so foolish and lacking in all interest, that I do not use it, but think perhaps this little excerpt may be pardoned:
“Charleston, June 27th, 1863.
“Della is married!!
“It all seems like a dream; all the excitement is over, and now for the first time I can think over it calmly. Wednesday at nine the wedding took place. It was a very beautiful ceremony. She was perfectly lovely. Her costume was a full plain dress of Brussel’s net, a beautiful material, over a splendid white silk, with a beautiful real lace veil falling almost to the ground; a wreathe of white hyacinths and bouquet of the same.