THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLE
[Mrs. R. A. Pryor’s Reminiscences.]
All the afternoon the dreadful guns shook the earth and thrilled our souls with horror. I shut myself in my darkened room. At twilight I had a note from Governor Letcher, telling me a fierce battle was raging, and inviting me to come to the governor’s mansion. From the roof one might see the flash of musket and artillery.
No; I did not wish to see the infernal fires. I preferred 84 to watch and wait alone in my room. And so the night wore on and I waited and watched. Before the dawn a hurried footstep brought a message from the battlefield to my door:
“The general, madame, is safe and well. Colonel Scott has been killed. The general has placed a guard around his body, and he will be sent here early to-morrow. The general bids me say he will not return. The fight will be renewed, and will continue until the enemy is driven away.”
My resolution was taken. My children were safe with their grandmother. I would write. I would ask that every particle of my household linen, except a change, should be rolled into bandages, all my fine linen be sent to me for compresses, and all forwarded as soon as possible. I would enter the new hospital which had been improvised in Kent & Paine’s warehouse, and would remain there as a nurse as long as the armies were fighting around Richmond.
But the courier was passing on his rounds with news to others. Presently Fanny Poindexter, in tears, knocked at my door.
“She is bearing it like a brave, Christian woman.”
“She? Who? Tell me quick.”