Stuart called his head-quarters “Wigwam Independence,” but the officers of his staff gave them the sobriquet of “Coon Hollow;” and I adopt in my memoirs the old familiar designation.
Never were soldiers more comfortable than the inhabitants of Coon Hollow!—and Stuart’s tent was the most comfortable of all. He had stretched a large canvas beneath some sheltering trees; and filling up the opening at each end with a picturesque wicker-work of evergreens, ensconced himself there in his sylvan lodge, like some Robin Hood, or ranger of the greenwood in old times. The woodland haunt and open air life seemed, at first, to charm the bold cavalier; nothing seemed wanting to his happiness, lost here in the forest: but soon the freezing airs “demoralized” even the stout cavalryman, and he exchanged his canvas for a regular tent of the largest description, with a plank floor, a camp-couch, and a mighty chimney, wherein sparkled, ere long, a cheerful fire of hickory, driving away the blasts of the cold winter nights, which were sent on their way with song.
Such was Stuart’s own domicile. The staff tents were grouped around, with their solid chimneys of rock. The “cavalry head-quarters” was complete—a warm nest in the woods. Couriers came and went; sabres rattled; spurs jingled; the horses whinnied from their stables, woven of pine boughs, near by; and in and out of the general’s tent played his two boisterous setters, Nip and Tuck, the companions of his idle hours. We all messed together, under a broad canvas, at one table: music resounded; songs were sung; Sweeney, soon, alas! to be dead, was yet king of the woodland revels; Stuart joined in his songs, to the music of the banjo; and not seldom did the bright faces of fair ladies shine on us, bringing back all the warmth of the summer days—the blue sky, the sunshine, and the smiles!
Such was good old “Coon Hollow.” I recall it with delight. The chill airs cut you to the bone when you ventured out on horseback from the sheltered nook; but in Coon Hollow all was warm and bright. In the woods on the crest above, the winds sighed: but in the hollow below, the banjo rattled; laughter resounded; great fires roared; and, as though in open defiance of winter and its tempests, Stuart, carolled in his clear and sonorous voice, his favorite ditty,
“The dew is on the blossom.”
So we sang and laughed all those long winter evenings. The winds carried away the sound of jests, and banjo notes. The long hours of winter thus flew by like birds lost, one by one, in the night of the past. Happy days! happy nights! I remember them still. Stuart is dead—more than one of my dear companions have followed him—but their voices sound again, their eyes again flash, their friendly smiles linger in memory.
So the days fled by—and I wonder if our friends across the Rapidan, who were going to crush us, were as gay as the folk about to be crushed? The future looked stormy, but we laughed—and we did right, did we not, friend? That mirth was not unseemly—not unworthy of approval. It is evidence at least of “game,” non fractum esse fortunâ et retinere in rebus asperis, dignitatem—is it not? Good fortune, wealth, and success, are nothing compared to that. For my part, I would rather have the equal mind in arduous things, than money in my purse, or victory. The army of Northern Virginia had that in the winter of 1863, as they had had it in 1861 and ‘62, and were going to have it in the dark year and black winter preceding April, 1865.
But I linger too long on those days at “Coon Hollow.” The wave of war had wafted us to that quiet nook; for a time, we laughed and sang; but the storm was coming. Soon it struck us; and we left the harbor, driven by the tempest.
So I dismiss Coon Hollow, lost amid the hills of Orange. The spot is desolate to-day, and the bleak wood is silent. But for me, Stuart is singing there now as then—and will sing in my memory forever!