We saw then only the bonfires of joy and heard only the pæans of victory, but a few days later, when my friend, Major John W. Daniel, was brought to his home in Lynchburg with a wound received in that battle which we had celebrated with such triumphant delight, I began to feel that war meant something more than the thrill of martial music and the shouts of victory. Major Daniel had been my friend from childhood, strong, handsome and gallant, and when I saw him in suffering helplessness I felt for the first time something of the power of war to strike down life with all its hopes and dreams and ambitions. He was soon able to return to the field, doing brave service for the cause until he was so badly wounded in the battle of the Wilderness that he was forced to retire. Even more gratefully does Virginia cherish the courageous work he has since done in the United States Senate, and lovingly does she hold him in her heart now that his brave and beautiful life has passed into the great Memorial Hall of her proudest history. Through all the years he has been a loyal friend to me and mine.
The passing of the ordinance of secession was the signal for the return of the martial sons of Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us, from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.
In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army, made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. Government officers called there in search of him, but he was protected by a ruse of his host and rode on the next morning, reaching Richmond September 13, 1861. He at once enlisted as a private, being immediately afterward commissioned as Captain and a few days later promoted to a Colonelcy. His military life from Richmond to Appomattox belongs to the history of the nation.
By this time everyday life in Virginia had become invested with difficulties even for those who might have been regarded as outside the sphere of war. Not only the soldiers in the field had obstacles to encounter; they loomed in the pathway of the school-girl.
My home being within the Federal lines, I spent a part of my vacations with friends in Richmond. There I used to see General Robert E. Lee riding along the street in the graceful way that years before had brought people to their windows to see "the handsomest man in the United States Army" ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The eyes of Richmond followed him with equal admiration in these war days and I used to recall my first meeting with him when the war was a dim prophecy. In a short time he was sent away to Western Virginia, where he fought a valiant but losing battle against mountains, rain, starvation, and Southern editors who were gifted with a military genius never known to the leaders of armies.
"I see that we have made a great mistake," the General lamented. "We ought to have put the editors in the field and set the Generals to managing the newspapers."
The streets of Richmond knew him no more until he returned in the late autumn with no new laurels on his brow but with a strength of soul that could abide the appointed time.
In our study halls we had fancied that we knew something of war. We had cheered our flag, trembled for our soldiers at the front even while we prophetically gloried in their future triumph, and celebrated with great enthusiasm the battle of Manassas. We had made sacrifices for our country, every girl of us having entrusted her jewelry to the principal of the school to be sold for the benefit of our cause. She had accepted the trust, saying that we might redeem our possessions if we wished. Only one piece was ever reclaimed, a ring given to one of the girls by her lover. When he was killed in battle she took back the ring, paying in money for her treasure. Now I was to learn something of what war meant.