VISIT TO THE FAR SOUTH AND RETURN TO WASHINGTON
In the autumn of the same year I decided to make a long anticipated visit to Mrs. John Still Winthrop in Tallahassee, whose marriage in Gramercy Park I had attended so many years ago and which I have already described. My two younger children accompanied me, but my oldest daughter I left behind under her father's protecting care at the Misses Vernon's boarding school in Frederick. This period seemed especially suitable for such a long absence, as the whole time and attention of Mr. Gouverneur was engrossed in editing for publication a posthumous work of James Monroe, which was subsequently published by the Lippincotts under the title, "The People the Sovereigns." We sailed from New York and stopped en route in Savannah to enable me to see my old friend and schoolmate, Mrs. William Neyle Habersham. Sherman in his "March to the Sea" had passed through Georgia, carrying with him destruction and devastation, and the suffering which this and other campaigns of the war had brought into the homes of these Southern people it would be difficult to describe. The whole South seemed to be shrouded in mourning, as nearly everyone I met had given up to the "Lost Cause" a husband or a son, and in some cases both. Two gallant sons of the Habershams, mere boys, had died upon the same battlefield, and when I saw Mr. Habersham for the first time after the war he was so overcome with grief that he was obliged to leave the room. Talented to an unusual degree and possessing much fortitude, his wife fought bravely for the sake of her dear ones still spared her, but every now and then her sorrow asserted itself anew and seemed more than her bleeding soul could bear. She was especially gifted with her pen, and about ten years after the war, while her heart was still wrung with grief, she wrote the following pathetic lines:—
Up above, the Pines make sweet music; sad, plaintive, for must there not be a tone of "infinite sadness" in all the places of Earth's finite gladness? From a spray of jessamine I hear the chirp of a little bird—a young beginner; it tries over and over again "its one plain passage of few notes"—the prelude to the full-voice anthem which summer will harmonize. Ah! what shades and sunlight! what coloring! Green in the grass and trees, blue in the violets and sky, gray in the moss, yellow in the jessamines, falling around in a perfect Danæan shower of burnished gold! My truant fancy sees all this—and more! A dear hand that held mine, a "pure hand," a boy's hand, that ere many summers had spread out their gorgeous pageantry had drawn the sword for that dear summer-land of the jessamine and pine—had drawn the sword and dropped it; dropped it from the earnest, vigorous clasp of glorious young manhood to lie still and calm, life's duty nobly done; ah, a short young life but ... and then the other young soldier! for is not my sorrow a twin sorrow? Can they be dissevered? In death they were not divided. My eyes grow dim. Wipe away the mist, poor mother! to see the dear faces of sons and daughters gracing the board. Let the blue of the violets breathe to thee rather of endless skies and an eternal Heaven, where earth's finite sadness is beautified into infinite gladness.
We finally reached Tallahassee, where we found the most cordial welcome awaiting us. Mrs. Winthrop lived in the very heart of the city but our surroundings were much more beautiful than I can describe, for the orange trees and hyacinths and jessamine in full bloom and other wealth of semi-tropical vegetation were suggestive of an earthly Paradise. Since we last met my hostess had become a widow, but fortunately she and her only son, who was then just emerging into manhood, had not felt the personal vicissitudes of the struggle, as they had taken refuge in the mountains of North Carolina. Before the war the Winthrops had owned hundreds of slaves and most of them, in a state of freedom, were still living in quarters only a short distance from the house and were working on her plantations just as though the war had not made them free. But both among those who suffered from the war and those who escaped its ravages the unfriendly feeling entertained at this time against their Northern brethren was naturally intense. I remember that one Sunday morning a young son of Mrs. Custis, who with his mother was then an inmate of the Winthrop household, asked his mother, who had just returned from the early service of the Episcopal Church, whether "the 'Yankees' went up to the same communion table with the Southern people."
During my Tallahassee life I made the acquaintance of Madame Achillé Murat, who lived in an old mansion outside of the city limits. She was Miss Catharine A. Willis of Virginia, and a great-grandniece of General Washington. Upon her marriage to Achillé Murat he took her abroad, where she was received with much distinction on account of her Washington blood. Then, too, her marriage into such an illustrious French family was an open sesame to the most exclusive circles of society. She was an elderly woman when I met her, but her conversation abounded with the most interesting reminiscences of her life in France. She died in the summer of 1867. Achillé Murat was the son of Joachim Murat, the great Marshal of Napoleon, whose sister Caroline he married and became King of Naples. Many years later his two sons came to this country. One of them settled in Bordentown in New Jersey, and Achillé Murat, after his marriage to his Virginia bride, became a resident of Florida. Madame Murat told me of some of the visits she made to France when the voyage was long and tedious. She had many articles of vertu around her, and I especially recall a superb marble bust by Canova of her mother-in-law, Queen Caroline. I expressed surprise at the extreme attractiveness of the late Queen, as I had always understood that the Princess Pauline, Napoleon's other sister, was the family beauty. Madame Murat, however, told me I was mistaken and that her royal mother-in-law was, in that respect, quite the equal of her sister.
During my acquaintance with Madame Murat, Napoleon III. was on the throne of France, and I learned from our many friendly chats that her relations with her distinguished kinspeople were of the most cordial character; and I am informed that for many years the Emperor gave her an annuity. Hanging in her drawing-room, whose contents were replete with historic association, were two handsome portraits of the Emperor and Empress of France, which she called to my attention as recent gifts from her royal relatives. That prince of hosts, Gouverneur Kemble, once told me an amusing incident àpropos of Achillé Murat's resourcefulness under peculiar difficulties. On one occasion quite a number of foreign guests appeared at the Frenchman's door and, although Florida is a land "flowing with milk and honey," he was sorely perplexed to know what would be "toothsome and succulent" to serve for their repast. Suddenly an idea flashed upon him. He owned a large flock of sheep and, nothing daunted, gave immediate orders to have the tips of their ears cut off. These were served in due form, and his guests departed in total ignorance of what they had eaten but fully convinced that America produced the choicest of viands.
Upon one of her numerous visits to France, Madame Murat was accompanied to the Louvre by Mr. Francis Porteus Corbin, a Virginian whose contemporaries proudly asserted was an adornment to any court. While they were engaged in viewing the works of art, Madame Murat was joined by Jerome Bonaparte, to whom she formally presented Mr. Corbin. When the opportunity arose Bonaparte inquired of his kinswoman who "the elegant gentleman" was. The ready response was: "Mr. Corbin, of Virginia." "Well," was the ejaculation, "I had no idea there was so much elegance in America."
I think these pages will show that all through life I have had a decided fancy for older men and women. I can hardly account for this taste except by the fact that my predilections have always been of a decidedly historical character. As another instance, I especially enjoyed my meeting in the far South with Judge Thomas Randall, who made his home in Tallahassee, but who was originally from Annapolis. He did not allow advanced years to interfere with his social tastes, but frequently accompanied us to parties, where his vivacity rendered him one of the most acceptable of guests. Still another elderly gentleman with whom I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted during this Southern sojourn was Francis Wayles Eppes. He was the son of U.S. Senator John Wayles Eppes, whose wife was Maria Jefferson, elder daughter of Thomas Jefferson. He left Virginia many years prior to my acquaintance with him and settled with several members of the Randolph family in Western Florida when it was almost a wilderness.
I left with keen regret this picturesque land of flowers and stately oaks, but duty called me home, as my husband and little daughter were growing impatient over our long absence. It would seem that the observance of timetables differed in those days according to localities and other circumstances. I was informed that the train I should take from Tallahassee would leave about such and such a time; but upon my inquiring in Savannah as to whether the ship upon which I proposed to embark for Baltimore would leave on time, I was explicitly told by its captain that if I were a minute late I should not be one of its passengers.
After my return to Maryland, the home of our adoption, we abandoned the idea of country life, sold our residence and took up our abode in Frederick. My children were now reaching an age when education became an important matter and I took advantage of the Frederick Female Seminary, an institution that has since become a college, as an excellent place to which to send my eldest daughter. It was during this period of transition that it was my good fortune to meet for the first time the wife of the Hon. Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia, who was a native of Frederick and a daughter of Gideon Bantz. Her two older daughters, Hallie, the widow of U.S. Senator Stephen B. Elkins, and Kate, who subsequently became the wife of Robert M. G. Brown of the U.S. Navy, were boarding pupils at the same school; and Mrs. Davis frequently visited them while there. My daughters formed an intimate friendship with Mrs. Brown, whom at a later day we often welcomed as a guest in our Washington home. She has since passed "over the river," having survived her mother for only a few months, and her memory is hallowed in my family circle. Mrs. Elkins, the promising young girl of so many years ago, is widely known in Washington and elsewhere for her womanly tact, intelligence and fine presence. Grace, another of Mrs. Davis' daughters, is now Mrs. Arthur Lee of Washington, but was born after my earlier acquaintance with her mother in Frederick. Loved and admired, she resides in Washington surrounded by an exclusive coterie, and devotes much of her time and means to works of philanthropy.