On the day of the occupation, Miss Mason and Mrs. Rhett went out to meet General Weitzel and stated that Mrs. Lee was an invalid, unable to walk, and that her house, like that of General Chilton and others, was in danger of fire. “What!” he exclaimed, “Mrs. Lee in danger? General Fitz Lee’s mother, who nursed me so tenderly when I was sick at West Point! What can I do for her? Command me!” “We mean Mrs. Robert E. Lee,” they said. “We want ambulances to move Mrs. Lee and other invalids and children to places of safety.” Using his knee as a writing-table, he wrote an order for five ambulances; and the ladies rode off. Miss Emily’s driver became suddenly and mysteriously tipsy and she had to put an arm around him and back up the vehicle herself to General Chilton’s door, where his children, her nieces, were waiting, their dollies close clasped.
“Come along, Virginia aristocracy!” hiccoughed the befuddled Jehu. “I won’t bite you! Come along, Virginia aristocracy!”
A passing officer came to the rescue, and the party were soon safely housed in the beautiful Rutherford home.
The Federals filled Libby Prison with Confederates, many of whom were paroled prisoners found in the city. Distressed women surrounded the prison, begging to know if loved ones were there; others plead to take food inside. Some called, while watching windows: “Let down your tin cup and I will put something in it.” Others cried: “Is my husband in there? O, William, answer me if you are!” “Is my son, Johnny, here?” “O, please somebody tell me if my boy is in the prison!” Miss Emily passed quietly through the crowd, her hospital reputation securing admission to the prison; she was able to render much relief to those within, and to subdue the anxiety of those without.
“Heigho, Johnny Reb! in there now where we used to be!” yelled one Yankee complacently. “Been in there myself. D—d sorry for you, Johnnies!” called up another.
A serio-comic incident of the grim period reveals the small boy in an attitude different from that of him who was dandled on the Federal knee. Some tiny lads mounted guard on the steps of a house opposite Military Headquarters, and, being intensely “rebel” and having no other means of expressing defiance to invaders, made faces at the distinguished occupants of the establishment across the way. General Patrick, Provost-Marshal General, sent a courteously worded note to their father, calling his attention to these juvenile demonstrations. He explained that while he was not personally disturbed by the exhibition, members of his staff were, and that the children might get into trouble. The proper guardians of the wee insurgents, acting upon this information, their first of the battery unlimbered on their door-step, saw that the artillery was retired in good order, and peace and normal countenances reigned over the scene of the late engagements.
I open a desultory diary Matoaca kept, and read:
“If the United States flag were my flag—if I loved it—I would not try to make people pass under it who do not want to. I would not let them. It is natural that we should go out of our way to avoid walking under it, a banner that has brought us so much pain and woe and want—that has desolated our whole land.
“Some Yankees stretched a flag on a cord from tree to tree across the way our children had to come into Richmond. The children saw it and cried out; and the driver was instructed to go another way. A Federal soldier standing near—a guard, sentinel or picket—ordered the driver to turn back and drive under that flag. He obeyed, and the children were weeping and wailing as the carriage rolled under it.”
In Raymond, Mississippi, negro troops strung a flag across the street and drove the white children under it. In Atlanta, two society belles were arrested because they made a detour rather than walk under the flag. Such desecration of the symbol of liberty and union was committed in many places by those in power.