MRS. ROGER A PRYOR
“Mary, when I die, bury me in my Confederate uniform. I want to rise a Confederate.” So said to his wife Dr. Hunter Maguire, the great Stonewall’s Surgeon-in-Chief, a short time before his death. He was no less true to the living Union because he was faithful to the dead Confederacy. Visitors used to love to see General Lee at the Finals of Washington College in his full suit of Confederate gray; it became him to wear it in the midst of the draped flags and stacked arms, for while he was teaching our young men to love our united country and to reverence the Stars and Stripes, he did not want them to fail in reverence to the past. None can want us so to fail. Mrs. Lizzie George Henderson, President of the U. D. C., says in the “Confederate Veteran”: “Wherever there is a chapter North or West, our Northern friends are so kind and help so much that it brings us closer together as one people.”
The thought of her who was “Daughter of the Confederacy” is inseparable from my text. One afternoon Matoaca and I called on Miss Mason at her quaint old house in Georgetown, D. C., a place of pilgrimage for patriotic Southerners. We sat on the little back porch which is on a level with Miss Emily’s flower-garden, and she gave us tea in little old-fashioned cups, pouring it out of a little old-fashioned silver tea-pot that sat on a little old-fashioned table. She and Matoaca fell to talking about Mr. Davis.
“I shall never forget him as I saw him first,” said Miss Emily, “a young lieutenant in the United States Army, straight as an arrow, handsome and elegant. It was at the Governor’s Mansion in Detroit; my young brother was Governor of Michigan, the State’s first Executive; Lieutenant Davis was our guest; the Black Hawk War, in which he had greatly distinguished himself, was just ended, and he was bringing Black Hawk through the country. I was much impressed with the young Lieutenant. I watched his career with interest. I met him again when he was a member of President Pierce’s Cabinet. He made a very able Secretary of War.
“Strange how events turn, that it should have been Mr. Davis who sent General McClellan (then Colonel) and General Lee (then Colonel) to the Crimea to study the art of war as practised by the Russians. General McClellan’s son, now Mayor of New York, has said that his father had ample opportunity to form unbiassed opinion of the Secretary, as he spent much time in Washington before and after his mission to Russia and was in close touch with Mr. Davis. He quoted his father as saying: ‘Colonel Davis was a man of extraordinary ability. As an executive officer, he was remarkable. He was the best Secretary of War—and I use best in its widest sense—I ever had anything to do with.’”
“I like ‘Little Mac’ for saying that and his son for repeating it. ‘Little Mac’ fought us like a gentleman. When his son runs for the Presidency perhaps I shall urge everybody to vote for him,” said Matoaca.
“Unless a Southerner runs,” I suggested.
“Alas! When will a Southerner be President of the United States? I heard Mr. Davis make his famous speech bidding farewell to the Senate when Mississippi seceded. It was the most eloquent thing I ever listened to! All the women—and even men—were in tears. Senators went up to him and embraced him. I saw Mr. Davis in Richmond as President of the Confederacy. I saw him in prison; His Eminence, the Cardinal, secured me permission. He was very thin and feeble, but he rose in his old graceful manner and offered me his seat, a little wooden box beside his bed, a small iron one. The eyes of the guard were on us all the time. General Miles came and looked in. I asked Mr. Davis if I could do anything for him. He said he would like some reading matter. I had had some newspapers, but had not been permitted to bring them in. I was allowed to remain only a few moments.
“I next saw him in Paris. I am so glad to have that memory of him. So many Southerners came abroad in those days. During reconstruction the procession seemed endless! While in Rome I introduced so many Southerners to Pope Pius IX. that His Holiness used to call me ‘L’Ambassadrice du Sud.’ Mr. Davis was much fêted in France, as he had been in England. While he was at Mr. Mann’s in Chantilly, Judah P. Benjamin came from London to see him. Mr. Benjamin was delightful company. I was at Mr. Charles Carroll’s when Mr. Davis was entertained there. I recall one dinner when the Southern colony flocked around him in full force and played a game on him. You know of his wonderful memory and wide reading. We laid our heads together before he came in and studied up puzzling quotations to trip him. But the instant one of us would spring couplet, quatrain or epigram on him, he would answer with the author. He perceived our friendly conspiracy and entered merrily into the spirit of it. I alone tripped him—with something I had read in early childhood. I am glad to have this happy memory of Mr. Davis. Otherwise I should always be seeing him as he looked in prison.”
Mr. and Mrs. Davis came to Paris for their young daughter, Winnie, who was under Miss Emily’s care. They had left her some years before at school in Carlsruhe. Knowing in the early part of 1881 that Miss Mason was travelling in Germany, they wrote her to bring Winnie to Paris, where the girl was to abide until their arrival, studying music and acquiring Parisian graces. When Miss Mason called at Carlsruhe, Winnie rushed into her arms joyously: “I am so glad,” she cried, “to see someone from home!”