(Daughter of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky)
She was the wife of Senator Yulee, of Florida,
Vice Regent of the Mount Vernon Association of Florida,
and was known as the “Madonna of the Wickliffe Sisters.”
Of all the fair women I have ever seen, Mary Meade was fairest. No portrait can do justice to the picture memory holds of her as “Bride” to D’Arcy Paul’s “Bridegroom” in the “Mistletoe Bough,” which Mrs. Edwin Morrison staged so handsomely that her amateurs were besought to “star” in the interest of good causes. Our fair maids were no idle “lilies of loveliness.” The Meade sisters and others turned talents to account in mending fallen family fortunes. Maids and matrons labored diligently to gather our soldier dead into safe resting-places. The “Lyrical Memorial,” Mrs. Platt’s enterprise, like the “Mistletoe Bough” (later produced), was called for far and wide. The day after presentation in Louisville, the Federal Commandant sent Mary Meade, who had impersonated the South pleading sepulture for her sons, a basket of flowers with a live white dove in the center.
Slowly in Richmond interchange of little human kindnesses between neighbors established links. General Bartlett, occupying the Haxall house, who had lost a leg in the war, was “the Yankee who conquered my wife,” a Southerner bears witness. “I came home one day and found him sitting with her on my steps. He suffered greatly from his old wound, bore it patiently, and by his whole conduct appealed to her sweet womanliness. His staff was quiet and orderly.”
The beautiful daughter of one family and her feeble grandmother were the only occupants of the mansion into which General Ord and his wife moved. The pair had no money and were unable to communicate with absent members of the household who had been cut off from home by the accidents of war while visiting in another city. The younger lady was ill with typhoid fever. The general and his wife were very thoughtful and generous in supplying ice, brandy, and other essentials and luxuries.
“Under Heaven,” the invalid bore grateful witness when recovering, “I owe my life to General and Mrs. Ord.” Her loveliness and helplessness were in themselves an argument to move a heart of stone to mercy; nevertheless, it was virtue and grace that mercy was shown.
We made small appeal for sympathy or aid; were too much inclined to the reverse course, carrying poverty and other troubles with a stiff-neck, scantily-clad backs, long-suffering stomachs, and pride and conscience resolved. But—though some form of what we considered oppression was continually before our eyes—our conquerors, when in our midst, were more and more won to pity and then to sympathy. Our commandants might be stern enough when first they came, but when they had lived among us a little while, they softened and saw things in a new light; and the negroes and the carpet-baggers complained of them every one, and the authorities at Washington could not change them fast enough.
Southerners here and in other cities who had Federal boarders were considered fortunate because of the money and protection secured. In such cases, there was usually mutual kindness and consideration, politeness keeping in the background topics on which differences were cruel and sharp; but the sectional dividing lines prevented free social intermingling.
In places garrisoned by soldiers of coarser types and commanded by men less gentlemanly, women sometimes displayed more pronounced disapprobation. Not always with just occasion, but, again, often with cause only too grave. At the best, it was not pleasant to have strange men sauntering, uninvited, into one’s yard and through one’s house, invading one’s kitchen and entertaining housemaids and cooks. That these men wore blue uniforms was unfortunate for us and for the uniform. At that time, the very sight of “army blue” brought terror, anguish and resentment.
Our famous physicians, Maguire and McCaw, were often called to the Northern sick. Dr. McCaw came once direct to Uncle Randolph from the Dents, where he had been summoned to Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, and Matoaca listened curiously to his and her uncle’s cordial discussion of General Grant, who had made friends at the South by his course at Appomattox and his insistence on the cartel.