The fall of 1865 was, in Virginia at least, a bountiful one. Planters’ sons had come home, gone into the fields, worked till the crop was all laid by; and then, there was no lack of gaiety. A favourite form of diversion was the tournament, which furnished fine sport for cavalry riders trained under Stuart and Fitz Lee.
One of the most brilliant took place in 1866, at a famous plantation on the North Anna River. The race-track had been beaten down smooth and hard beforehand by the daily training of knights. It was in a fair stretch of meadow-land beyond the lawns and orchards. The time was October, the weather ideal, the golden haze of Indian Summer mellowing every line of landscape. On the day appointed the grounds were crowded with carriages, wagonettes, buggies and vehicles of every sort, some very shabby, but borrowing brightness from the fair young faces within.
The knights were about twenty-five. Their steeds were not so richly caparisoned as Scott’s in “Ivanhoe,” but the riders bestrode them with perhaps greater ease and grace than heavy armor permitted mediæval predecessors. Some wore plumed hats that had covered their heads in real cavalry charges, and more than one warrior’s waist was girt with the red silk sash that had belted him when he rode at the head of his men as Fitz Lee’s captain. A number were in full Confederate uniform, carrying their gray jackets as jauntily as if no battle had ever been lost to them. One of these attracted peculiar attention. He was of very distinguished appearance; and from his arm floated a long streamer of crape. Every one was guessing his name till the herald cried: “Knight of Liberty Lost!” The mourning knight swept before the crowd, bearing off on the point of his spear the three rings which marked his victory for at least that run.
For this sport, three gibbet-like structures stand equal distances apart on a straight race-track. From the arm of each, a hook depends and on each hook a ring is hung. Each knight, with lance poised and aimed, rides full tilt down this track and takes off all the rings he can in a given number of rides. He who captures most rings is victor. It is his right to choose the Queen of Love and Beauty, riding up to her on the field and offering a ring upon his spear. The knight winning the second highest number chooses the First Maid of Honour; and so on, until there is a royal quartette of queen and maids.
The tournament was to the South what baseball is to the nation; it was intensely exciting and picturesque, and, by reason of the guerdon won, poetic, investing an ordinary mortal with such power as Paris exercised when he gave the golden apple to Venus. It had spice of peril to make it attractive, if “danger’s self is lure alone.” Fine horsemanship, a steady hand, and sure eye were essentials.
“Liberty Lost” won, and the mourning knight laid his laurels at the feet of a beautiful girl who has since reigned as a social queen in a Northern home. The coronation took place in the mansion that evening. After a flowery address, each knight knelt and offered a crown to his fair one. The symbols of royalty were wreaths of artificial flowers, the queen’s shaped like a coronet, with sprays forming points. Her majesty wore a gown that had belonged to her great-grandmother; very rich silk in a bayadere pattern, that served as becoming sheath for her slim blonde loveliness. After the coronation, the knights led their fair ones out in the “Royal Set” which opened the ball.
Perhaps it is better to say that George Walker, the negro fiddler, opened the ball. He was the most famous man of his craft in the Piedmont region. There he was that night in all his glory at the head of his band of banjoists, violinists and violincellist; he was grandeur and gloss personified when he made preliminary bow and flourish, held his bow aloft, and set the ball in motion!
“Honour yo’ pardners!”
“And didn’t we do as George told us to do!” Matoaca says. “Such dance-provoking melodies followed as almost bewitched one’s feet. ‘Life on the Ocean Wave,’ ‘Down-town Girls Won’t You Come Out Tonight and Dance by the Light of the Moon!’ ‘Fisher’s Horn-Pipe’ and ‘Ole Zip Coon’ were some of them. Not high-sounding to folks of today, but didn’t they make feet twinkle! People did what was called ‘taking steps’ in those days. I can almost hear George’s fiddle now, and hear him calling: ‘Ladies to the right! Gents to the right! Ladies to the center! Gents to the center! Hands all ’roun’ an’ promenade all!’ Who could yell ‘Do se do!’ and ‘Sashay all!’ with such a swing?”
About one o’clock all marched in to supper, the queen and her knights and maidens leading. It was hard times in Virginia, but the table groaned under such things as folks then thought ought to adorn a festal board. There was not lacking the mighty saddle-o’-mutton, roast pig with apple in his mouth, Smithfield ham, roast turkey, and due accompaniments. The company marched back to the ball-room, and presently marched again to a second supper embracing sweets of all descriptions.