Thousands of Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. Richmond was saved! "I am in hopes," wrote General McClellan to his Secretary of War, "the enemy is as completely worn out as I am."
He was! General Lee realized that his men must have rest. My husband was allowed a few days' respite from duty. Almost without a pause he had fought the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Frazier's Farm, and Malvern Hill. He had won his promotion early, but he had lost the soldiers he had led, the loved commander who appreciated him, had seen old schoolmates and friends fall by his side,—the dear fellow, George Loyal Gordon, who had been his best man at our wedding,—old college comrades, valued old neighbors.
Opposed to him in battle, then and after, were men who in after years avowed themselves his warm friends,—General Hancock, General Slocum, General Butterfield, General Sickles, General Fitz-John Porter, General McClellan, and General Grant. They had fought loyally under opposing banners, and from time to time, as the war went on, one and another had been defeated; but over all, and through all, their allegiance had been given to a banner that has never surrendered,—the standard of the universal brotherhood of all true men.
I cannot omit a passing tribute to the heroic fortitude and devotion of the Richmond women in the time of their greatest trial. These were the delicate, beautiful women I had so admired when I lived among them. Not once did they spare themselves, or complain, or evince weakness, or give way to despair. The city had "no language but a cry." Two processions unceasingly passed along the streets; one the wounded borne from the battlefield; the other the cheering men going to take their places at the front. Within the hospitals all that devotion could suggest, of unselfish service, gentle ministration, encouragement, was done by the dear women. Every house was open for the sick and wounded. Oh, but I cannot again tell it all! Sacredly, tenderly I remember, but to-day it seems so cruel, so unnecessary, so wicked! I cannot dwell upon it!
One beautiful memory is of the unfailing kindness and loyalty of the negroes. In the hospitals, in the camps, in our own houses, they faithfully sympathized with us and helped us. Not only at this time, but all during the war, they behaved admirably. The most intense secessionist I ever knew was my general's man, John. Early in the day the black man elected for himself an attitude of quiescence as to politics, and addressed himself to the present need for self-preservation.
It was "Domingo," one of the cooks of our brigade at Williamsburg, that originated the humorous description of a negro's self-appraisement and sensations in battle, so unblushingly quoted afterward by a certain "Cæsar" in northern Virginia. A shell had entered the domain of pots and kettles, and created what Domingo termed a "clatteration." He at once started for the rear.
"What's de matter, Mingo?" asked a fellow-servant, "whar you gwine wid such a hurrification?"
"I gwine to git out o' trouble—dar whar I gwine! Dar's too much powder in dem big things. Dis chile ain't gwine bu'n hisself! An' dar's dem Minnie bullets, too, comin' frew de a'r, singin': 'Whar is you? Whar is you?' I ain't gwine stop an' tell 'em whar I is! I'se a twenty-two-hundurd-dollar nigger, an' I'se gwine tek keer o' what b'longs to marster, I is!"
A story was related by a Northern writer of an interview with a negro who had run the blockade and entered the service of a Federal officer. He was met on board a steamer, after the battle of Fort Donelson, on his way to the rear, and questioned in regard to his experience of war.
"Were you in the fight?"