War, wicked, cruel war, knows no mercy, no justice. War is the dreadful crime of the world. Against war prayer should ascend day and night until it shall cease forever. It is not right that it should be classed with "pestilence and famine" in our prayers. It should have an hour—a daily hour—to itself, when old men and women, young men and maidens, and little children should implore God to make wars to cease from the fair world He has created.
The refugees who came to us from exposed districts within the enemy's lines thrilled our souls with horror. We heard these stories from the valley of Virginia and from Norfolk. Liberty of speech in child or woman was sternly punished. At Norfolk a clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Armstrong, had been put in the chain gang and compelled to work on the streets because of disrespectful allusion to the presence of Federal troops. We trembled at these recitals; but we never dreamed the war would come to us. At twilight, when the air was clear and still, we could hear the booming of the heavy guns of the ironclads on James River; but McClellan had been unable to take Richmond, and nobody would want little Petersburg.
In July, General Lee fought and lost the great battle of Gettysburg, which plunged our state into mourning and lamentation. Never can the world read with dry eyes of the charge of Pickett's brigade and the manner in which it was met. "Decry war as we may and ought," says Rhodes in his "History," "'breathes there the man with soul so dead' who would not thrill with emotion to claim for his countrymen the men who made that charge and the men who met it? General Lee bore the disaster magnificently. An officer, attempting to place on other shoulders some portion of the blame, General Lee said solemnly, 'All this has been MY fault—it is I that have lost this fight, and you must all help me out of it in the best way you can.'"
The Federal loss in this battle, killed, wounded, and captured, was 23,003, the Confederate 20,451—making a total of 43,454 good and true men lost, in one battle, to their country. The emblem of mourning hung at many a door among our friends in Richmond and Petersburg. Close upon this disaster came news of the fall of Vicksburg.
On July 3d my General (this was before he resigned his commission) was in Richmond serving on a court-martial. In the evening he called upon Mr. and Mrs. Davis, and was told the President was not receiving, but that Mrs. Davis would be glad to see him. The weather was intensely hot, and my husband felt he must not inflict a long visit; but when he rose to leave, Mrs. Davis begged him to remain, and seemed averse from being left alone. After a few minutes the President came in, weary, silent, and depressed. The news from Gettysburg sufficiently accounted for his melancholy aspect.
Presently a dear little boy entered in his night-robe, and kneeling beside his father's knee repeated his evening prayer of thankfulness, and of supplication for God's blessing on the country. The President laid his hand on the boy's head and fervently responded, "Amen." The scene recurred vividly, in the light of future events, to my husband's memory. With the coming day came the news of the surrender of Vicksburg,—news of which Mr. Davis had been forewarned the evening before,—and already the Angel of Death was hovering near, to enfold the beautiful boy and bear him away from a world of trouble.
I had taken my young family to a watering place in the county of Amelia, and there a few homeless women like myself were spending the months of July and August. Everything was so sad there was no heart in any one for gayety of any kind; but one evening the proprietor proposed that the ball room be lighted and a solitary fiddler, "Bozeman,"—who was also the barber,—be installed in the musicians' seat and show us what he could do. Young feet cannot resist a good waltz or polka, and the floor was soon filled with care-forgetting maidens—there were no men except the proprietor and the fiddler. Presently a telegram was received by the former. We all huddled together under the chandelier to read it. Vicksburg had fallen! The gallant General Pemberton had been starved into submission. Surely and swiftly the coil was tightening around us. Surely and swiftly should we, too, be starved into submission.
CHAPTER XVII
A HOMELESS WANDERER
Having no longer a home of my own, it was decided that I should go to my people in Charlotte County. One of my sons, Theo, and two of my little daughters were already there, and there I expected to remain until the end of the war.
But repeated attempts to reach my country home resulted in failure. Marauding parties and guerillas were flying all over the country. There had been alarm at a bridge over the Staunton near the Oaks, and the old men and boys had driven away the enemy. I positively could not venture alone.