"During the time that General Lee was in service he manifested that complete self-abnegation and dislike of parade and ceremony which became characteristic of him. Accompanied originally by a staff of but two persons, and, after the death of Colonel Washington, with but one aide-de-camp, with no escort or body-guard, no couriers or guides, he made the campaign under altogether unostentatious and really uncomfortable circumstances. One solitary tent constituted his headquarters camp; this served for the General and his aide; and when visitors were entertained, as actually occurred, the General shared his blanket with his aide, turning over those of the latter to his guest. His dinner service was of tin,—tin plates, tin cups, tin bowls, everything of tin,—and consequently indestructible; and to the annoyance and disgust of the subordinates who sighed for porcelain could not or would not be lost; indeed, with the help of occasional additions, this tin furniture continued to do service for several campaigns; and it was only in the last year of the war, while the army was around Petersburg, that a set of china was surreptitiously introduced into the baggage of the headquarters of the army. This displaced for a time the chaste and elaborate plate; but on resuming 'light marching order' at the time of the evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg, the china, which had been borrowed by the staff, was returned; the tins were again produced, and did good service until the surrender of the army, when they passed into the hands of individuals who now preserve them as mementos of the greatest commander in the great war."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG
June 9 will always be a sacred day to the citizens of Petersburg. Every man capable of bearing arms had enlisted early in the service of the Southern Confederacy. They felt that much was expected of them. Petersburg had behaved gallantly in 1776, and had been the "Cockade City" in 1812. For the first three years of the war, as we have seen, no gun was fired near her gates. Only old men, women, and children were left in the town. The maidens bore their denied lives with cheerfulness, sustained and encouraged by the steadfast and serene bearing of their elders. Everybody worked for the soldiers and assembled every afternoon to pray for them. The city was almost as quiet as Blandford, her sister city of the dead, where the old Blands, Bollings, and Poythresses slept in perfect peace.
True, Petersburg, like Richmond, had her day of feverish excitement, known in Confederate history as "Pawnee Sunday," when both cities had been menaced by an ironclad. Early in the morning a telegraph operator had relieved a dull hour by interviewing his colleague at City Point, "Any danger from the Pawnee?" receiving as answer, "The Pawnee is coming up the Appomattox." The town was wild. Everything valuable was hidden away, and the militia was drawn up, the lads of twelve and fourteen loading their hunting pieces and rallying to the town hall. Time having been allowed for any reasonable, well-conducted man-of-war to steam twelve miles, the telegraph operator, sorely pressed by questions, again interrogated his City Point friend. "What's become of the Pawnee? She isn't here yet." The irate answer spun over the line: "You—fool! I said the Pawnee is not coming up the river." Everything fell flat at once. There was an avowed sense of disappointment at the loss of an opportunity which might not come again. The dear women—the best I have ever known in any land—resumed their gentle ministrations, working much for the hospitals, and supplementing with culinary skill many deficiencies in material. But the men chafed. The veterans had felt the blood leap in their veins with the fire of youth; the boys longed for the fray; the physician, tied to his humdrum routine, yearned for the larger sphere in the field. "The dearest sacrifice a man can make to his country is his ambition."
The Pawnee incident was a fortunate one for the city, for it awakened the authorities to the necessity of preparing against surprise. The old, exempt citizens were formed into companies for home defence, and a breastwork was prepared commanding a road, "particularly interesting," says one of the survivors, "because it opened to deserving Petersburgers the beatific vision of Sussex hams and Southampton whiskey;" for at that moment the dreaded foe was the wolf already at the door, rather than the possible thunderbolt.
When General Butler, in June, 1864, commenced his advance against Richmond, which was intended as a coöperative movement with General Grant to accomplish what was done the following spring, he sent General Kautz on June 9 to make a cavalry attack on Petersburg, twenty miles below Richmond. The city, as I have said, was almost defenceless. There had been much strategy,—marching and countermarching,—too long a story to tell here; but one thing at least was accomplished, as one of the Confederate colonels pithily remarked, "Whatever blunders were made, the citizens and militia had been trotted out in the direction of the enemy at least." Kautz's superb cavalry appeared suddenly, was met by the old men and boys of Petersburg, and was repulsed. Colonel Fletcher Archer commanded the militiamen. Forewarned only a few minutes before the charge, he hastily formed his men into line. He says: "And what a line! In number scarcely more than sufficient to constitute a single company, in dress nothing to distinguish them from citizens pursuing the ordinary avocations of life, in age many of them silvered over with the frosts of advancing years, while others could scarcely boast of the down upon the cheek of youth; in arms and accoutrements such as an impoverished government could afford them. But there was that in their situation which lifted them above the ordinary rules of criticism. They stood there, not as mercenaries who, having enlisted on account of profit, required the strong arm of military law to keep them to their post, nor as devotees of ambition craving a place in the delusive pages of history, but they stood as a band of patriots whose homes were imperilled and whose loved ones were in danger of falling into the hands of an untried foe. As they stood in line before me I could see them glancing back at their own dwellings under the sun of a lovely June morning. When I addressed them in a few words of encouragement, they listened with gravity and a full appreciation of their situation. There was no excitement, no shout, only calm resolution."
Thus their commander. What did the men themselves feel? One of them wrote: "We had not long to wait. A cloud of dust in our front told of the hurried advance of cavalry, and the next moment the glitter of spur and scabbard revealed a long line of horsemen half a mile in front of us. Oh, how we missed our cannon! Our venerable muskets were not worth a tinker's imprecation at longer range than a hundred yards, and we were compelled perforce to watch the preparations for our slaughter, much after the fashion that a rational turtle may be presumed to contemplate the preliminaries of an aldermanic dinner."
These were the men who saved the city. It was in honor of them that the women and children marched through dust and heat on June 9, 1866, to lay garlands of flowers upon their humble graves, and by their pious action to inaugurate the beautiful custom, which is now observed all over the country, of honoring the dead who fell in the Civil War. No lovelier day ever dawned than June 9, 1864. The magnolia grandiflora was in full flower, bee-haunted honey-locusts perfumed the warm air, almost extinguishing the peachy odor of the microphylla roses, graceful garlands of jessamine hung over the trellised front porches. Almost the first intimation that the town received of its great peril was the impetuous dash through the streets of the Confederate artillery. The morning was so sweet and bright that the women and little children were abroad in the streets, on their way to market, or on errands to the shops, or to visit with fruit and flowers the old and sick among their friends. Lossie Hill, the daintiest of dainty maidens, was picking her leisurely way in the dusty street, going to spend the morning with old Mrs. Mertens, when she heard the frantic shout: "Get out of the way! Damn the women! Run over them if they won't get out of the way." This was the morning greeting of the politest of gentlemen,—Captain Graham,—whose guns were thundering down the street to the rescue of the slender line at the front. As fast as the dread news reached the men exempt from duty, who were engaged in their various professions and vocations, every one dropped his business and rushed to the firing line. The oldest men were as ardent as the youngest. One man, a druggist, began, while pulling on his accoutrements, to give directions to a venerable clerk whom he expected to dispense drugs in his absence. "Now," said the old man, "if you want anything done at home you must talk to somebody else! I am going to the front! I'm just like General Lee. I should be glad if these fellows would go back to their homes and let us alone, but if they won't they must be made to, that's all." With their arms around their father, pretty Molly and Gussie Banister implored him not to go forth. He was president of the bank, he was frail and not young. "The duty of every man lies yonder," said he, pointing to the puffs of smoke at the gates of the town, and shouldering his musket he marched away.
Mr. William C. Banister was a cultivated, Christian gentleman, one of Petersburg's most esteemed and beloved citizens. His widow and sweet daughters received him—dead—on the evening of the battle. Molly Banister, one of the dear girls who blessed my life in those anxious days, has told the story of her martyred father's patriotic fervor:—