When we assembled around the table, I lifted my hot pitcher by means of a napkin, and offered my tea, pure and simple, allowing the guests to use their discretion in regard to a spoonful or two of very dark brown sugar.
"This is a great luxury, Madam," said Mr. Soulé, with one of his gracious bows, "a good cup of tea."
We talked that night of all that was going wrong with our country, of the good men who were constantly relieved of their commands, of all the mistakes we were making.
"Mistakes!" said General Hill, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table, "I could forgive mistakes! I cannot forgive lies! I could get along if we could only, only ever learn the truth, the real truth." But he was very personal and used much stronger words than these.
They talked and talked, these veterans and the charming, accomplished diplomat, until one of them inquired the hour. I raised a curtain.
"Gentlemen," I said, "the sun is rising. You must now breakfast with us." They declined. They had supped!
I had the misfortune early in June to fall ill, with one of the sudden, violent fevers which cannot be arrested, but must "run its course" for a certain number of days. I was delirious from this fever, and wild with the idea that a battle was raging within hearing. I fancied I could hear the ring of the musket as it was loaded! Possibly my quickened senses had really heard, for a fierce battle was going on at Port Walthall, a station on the Richmond and Petersburg railroad, six miles distant. General Butler had landed at Bermuda Hundred and had been sent by General Grant to lead a column against Richmond on the south side of the James and to coöperate with forces from the Wilderness. Butler had reached Swift Creek, there to be met by General Johnson, and repulsed as far as Walthall Junction on the railroad. The following day there was a hotly contested battle at close quarters, continued on the next, when our men, although greatly outnumbered by Butler's forces, drove these back to their base on the James River. All this time my excited visions were of battle and soldiers, culminating at last by the presence of one soldier, leaning wearily on his sabre in my own room. I did not recognize the soldier, but memory still holds his attitude of grief as he looked at me, and the sound of his voice as he answered my question, "Where have you been all this time?" with, "In more peril than in all my life before."
But the fever crisis was passing even then, and I was soon well enough to learn more. This was another of the well-planned schemes for taking Richmond, another of the failures which drew from Lincoln the gravely humorous reply, when application was made to him for a pass to go to Richmond:—
"I don't know about that; I have given passes to about two hundred and fifty thousand men to go there during the last two or three years, and not one of them has got there yet."
Dr. Claiborne went out to this Walthall battle-field to help the wounded, taking with him surgeons and ambulances. A dreadful sight awaited him. Bodies of dead men, Federal and Confederate, lay piled together in heaps. On removing some of these to discover if any one of them might be still alive, a paper dropped from the pocket of a young lieutenant, written in German to a lady in Bremen. Upon reading it, Dr. Claiborne found it was addressed to his betrothed. He told her that his term of service having expired, he would soon leave for New York City, and he gave her the street and number where she should meet him on her arrival in this country. This was his last fight, into which he went no doubt voluntarily, as he was about to leave the army. Doubtless the blue-eyed Mädchen looked long for him on the banks of the Weser! The doctor indorsed the sad news on the letter, and sent it through the lines. Perhaps it reached her, or perhaps she is telling her story this day to other blue eyes on the Weser, eyes that look up and wonder she could ever have been young, lovely, and the promised bride of a gallant Union officer.