So timber was brought for shelving the dining room, and three thousand or more books were arranged on the shelves. The parlor and the two bedrooms (we had no more in the little cottage) were hung with the pictures bought by my husband when he was Minister to Greece. My favorite—the Raffaello Morghen proof impression of the "Madonna della Seggiola"—hung over the mantel in the parlor, and to it I lifted weary eyes many a time during the remaining days of the war. Sundry delicate carvings were also in the boxes, with my music. My sister had not taken her piano with her to North Carolina. There were a baby-house and toys in another box, and in a French trunk with many compartments some evening dresses, at which I did not even glance, well knowing I should not need them. The trunk containing them was stored in the cellar.
We were happier than we had been for a long time. Things seemed to promise a little respite. To be sure, Grant's army was in front of us; but if we could only avoid a collision for a month or two, the troops on both sides would go into winter quarters, and everybody would have the rest so much needed to fit them for the spring campaign.
"We are here for eight years,—not a day less," said my father, and he fully believed it.
That being the case, it behooved me to look after the little boys' education. School books were found for them. I knew "small Latin and less Greek," but I gravely heard them recite lessons in the former; and they never discovered the midnight darkness of my mind as to mathematics.
I knew nothing of the strong line of fortifications which General Grant was building at the back of the farm, fortifications strengthened by forts at short intervals. Our own line—visible from the garden—had fewer forts, two of which, Fort Gregg and Battery 45, protected our immediate neighborhood. These forts occasionally answered a challenge, but there was no attempt at a sally on either side.
The most painful circumstance connected with our position was the picket firing at night, incessant, like the dropping of hail, and harrowing from the apprehension that many a man fell from the fire of a picket. But, perhaps to reassure me, Captain Lindsay and Captain Glover of General Wilcox's staff declared that "pickets have a good time. They fire, yes, for that is their business; but while they load for the next volley, one will call out, 'Hello, Reb,' be answered, 'Hello, Yank,' and little parcels of coffee are thrown across in exchange for a plug of tobacco." After accepting this fiction I could sleep better.
Nothing could better illustrate the fact that this war was not a war of the men at the guns, than one of General John B. Gordon's anecdotes.[19]
A short distance from Blandford was the strong work on the Federal line called Fort Steadman. It was determined to take this by assault. There were obstructions in front of our lines which had to be removed. The lines were so close this could only be done under cover of darkness. Then there were obstructions to be removed from the front of Fort Steadman, and an immediate rush to be made before the gunners could fire.
This delicate and hazardous duty was successfully performed by General Gordon, near the close of the war, and was the last time the stars and bars were carried to aggressive assault.
About four o'clock in the morning our axemen were quietly at work on our obstacle when the unavoidable noise attracted the notice of a Federal picket. In the black darkness he called out:—