CHAPTER XXVI
STARTING LIFE ANEW
We suffered terribly during the ensuing months for want of something in which we might occupy ourselves. We sat silently, looking out on a landscape marked here and there by chimneys standing sentinel over the blackened heaps where our neighbors had made happy homes. A few books had been saved, only those for which we had little use. A soldier walked in one day with a handsome volume which Jefferson Davis, after inscribing his name in it, had presented to the General. The soldier calmly requested the former owner to be kind enough to add to the value of the volume by writing beneath the inscription his own autograph, and, his request granted, walked off with it under his arm. "He has been at some trouble," said my husband, "and he had as well be happy if I cannot!"
As the various brigades moved away from our neighborhood a few plain articles of furniture that had been taken from the house were restored to us, but nothing handsome or valuable, no books, pictures, bric-à-brac, or house-furnishings of any kind—just a few chairs and tables. I had furnished an itemized list of all the articles we had lost, with only this result.
We had news after a while of our blooded mare, Lady Jane. A letter enclosing her photograph came from a New England officer:—
"To Mr. Pryor,
"Dear Sir: A very fine mare belonging to you came into my camp near Richmond and is now with me. It would add much to her value if I could get her pedigree. Kindly send it at your earliest convenience, and oblige
"Yours truly,
—— ——
"P.S. The mare is in good health, as you will doubtless be glad to know."
Disposed as my General was to be amiable, this was a little too much! The pedigree was not sent.
A great number of tourists soon began to pass our house on their way to visit the localities near us, now become historic. They wished to stand on the site of General Lee's headquarters, to pluck a blade of grass from the hollow of the crater, to visit the abattis, lunettes, and fortifications of both lines, especially Fort Steadman, Fort Gregg, and Battery 45, where the lines were broken the last of March and on April 2.