But I did not return with him. I had enlisted for the war! For some reason, which was not explained at the time, he suddenly returned, and my only knowledge of his coming was a peremptory official order to change my base—to leave Smithfield next morning at daybreak! The orderly who brought it stood before me as I read, and looked intensely surprised when I said: "Tell the Colonel it is impossible! I can't get ready by to-morrow morning to leave."
"Madam," said the man, gravely, "it is none of my business, but when Colonel Pryor gives an order, it is best to be a strict constructionist."
Mr. Britt proved a tower of strength. He closed his store and brought all his force to help me. My cow was presented with my compliments to my neighbor, Mrs. Smith, under promise of secrecy (for I knew I must not alarm the town by my precipitate departure), my camp equipage brought from the warehouse, my belongings all packed. As the sun rose next morning, I greeted him from my seat on a trunk in an open wagon on my way to Zuni, the railway station fifteen miles away. I never saw a lovelier morning. The cattle were all afield for their early breakfast of dewy grass, a thin line of smoke was ascending from the cottages on the wayside. The mother could be seen within, preparing breakfast for the children, who stood in the door to gaze at us as we passed. The father was possibly away in the army, although the times were not yet so stern that every man became a conscript. These humbler folk who lived close to the highway—what sufferings were in store for them from the pillage of the common soldier! What terror and dismay for the dwellers in the broad-porticoed, many-chambered mansions beyond the long avenues of approach in the distance! I could but think of these things when I heard the boom of guns on the warships at Newport News, sounds to which my ears had grown accustomed, but which now took on, somehow, a new meaning.
I soon learned that the Third Virginia Regiment moved the day after I received my own marching orders.
McClellan had landed about one hundred thousand efficient troops on the Peninsula for the movement upon Richmond. General Joseph E. Johnston's line of about fifty-three thousand men extended across the narrow neck of land between the York and the James. They gave McClellan battle May 5 at Williamsburg, captured four hundred unwounded prisoners, ten colors, and twelve field-pieces, slept on the field of battle, and marched off the next morning at their leisure and convenience. After this my Colonel was brevetted Brigadier-General.
The news of his probable promotion reached me at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, whither I had gone that I might be near headquarters, and thus learn the earliest tidings from the Peninsula. There the Colonel joined me for one day. We read with keen interest the announcement in the papers that his name had been sent in by the president for promotion. Mrs. Davis held a reception at the Spotswood Hotel on the evening following this announcement, and we availed ourselves of the opportunity to make our respects to her.
A crowd gathered before the Exchange to congratulate my husband, and learning that he had gone to the Spotswood, repaired thither, and with many shouts and cheers called him out for a speech. This was very embarrassing, and he fled to a corner of the drawing-room and hid behind a screen of plants. I was standing near the president, trying to hold his attention by remarks on the weather and kindred subjects of a thrilling nature, when a voice from the street called out: "Pryor! General Pryor!" I could endure the suspense no longer, and asked tremblingly, "Is this true, Mr. President?" Mr. Davis looked at me with a benevolent smile and said, "I have no reason, Madam, to doubt it, except that I saw it this morning in the papers," and Mrs. Davis at once summoned the bashful Colonel: "What are you doing lying there perdu behind the geraniums? Come out and take your honors." The next day my bristling eagles, which had faithfully held guard on the Colonel's uniform, retired before the risen stars of the Brigadier-General.
On May 31 "Old Joe" and "Little Mac," as they were affectionately called by their respective commands, again confronted each other, and fought the great two days' battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines.
This battle was said to have been one of the closest, most hotly contested, and bloody of the war. A few miles from Petersburg the cannonading could be distinctly heard, and ten or twelve of the Federal observation balloons could be seen in the air.
McClellan had an army of one hundred thousand; Johnston had sixty-three thousand. The afternoon and night before a terrible storm had raged, "sheets of fire, lightning, sharp and dreadful thunderclaps, were fit precursors of the strife waged by the artillery of man.