New Tear's Eve it was decided that we should be married on the first of June. As the clock struck twelve, and the last footfall of the old year died away, Edward put out his hand to take mine, and said:
'A happy New Tear it will surely be to us, my Laura, for we shall spend more than half of it together;' and I echoed his 'happy New Year' without a dread. I knew the storm was coming; I feared its fury; but I thought myself too secure, too near a haven to be lost; how could I know that the brave ship was destined to go down in sight of land?
And yet I might have known it. For I came from the North, which was, and is my home; and he was a Southern man. His family owned property and slaves in Georgia; and, though Mr. Mayne's political career had prevented their living there much, they considered it their home. One of the sons, who was married, lived on the plantation, and managed it well; the slaves were comparatively happy, and there were strong ties between them, their master and his family. My sister, who was delicate, had spent a winter in Florida, and I had accompanied her there. On our way home we paid a visit to the Mayne plantation; my sister enjoyed herself very much there, and was pro-slavery from that time; I was then sixteen, and had always hated it, and what with my fears of snakes, and my dislike of the black servants, whom I thought either inefficient or impertinent, and my unconquerable liking for freedom, I was not so fascinated. Edward Mayne himself did not like a planter's life, and he thought slavery an evil, but an evil inherited and past curing. He argued that the disease was not mortal and endurable, and that it would kill the country to use the knife. His youngest sister and I were the only two who ever discussed the subject; she talked a great deal of nonsense, and probably I did, too; and as she always lost her temper, I thought it wiser to let the subject drop, especially as I did not think about it a great deal, and it annoyed Edward to have any coolness between Georgy and me, and he himself never discussed the topic. We were both very young and very happy, too young and thoughtless to care much for any great question, so we sang our little song of happiness, and its music filled our ears until it was no longer possible not to hear the tumult of the world without.
The first day of January was our last day of perfect peace. Those who had not thought of the question before had now to answer what part they meant to take. People discussed less what States would secede, and more what they would themselves do, and many who are now most firm on one side or the other were then agitated by doubt and indecision. Events did not tarry for individual minds. We all know the story now; I need not repeat it. Still my future seemed unchanged, and I went to New York the third of January to order my wedding clothes, but I stayed only three or four days; I was restless for the continued excitement of Washington. The day I came back Mississippi seceded, and with it went Mr. Davis. I heard him make that farewell speech which so few listened to unmoved, and at which I cried bitterly. I went to say good by to him, though I could not say God speed, for already I was beginning to know that I had principles, and which side they were on. As we parted, he said, in that courteous way that has made so many bow at his shrine:
'We shall have you in the South very soon, Miss Laura,' and I did not say no; but the mist lifted suddenly before my eyes, and I saw the rock on which my life was to split, and that no striving against the stream would avail me aught. Still I said nothing, and the days flew swiftly by on restless wings; days so full of excitement that they seemed to take years with them in their flight.
It was a lovely morning in February; the air had already a May softness in it, and the crocuses were bright in the grounds of the Capitol, when Edward and I went to take our favorite walk, and there, in sight of the broad river which is now a world-known name of division, he told me he had made up his mind to leave the army; that there might be fighting, and he could not fight against his own people, whom he believed to be in the right; that he thought it more honorable to resign at that moment than to wait until the hour of need. I could not oppose him, for I knew he thought he was doing his duty. I remembered how different his opinions were from mine, and that his whole system of education had trained him in dissimilar ideas of right from those held in the North. Georgia was his country, for which he lived, and for which he thought he ought to die, if need were. The shackles of inherited prejudices trammelled his spirit, as they might have trammelled the spirit of a wiser man, who could have shaken them off in the end; but my lover was not wide-minded, and had not the clear sight that sees over and beyond these petty lives of ours that are as nothing in the way of a great principle and a God-bidden struggle; his eyes saw only what they had been taught to see—his home, in its greenness and beauty, not the dank soul-malaria, to which, alas! so many of us are acclimated.
He resigned, and his resignation was accepted without delay or difficulty, as were all resignations in those days. The spring began to break in all its glory, and the grass grew green in Virginia, on fields that were trampled and bloody before that battle summer was over. The little wren sang again its song. This year a song of promise—of promise never to be fulfilled!
For the news of Sumter came, and the North rose with a cry, and my heart leaped up within me with a thrill stronger and deeper and more masterful than any mere personal feeling can ever give; a feeling that rules my soul to-day even as it ruled in that first excited hour.
Edward went South, and I let him go alone. I could not, I would not go with him. I had no sympathy, no tenderness, scarcely forgiveness for the men who had brought the evil upon us. We parted lovers, hoping for days of peace, and sure of reunion when those days should come; and every night and every morning I prayed for him; but first I prayed for the safety of my country, and the victory of our cause.
Time crept on. The battle of Bull Run was fought; he was engaged in it, and for many, many days I never knew whether he was living or dead. In the autumn I heard he had been ordered West, and that winter was a time of anxious days and restless nights. I never heard from him, and I did not think it fair to write; occasionally I heard of him through an aunt of his, who lived in Maryland, but she was gall and bitterness itself on the political question, and never let me know anything she could possibly keep from me. So my life passed in fruitless wondering and bitter suspense; I never saw a soldier without thinking of Edward, and my dreams showed him to me wounded, ill, or dying. No; the dead may make their voices heard across the gulf that parts us from them, but not the absent, or his soul would have heard my 'exceeding loud and bitter cry,' and hearing, must have come.