“Do you not remember?” wrote Mrs. Semmes, of New Orleans, to whom I put some queries concerning an episode of that life in Richmond, “do you not remember Mrs. Stannard, who had such a charming house and gave such delicious teas, alluring such men as Soulé, Commodore Barrow, Henry Marshall, of Louisiana, Butler King, and last, though not least, our dear old Vice-President Stephens? She boasted that she never read a book, and yet all these distinguished gentlemen gathered around her board and ate those hot muffins and broiled chicken with gusto!”
These, and unnumbered other faces, rise before me as I recall the great amateur performance of “The Rivals,” which made that first winter in Richmond memorable and our hostess, Mrs. Ives, famous. In that performance Constance Cary, a beauty of the Fairfax family, captured all hearts as the languishing Lydia, among them that of our President’s Secretary, Colonel Burton Harrison, whose wife she afterward became.
Recalling that interesting evening, Mrs. Harrison wrote very recently, “It seems an aeon since that time, but I have a very vivid recollection of the fun we had and of how prettily Mrs. Ives did everything, spite of grim-visaged war! How I wish I could do anything now with the same zest and rapture with which I put on Lydia’s paduasoy and patches! Brother Clarence, then a very youthful midshipman, was the Fag, and my hero, Captain Absolute, was Mr. Lee Tucker, who has vanished, for me, into the mists of time! I have not heard his name in years!”
The fame of that entertainment, the excitement which the preparation for it caused, spread far beyond the picket lines, and we heard afterward that a daring officer of McClellan’s army had planned to don the Confederate uniform and cross the lines to take a peep at the much-talked-of performance. “There was a galaxy of talent and beauty in that fairest city of the South,” writes my friend, Mrs. Ives, recalling, in 1903, those scenes of the early sixties, “from which I was able to select a strong cast which pre-assured us a brilliant performance. Miss Cary was bewitching, her fair beauty accentuated by the rich costumes she donned for the occasion and which had been worn by her distinguished ancestors in the days of the Old Dominion’s glory! Your sister-in-law, Mrs. H. L. Clay, was so fascinating as Lucy that she captivated her husband anew, as he afterward told me; and then, besides, there was pretty Miss Herndon, who tortured her Falkland into jealousy.”[[24]]
As that historic evening’s pleasures crown all other recollections of social life in the Confederate capital, so soon to be in the eclipse of sorrow and undreamed-of privations, I cannot refrain from recording some incidents of it. Those who took part in the performance (or their descendants) are now scattered in every State of the Union, and it is only by the coöperation of some who remember, among them Mrs. Cora Semmes Ives, of Alexandria, Va., Mrs. Myra Knox Semmes, of New Orleans, and Mrs. Burton Harrison, of New York, that I am enabled to gather together again the names of the cast which charmed Richmond’s three hundred during the first session of the C. S. A. Congress. They were:
| Sir Anthony Absolute | Mr. Randolph, of Richmond |
| Captain Absolute | Mr. Lee Tucker |
| Sir Lucius O’Trigger (and he had an unapproachable brogue) | Robert W. Brown, N. Carolina |
| Fag | Midshipman Clarence Cary |
| David | Mr. Robinson, of Richmond |
| Lydia Languish | Miss Constance Cary, Virginia |
| Julia | Miss Herndon, Virginia |
| Lucy, maid to Lydia | Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, Alabama |
| Mrs. Malaprop | Mrs. Clement C. Clay, Alabama |
| Harpist, Mrs. Semmes Fitzgerald | |
| Pianist, Miss Robinson. | |
For this great occasion no efforts were spared in the rehearsing of our cast, nor in the preparation of our wardrobe. Mrs. Drew, being at that time engaged in playing a precarious engagement at the local theatre (the price of seats not exceeding seventy-five cents, as befitted the times), was invited to a private consultation and criticism of the parts, and it gives me some pleasure, even at this day, to remember her approval of my interpretation of the difficult rôle I had had the hardihood to assume. Our Sir Lucius acquired for the occasion a brogue so rich that almost as much time (and trouble) were necessary to eradicate it from his speech in the weeks that followed as had been spent in attaining it.
The defection of one of the cast for the after-piece (Bombastes Furioso) caused our hostess to display a genuine ability for stage management. Unacquainted with the part she was herself compelled to assume, Mrs. Ives resolved to bring her audience to a state of leniency for any possible shortcomings by dazzling them with the beauty of her apparel. A picture hat from Paris had just run the blockade and arrived safely to the hands of little Miss Ruby Mallory, for whom it had been destined. It was a Leghorn, trimmed with azure velvet and plumes of the same shade. It was an especially appropriate headgear for a character given to dreaming “that all the pots and pans had turned to gold,” and an appeal made to the owner brought it swiftly into the possession of Mrs. Ives. Her success was instantaneous. “I declare,” she said when the play was over, “nothing but that Paris hat saved me from an attack of stage fright!”
The home of Lieutenant Ives on this occasion was crowded to its utmost capacity, the guests comprising President and Mrs. Davis, the Cabinet and Congressional members, together with prominent generals, numbering in all three hundred. The stage, erected under the supervision of our host, an expert engineer, was a wonderful demonstration of his ingenuity. Placed at one end of the long Colonial parlours, it commanded the eye of every visitor. The performance gave the utmost delight to our audience, and Secretary Mallory, who had seen “The Rivals” (so he told me) in every large city of the United States, and on the boards at Drury Lane, declared it had never been given by a cast at once so brilliant and so able! Be that as it may, the remembrance of that performance for forty years has remained as the most ambitious social event in the Confederate States’ capital.