“Enough about us. I wonder what this will find our friends doing? My dear Mrs. Celeste? Embroidering the Senatorial laticlave or musing on sweet Macon, sweeter Huntsville? Mrs. Virginia? In whatever mood or occupation, it is agreed you have this advantage of us: you carry your sunshine with you; we men, being but opaque and lunatic bodies, can give light only by reflection. Imagine, then, in what ‘Cimmerian darkness’ we revolve here. If you would throw a ray through this darkness, show us one glimpse of the blue sky through all this battle-smoke, write to us, directing care General French, Franklin, Virginia. I shall regard, most affectionately, the carrier who brings such intelligence from that office to these headquarters. The huge shell that has just shrieked across the intervening distance from the enemy’s trenches to our pickets, and exploding, is not yet done reverberating, reminds me that I might tell you a little of our situation here.
“The reticence of our General forbids all knowledge of his plans and ultimate designs. I can only say that our army, embracing three divisions, closely invests Suffolk on three sides, its water and railroad communications into Norfolk being still complete, except that General French, having possession of one bank of the river, is working hard to get into position guns of sufficient calibre to destroy their gunboats. That, in the meantime, large foraging parties and immense wagontrains have been sent out for provisions. So that this of forage may be the grand design after all, and instead of living that we may fight, are fighting that we may live, the latter being a very desperate situation, but the more laudable endeavour of the two, perilling our lives, not only for the vitality of our principles as patriots, but for the very sustenance of our lives as men, seeking corn and bacon as well as the ‘bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth.’ But I began a love-letter; I fear I am ending most unetherially. Starting to wing a flight across the sea, Icarus-like, my wings have proved to be of wax, melting with a too near approach to the sun, and I find myself floundering, and clearing my nose and eyes and mouth of the enveloping salt water. Being not even a swimmer, I escape drowning by ending (Icarus found nereids and yellow-haired nymphs to assist him), with much love to your husbands, and an infinite quantity to yourselves,
Yours,
“Cliff Lanier.”
“God bless you both. Write to us!” said Sid., our dear Orpheus of the South. “Have you ever, my Two Good Friends, wandered, in an all-night’s dream, through exquisite flowery mosses, through labyrinthine grottoes, ‘full of all sparkling and sparry loveliness,’ over mountains of unknown height, by abysses of unfathomable depth, all beneath skies of an infinite brightness caused by no sun; strangest of all, wandered about in wonder, as if you had lived an eternity in the familiar contemplation of such things?
“And when, at morning, you have waked from such a dream and gone about your commonplace round of life, have you never stopped suddenly to gaze at the sun and exclaimed to yourself, ‘what a singular thing it is up there; and these houses, bless me, what funny institutions, not at all like my grottoes and bowers, in which I have lived for all eternity; and those men and women walking about there, uttering strange gibberish, and cramming horrid messes of stuff in their mouths, what dear, odd creatures! What does it all mean, anyhow, and who did it, and how is one to act, under the circumstances?’ ...
“If you have dreamed, thought and felt so, you can realise the imbecile stare with which I gaze on all this life that goes on around me here. Macon was my twoweeks’ dream. I wake from that into Petersburg, an indefinitely long, real life....
“Sid Lanier.”
Of the after months of ’3, the story of my life is one of continuous change. I migrated between Richmond and our kin at Petersburg, paying an occasional visit to Warrenton, North Carolina, so long as the roads were open, or sometimes visiting our friends, the McDaniels, at Danville; sometimes, accompanied by our sister, I made a visit to the nearby camps, or to the multiplying colonies of the sick and wounded. He was a fortunate soldier in those terrible days, who fell into the hands of private nurses. Patients in the hospitals suffered, even for necessary medicines. Sugar was sold at fifty Confederate dollars a pound. Vegetables and small fruits were exceedingly scarce. My visits to the hospital wards were by no means so constant as those of many of my friends, yet I remember one poor little Arkansas boy in whom I became interested, and went frequently to see, wending my way to his cot through endless wards, where an army of sick men lay, minus an arm, or leg, or with bandaged heads that told of fearful encounters. The drip—drip of the water upon their wounds to prevent the development of a greater evil is one of the most horrible remembrances I carry of those days. I went through the aisles of the sick one morning, to see my little patient, a lad of seventeen, not more. Above the pillow his hat was hung, and a sheet was drawn over the cot—and the tale was told.
In Richmond, Miss Emily Mason (sister of John Y. and James M. Mason), and Mrs. General Lee were indefatigable in their hospital work; and Mrs. Phoebe Pember, sister of Mrs. Philip Phillips, was a prominent member of a regularly organised Hospital Committee, who, afterward, recorded her experiences in an interesting volume, reflecting the gay as well as the grave scenes through which she had passed; for, happily, in the experiences of these self-sacrificing nurses there was often a mingling of the comical with the serious which had its part in relieving the nerve-tension of our noble women. On every side the inevitable was plainly creeping toward us. The turmoil in the governmental body augmented constantly. The more patriotic recognised that only in increased taxation lay the prolonging of our national life; but, at the mention of such measure, protests poured in from many sides. Our poor, wearied citizens could ill sustain a further drain upon them. To the credit of my sex, however, we never complained. No Roman matron, no Spartan mother, ever thrilled more to the task of supporting her warriors, than did we women of the South land! To the end we held it to be a proud privilege to sacrifice where by so doing we might hold up the hands of our heroes in field or forum.