“God! What a hole for soldiers to be in!” he would cry; and then would mumble on incoherently until, in an accession of fevered strength, he would burst out, “Give them hell, boys!” while his negro man stood by, blinded by tears.
Finally, however, our care was rewarded, and our invalid began slowly to recover. The first day he was able to endure it, we took the Captain to drive in Mrs. Winter’s calash. He was still weak, and very melancholy; the injured arm was stiff and all but a useless member. We tried to cheer him by merry talk. “Surely,” we said at last, as we drove by a new-made cemetery, with its bare little whitewashed head-boards, “weak as you are, isn’t this a great deal better than lying out there with a board at your head marked ‘O. V.’?” At this he smiled, but grimly.
The ensuing months to me were a time of indecision. My sister departed to rejoin her husband in Richmond, and I, feeling quite cut off from those nearest to me, formed numerous plans for leaving the Confederate States. I wished to go to Mr. Clay in Canada, or to England, where so many dear friends were already installed; and so earnestly did this desire fix itself in my mind that wheels were set in motion for the securing of a passport. My friends in Richmond and in Georgia urged me to reconsider. Mr. Clay might even then be on his way home; would I not come to the capital and wait? But I declined, and kind Secretary Mallory acceded to my wishes, though cautioning me against our enemies on the seas. “I only wish I could send you abroad in a public vessel,” he wrote, as he inclosed Mr. Seddon’s passport, “but I have not a blockade runner under my control.
“You will, of course, avoid Bermuda and Nassau. The yellow-fever still rages and embraces new-comers at the very beach; and knowing that nothing on earth would ever fail to embrace you that had the power of doing so, and having a painful experience of his warm and glowing nature, I am anxious that you shall keep out of his way.... Angela and Ruby send their love. They regret, with me, that your promised visit to us is not to be paid.”
Yet, after all these preparations I remained; for, as the weeks passed, it seemed clear Mr. Clay was likely to arrive at any time. His associate, Professor Holcombe, had already returned, though wrecked off the coast of Wilmington. Whole ship-loads of cotton, which had succeeded in running the blockade and which we fondly hoped would replenish our pocket-books, had gone to the bottom. On the whole, travel by sea grew less and less attractive. I concluded to remain on terra firma, but to go on toward Augusta and Beech Island, South Carolina, that I might be nearer the coast when Mr. Clay should arrive. Ere I left Columbus I had a ludicrous adventure. Upon coming downstairs one morning, I saw, approaching the outer, wide-open door, a large, portly figure clad in Macon Mills muslin. Beyond him, in the street, a wagon stood, or was passing. It was loaded with watermelons. As I noted them and the figure approaching, I connected the two at once, and called back to my hostess, with all the enthusiasm for which I was ever famous at the near prospect of a “million,” “Cousin Victoria! Don’t you want some melons? Here’s a watermelon man!” To my surprise, as I neared the door a hearty laugh rang out; a cordial hand was extended to me, and I recognised before me genial, jovial General Howell Cobb, who had left his military duties for the moment, in order to welcome me to Georgia. His long beard, which he declared he never would shave until our cause was won, together with the copperas and unbleached suit of muslin, had quite disguised him for the moment.
CHAPTER XVI
The Departed Glories of the South Land
My memories would be incomplete were I to fail to include in them a description of plantation life that may be taken as a type of the beautiful homes of the South in that long ago before the Civil War. From Maryland to Louisiana there had reigned, since colonial times, an undisturbed, peaceful, prosperous democracy, based upon an institution beneficial alike to master and servant. It was implanted in the South by the English settlers, approved by the English rulers, and fostered by thrifty merchants of New England, glad to traffic in black men so long as there were black men upon the African coasts who might be had in exchange for a barrel of rum. Generations living under these conditions had evolved a domestic discipline in Southern homes which was of an ideal order. Nothing resembling it had existed in modern times. To paraphrase the nursery rhyme, the planter was in his counting-house counting out his money; his wife was in the parlour eating bread and honey; the man servant was by his master’s side, the maid with her mistress, the meat-cook at his spit and the bread-cook at the marble block where the delicious beaten biscuit were made in plenty. The laundress was in the laundry (Chinamen then in China), and in the nursery lived, ever at her post, the sable sentinel of cribs and cradles, the skilful manufacturer of possets and potions. None but a Southerner to the manner born can appreciate or imagine the tie that bound us of that old-time South to our dear black mammy, in whose capacious lap the little ones confided to her care cuddled in innocent slumber.
Fruitful vineyards and gardens furnished our luxuries, and talent and faithful public service were the criterion of social standing. Of those bygone days, Mr. E. Spann Hammond[[31]] recently wrote, “To me it seems as if I had been in two worlds, and two existences, the old and the new, and to those knowing only the latter, the old will appear almost like mythology and romance, so thorough has been the upheaval and obliteration of the methods and surroundings of the past.”
Yes! the old glories have passed away, but even those who destroyed them, looking back to that time and that Southern civilisation, recognise to-day how enviable were our solidarity as a people, our prosperity and the moral qualities that are characteristic of the South. “I have learned not only to respect, but to love the great qualities which belong to my fellow-citizens of the Southern States,” said Senator Hoar, recently. “Their love of home, their chivalrous respect for women, their courage, their delicate sense of honour, their constancy, which can abide by an appearance or a purpose or an interest for their States through adversity, and through prosperity, through years and through generations, are things by which the more mercurial people of the North may take a lesson. And there is another thing,” he added, “the low temptation of money has not found any place in our Southern politics.”
