We had grown very fond of some of the men around us, and my boys were so rich in their companionship, that they never complained of their privations. They were good, wholesome comrades, interested in our books and in the boys' studies. Captain Lindsay and Captain Glover of General 320 Wilcox's staff were great comforts. General A. P. Hill and Colonel William Pegram came often to see us. General Lee often passed the door on his way to the lines, and paused to inquire concerning our welfare. I established a little circulating library for dear Colonel Pegram and our own officers. The books were always faithfully returned, with warm thanks for the comfort they gave.
The month of January brought us sleet and storm. Our famine grew sterner every day. Poor little Rose, my cow, could yield only one cupful of milk, so small was her ration; but we never thought of turning the faithful animal into beef. The officers in my yard spared her something every day from the food of their horses.
The days were so dark and cheerless, the news from the armies at a distance so discouraging, it was hard to preserve a cheerful demeanor for the sake of the family. And now began the alarming tidings, every morning, of the desertions during the night. General Wilcox wondered how long his brigade would hold together at the rate of fifty desertions every twenty-four hours.
The common soldier had enlisted, not to establish the right of secession, not for love of the slave,—he had no slaves,—but simply to resist the invasion of the South by the North, simply to prevent subjugation. The soldier of the rank and file was not always intellectual or cultivated. He cared little for politics, less for slavery. He did care, however, for his own soil, his own little farm, his own humble home; and he was willing to fight to drive the invader 321 from it. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not stimulate him in the least. The negro, free or slave, was of no consequence to him. His quarrel was a sectional one, and he fought for his section.
In any war, the masses rarely trouble themselves about the merits of the quarrel. Their pugnacity and courage are aroused and stimulated by the enthusiasm of their comrades, or by their own personal wrongs and perils.
Now, in January, 1865, the common soldier perceived that the cause was lost. He could read its doom in the famine around him, in the faces of his officers, in tidings from abroad. His wife and children were suffering. His duty was now to them; so he stole away in the darkness, and, in infinite danger and difficulty, found his way back to his own fireside. He deserted, but not to the enemy.
But what can we say of the soldier who remained unflinchingly at his post knowing the cause was lost for which he was called to meet death? Heroism can attain no loftier height than this.
Sir Charles Napier,[21] in his campaign against the robber tribes of Upper Scinde, found that the hills-men had a custom of binding, with a scarlet thread, the wrist of a leader who fell after some distinguished act of courage. They thus honored the hand that had wielded a valiant sword.
A party of eleven English soldiers were once separated from their fellows, and mistook a signal for an order to charge. The brave fellows answered with a cheer. On a summit in front of them was a 322 breastwork manned by seventy of the foe. On they went, charging up the fearful path, eleven against seventy. There could be but one result. When their comrades arrived to aid them, every one of the British soldiers was dead—and around both wrists of every one was twined the red thread!
And so I am sure that to every man who fell in that last hopeless fight, our brave foes will award the red badge of honor—as our own hearts will ever strive to deserve it for their sakes.
The horror of military execution was now upon us. Nothing so distressed my father and myself. Finally General Lee offered the men who had deserted a last opportunity to wipe out their disgrace and escape the punishment of their crimes. He granted, by authority of the government, amnesty to those who would report to the nearest officer on duty within twenty days, thus giving them the privilege of re?ntering the service in companies where they would not be known.
"Let us," said the general, "oppose constancy to adversity, fortitude to suffering, and courage to danger, with the firm assurance that He who gave freedom to our fathers will bless the efforts of their children to preserve it."
Alas! few availed themselves of this solemn appeal to their manhood.
Meanwhile we received occasional letters from our prisoner in Fort Lafayette. He was confined in a casemate with about twenty men. A small grate for burning coal sufficed for the preparation of their rations, which were issued to them raw. They lay 323 upon straw mats on the floor. Once daily they could walk upon the ramparts, and my husband's eyes turned sadly to the dim outlines of the beautiful city where he had often been an honored guest. The veil which hid from him so much of the grief and struggle of the future hid also the reward. Little did he dream he should administer justice on the supreme bench of the mist-veiled city.
His letters bore but one theme, his earnest prayer for exchange, so that he might do his part in our defence.
One night all these things weighed more heavily than usual upon me,—the picket firing, the famine, the military executions, the dear one "sick and in prison." I sighed audibly, and my son, Theodorick, who slept near me, asked the cause, adding, "Why can you not sleep, dear mother?"
"Suppose," I replied, "you repeat something for me."
He at once commenced, "Tell me not in mournful numbers"—and repeated the "Psalm of Life." I did not sleep; those brave words were not strong enough for the situation.
He paused, and presently his young voice broke the stillness:—
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name"—going on to the end of the beautiful psalm of adoration and faith which nineteen centuries have decreed to be in very truth a Psalm of Life.
I felt great responsibility in keeping with me my sons, now ten and twelve years old. At a farmhouse 324 about fifteen miles in the country a member of the family was living, and availing myself of a passing wagon, I sent the boys to share his plenty and comfort. A few days afterwards they returned—a dusty, footsore pair of urchins. They had run away and come home! Moreover, they had found an old horse left on the roadside to die,—which Roger refused to leave,—had shared their luncheon with him, given him water, assisted him to his feet, and by slow stages led him home!
"Oh! how shall we feed him?" I exclaimed, in despair.
"I'll help," said Captain Lindsay; "he shall be immediately introduced to my mare, and she shall share her oats with him;" and a very sober-minded, steady horse he proved to be, quite good enough to be stolen, as he finally was, by the enemy.
My friend, General Wilcox, put my own friendship to a severe test one morning. Standing by the mantel in his accustomed attitude, he informed me that he had received many kind attentions from the ladies of Petersburg (I was aware of an affair of the heart in which a pretty widow was concerned), and he proposed to give a déjeuner à la fourchette, and invite them out to his tent. Would I chaperon the occasion, and might my parlor be used as a reception room?
"Of course, General!" I replied. "They will be welcome to me, and to the parlor. The 'fourchette' will be forthcoming without fail, but where, oh, where can we find the 'déjeuner'?"
"I have thought of all that," said the General. 325 "I will send half a dozen fellows out with guns to bring in birds. I'll get John to make some cakes and biscuits, we'll brew a bowl of punch. Voilà! What more do you want?"
"That will be fine," I assured him, and accordingly his invitations were sent, handsomely written, to about thirty people. A load of evergreens was delivered at the tent, and all hands set to work to weave garlands. Every candle in camp was "pressed." John made a fine success of his sponge cakes, and also fruit and nut cake—the fruit, disguised dried apples, the nuts, walnuts.
The day before the event the General leaned, a dejected figure, against the mantel.
"Those—blamed—soldiers have returned. They didn't bag a bird."
"I feared that! Virginia partridges are hunted with dogs. Besides, where can you find game within twenty miles of an army?"
"Well, it will take six months' pay, but we must buy oysters. I don't know what else we can do."
"General," I said, "suppose you have a breakfast like one Mrs. ——, from North Carolina, gave here when she stayed with me last month. She had little ménus neatly written, including various dishes. The dishes, however, were imaginary. They did not appear! The guests left with the impression that these things had been provided, but that accidents which were to be counted on in time of war had spoiled them. Now, John could easily announce a fall of soot from the chimney,—like Caleb Balderstone! Aunt Jinny would make an 326 admirable 'Mysie.' Have you never heard her 'skirl'? We might imagine partridges, turkey, and ham, and then imagine the accidents. What could be simpler?"
The General's breakfast was a great success. The weather was fine. One of his staff, who was not invited, confided to me his fear that there would be nothing left! And, indeed, the guests brought noble appetites. The General took in the pretty widow. General A. P. Hill honored me. A gay procession of open wagons filled with merry guests left the door at sunset, and sang "The Bonnie Blue Flag" as they wended their way home. General Lee from his headquarters could hear the song, and doubtless it cheered his sympathetic heart, albeit he knew a battle was near at hand. He could not know that in that battle General Hill and Colonel Pegram would fall with all their wounds in front, among the first of those martyrs whose lives were sacrificed after the leaders knew there was no more life in the cause for which they died.
Our friends in town sent many invitations to us dwellers in tents. Of course, I accepted none of them. I had no heart for gayety, and not one moment's time to spare from my sewing. It is passing strange—this disposition to revel in times of danger and suffering. Florence was never so gay as during the Plague! The men of our army who had been absent three years were now near their homes, and they abandoned themselves to the opportunities of the hour. Some of them were engaged to the beautiful young women of Petersburg. 327 "This is no time for marriage," said General Lee, "no time while the country is in such peril;" and yet he granted a furlough now and then to some soldier who was unwilling to wait.
There were parties, "starvation parties," as they were called on account of the absence of refreshments impossible to be obtained. Not even the lump of sugar allowed by Lady Morgan at her conversaziones was possible here; but notwithstanding this serious disadvantage, ball followed ball in quick succession. "The soldier danced with the lady of his love at night, and on the morrow danced the dance of death in the deadly trench on the line." There the ranks closed up; and in the ball room they closed up also. There was always a comrade left for the partner of the belle; and not one whit less valiant was the soldier for his brief respite. He could go from the dance to his place in the trenches with a light jest, however heavy his heart might be. And when the beloved commander ordered him forth, he could step out with martial tread and cheer and song—to the march or into battle. I think all who remember the dark days of the winter of 1864-1865 will bear witness to the unwritten law enforcing cheerfulness. It was tacitly understood that we must make no moan, yield to no outward expression of despondency or despair.
On January 30 General Wilcox came in, bringing great news. Three commissioners authorized to meet representatives of the Federal government had arrived in Petersburg en route for Fortress Monroe. They were Vice-President Stephens, 328 Senator R. M. T. Hunter, and James A. Campbell, former Assistant Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and now Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States.
"I thought," said the General, "you might come out and listen to the cheering. It is echoed by the enemy. There seems to be no doubt of the feeling on both sides."
I begged the General to lend me an ambulance, and drove out to the front. The troops of Fort Gregg and Battery 45—just in the rear of my garden—had come out and were cheering vociferously. There seemed to be a truce for the moment. We could distinctly hear the answering cheers from the opposing fortifications.
My ambulance drew up to the side of the road, and presently an open carriage appeared, with the mayor and the three commissioners. They paused for a few minutes before crossing the line. With my heart beating painfully, I left my ambulance and walked to the carriage. There Mr. Hunter greeted me kindly and introduced me to his companions. Trembling with emotion, I said:—
"My errand is to you, dear Mr. Hunter. You are going to see President Lincoln or his representative. I entreat you, I implore you, to remember your friend General Pryor. He is breaking his heart in prison. Beg his release from Mr. Lincoln."
"I will—we will," they promised. The carriage proceeded, and as it crossed the line a mighty cheer went up from the hundreds of soldiers, Confederate 329 and union, who were standing on duty and looking on.
In an instant we were enemies again, and I was hastening out of the range of shot and shell.
On February 5 the commissioners returned from their bootless errand. Mr. Hunter wrote me that they had "remembered Pryor as was promised, but his release would not be considered."
An extract from Order No. 2, February 11, 1865, from General Lee, explains the manner in which our proposals had been received:—
"The choice between war and abject submission is before us.
"To such a proposal, brave men, with arms in their hands, can have but one answer.
"They cannot barter manhood for peace, nor the right of self-government for life or property.
"Taking new resolution from the fate which our enemies intend for us, let every man devote all his energies to the common defence."
I am afraid we were too faint from want of food to be as courageous as our noble commander expected. Flour was now selling for $1500 a barrel; bacon, $20 a pound; beef, $15 ditto: butter could be had at $20 a pound. One chicken could be bought for $50. Shad sold for $50 a pair (before the war the price was not more than ten or fifteen cents). One hundred dollars was asked for one dollar in gold, making the price I had given to save John from a negro trader $10,600!—news which he heard with such concern that I hastened to tell him I had never regretted it. 330
John bethought himself of the fishes in the pond and streams, but not a fish-hook was for sale in Richmond or Petersburg. He contrived, out of a cunning arrangement of pins, to make hooks, and sallied forth with my boys. But the water was too cold, or the fish had been driven down-stream by the firing. The usual resource of the sportsman with an empty creel—a visit to the fishmonger—was quite out of the question. There was no fishmonger any more.
Under these circumstances you may imagine my sensations at receiving the following note:—
"My dear Mrs. Pryor: General Lee has been honored by a visit from the Hon. Thomas Connolly, Irish M.P. from Donegal.
"He ventures to request you will have the kindness to give Mr. Connolly a room in your cottage, if this can be done without inconvenience to yourself."
Certainly I could give Mr. Connolly a room; but just as certainly I could not feed him! The messenger who brought the note hastily reassured me. He had been instructed to say that Mr. Connolly would mess with General Lee. I turned Mr. Connolly's room over to John, who soon became devoted to his service. The M.P. proved a most agreeable guest, a fine-looking Irish gentleman with an irresistibly humorous, cheery fund of talk. He often dropped in at our biscuit toasting, and assured us that we were better provided than the commander-in-chief. 331
"You should have seen 'Uncle Robert's' dinner to-day, Madam! He had two biscuits, and he gave me one."
Another time Mr. Connolly was in high feather.
"We had a glorious dinner to-day! Somebody sent 'Uncle Robert' a box of sardines."
General Lee, however, was not forgotten. On fine mornings quite a procession of little negroes, in every phase of raggedness, used to pass my door, each one bearing a present from the farmers' wives of buttermilk in a tin pail, for General Lee. The army was threatened with scurvy, and buttermilk, hominy, and every vegetable that could be obtained was sent to the hospital.
Mr. Connolly interested himself in my boys' Latin studies.
"I am going home," he said, "and tell the English women what I have seen here: two boys reading C?sar while the shells are thundering, and their mother looking on without fear."
"I am too busy keeping the wolf from my door," I told him, "to concern myself with the thunderbolts."
The wolf was no longer at the door! He had entered and had taken up his abode at the fireside. Besides what I could earn with my needle, I had only my father's army ration to rely upon. My faithful John foraged right and left, and I had reason to doubt the wisdom of inquiring too closely as to the source of an occasional half-dozen eggs or small bag of corn. This last he would pound on a wooden block for hominy. Meal was no longer 332 procurable. As I have said, we might occasionally purchase for five dollars the head of a bullock from the commissary, every other part of the animal being available for army rations. By self-denial on our own part, we fondly hoped we could support our army and at last win our cause. We were not, at the time, fully aware of the true state of things. Our men were so depleted from starvation that the most trifling wound would end fatally. Gangrene would supervene, and then nothing could be done to prevent death. Long before this time, at Vicksburg, Admiral Porter found that many a dead soldier's haversack yielded nothing but a handful of parched corn. We were now enduring a sterner siege.
Before daylight, on the 2d of March, General Lee sent for General Gordon, who was with his command at a distant part of the line.[22] Upon arriving, General Gordon was much affected by seeing General Lee standing at the mantel in his room, his head bowed on his folded arms. The room was dimly lighted by a single lamp, and a smouldering fire was dying on the hearth. The night was cold and General Lee's room chill and cheerless.
"I have sent for you, General Gordon," said General Lee, with a dejected voice and manner, "to make known to you the condition of our affairs and consult with you as to what we had best do. I have here reports sent in from my officers to-night. I find I have under my command, of all arms, hardly forty-five thousand men. These men are starving. They are already so weakened as to be hardly efficient. 333 Many of them have become desperate, reckless, and disorderly as they have never been before. It is difficult to control men who are suffering for food. They are breaking open mills, barns, and stores in search of it. Almost crazed from hunger, they are deserting in large numbers and going home. My horses are in equally bad condition. The supply of horses in the country is exhausted. It has come to be just as bad for me to have a horse killed as a man. I cannot remount a cavalryman whose horse dies. General Grant can mount ten thousand men in ten days and move around your flank. If he were to send me word to-morrow that I might move out unmolested, I have not enough horses to move my artillery. He is not likely to send me any such message, although he sent me word yesterday that he knew what I had for breakfast every morning. I sent him word I did not think that this could be so, for if he did he would surely send me something better.
"But now let us look at the figures. As I said, I have forty-five thousand starving men. Hancock has eighteen thousand at Winchester. To oppose him I have not a single vidette. Sheridan, with his terrible cavalry, has marched unmolested and unopposed along the James, cutting the railroads and the canal. Thomas is coming from Knoxville with thirty thousand well-equipped troops, and I have, to oppose him, not more than three thousand in all. Sherman is in North Carolina with sixty-five thousand men.... So I have forty-five thousand poor fellows in bad condition opposed to one hundred and sixty 334 thousand strong and confident men. These forces, added to General Grant's, make over a quarter of a million. To prevent them all from uniting to my destruction, and adding Johnston's and Beauregard's men, I can oppose only sixty thousand men. They are growing weaker every day. Their sufferings are terrible and exhausting. My horses are broken down and impotent. General Grant may press around our flank any day and cut off our supplies."
As a result of this conference General Lee went to Richmond to make one more effort to induce our government to treat for peace. It was on his return from an utterly fruitless errand that he said:—
"I am a soldier! It is my duty to obey orders;" and the final disastrous battles were fought.
It touches me to know now that it was after this that my beloved commander found heart to turn aside and bring me comfort. No one knew better than he all I had endeavored and endured, and my heart blesses his memory for its own sake. At this tremendous moment, when he had returned from his fruitless mission to Richmond, when the attack on Fort Steadman was impending, when his slender line was confronted by Grant's ever increasing host, stretching twenty miles, when the men were so starved, so emaciated, that the smallest wound meant death, when his own personal privations were beyond imagination, General Lee could spend half an hour for my consolation and encouragement.
Cottage Farm being on the road between headquarters and Fort Gregg—the fortification which held General Grant in check at that point—I saw 335 General Lee almost daily going to this work, or to "Battery 45." On Sundays he regularly passed on his famous horse, Traveller, on his way to a little wooden chapel, going often through sleet and rain, bending his head to shield his face from the storm.
I was, as was my custom, sewing in my little parlor one morning, about the middle of March, when an orderly entered, saying:—
"General Lee wishes to make his respects to Mrs. Pryor." The General was immediately behind him. His face was lighted with the anticipation of telling me his good news. With the high-bred courtesy and kindness which always distinguished his manner, he asked kindly after my welfare, and, taking my little girl in his arms, began gently to break his news to me:—
"How long, Madam, was General Pryor with me before he had a furlough?"
"He never had one, I think," I answered.
"Well, did I not take good care of him until we camped here so close to you?"
"Certainly," I said, puzzled to know the drift of these preliminaries.
"I sent him home to you, I remember," he continued, "for a day or two, and you let the Yankees catch him. Now he is coming back to be with you again on parole until he is exchanged. You must take better care of him in future."
I was too much overcome to do more than stammer a few words of thanks.
Presently he added, "What are you going to 336 say when I tell the General that in all this winter you have never once been to see me?"
"Oh, General Lee," I answered, "I had too much mercy to join in your buttermilk persecution!"
"Persecution!" he said; "such things keep us alive! Last night, when I reached my headquarters, I found a card on my table with a hyacinth pinned to it, and these words: 'for General Lee, with a kiss!' Now," he added, tapping his breast, "I have here my hyacinth and my card—and I mean to find my kiss!"
He was amused by the earnest eyes of my little girl, as she gazed into his face.
"They have a wonderful liking for soldiers," he said. "I knew one little girl to give up all her pretty curls willingly, that she might look like Custis! 'They might cut my hair like Custis's,' she said. Custis! whose shaven head does not improve him in any eyes but hers."
His manner was the perfection of repose and simplicity. As he talked with me I remembered that I had heard of this singular calmness. Even at Gettysburg, and at the explosion of the crater, he had evinced no agitation or dismay. I did not know then, as I do now, that nothing had ever approached the anguish of this moment, when he had come to say an encouraging and cheering word to me, after abandoning all hope of the success of the cause.
After talking awhile and sending a kind message to my husband, to greet him on his return, he rose, walked to the window, and looked over the fields—the 337 fields through which, not many days afterward, he dug his last trenches!
I was moved to say, "You only, General, can tell me if it is worth my while to put the ploughshare into those fields."
"Plant your seeds, Madam," he replied; sadly adding, after a moment, "the doing it will be some reward."
I was answered. I thought then he had little hope. I now know he had none.
He had already, as we have seen, remonstrated against further resistance—against the useless shedding of blood. His protest had been unheeded. It remained for him now to gather his forces for endurance to the end.
Twenty days afterward his headquarters were in ashes; he had led his famished army across the Appomattox; and, telling them they had done their duty, and had nothing to regret, he had bidden them farewell forever.