It was in the spring of 1866 that I was instrumental in forming what I believe to have been the first of the Confederate Memorial Associations in the Southern States. This is the Hollywood Memorial Association, of Richmond. In Hollywood Cemetery are interred fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand Confederate soldiers, and in Oakwood Cemetery are as many more. Their graves were entirely uncared for, and I began in the Dispatch to agitate the subject, with a view to forming an association which should undertake to keep the graves in order, mark them suitably, and erect a monument to our dead. The earliest fruit of it was a suspension of business on the first Memorial day, when hundreds of young men who had belonged to different military organizations went out to Hollywood, accompanied by ladies bearing flowers, and labored for several hours with spade and hoe in rearranging the mounds over the graves, and clearing away the rank growth of weeds. The ladies of the Hollywood Association were most enthusiastic, and I acted as their Secretary. Public meetings were held in the Churches in furtherance of the objects of the Association, and in June I addressed three meetings of ladies on one day, at different places. One of these meetings was at the Monumental Church, and about five hundred ladies were present. There were two different plans. One was to level the graves and erect a general monument; and the other was to mark each one of the graves with a headstone bearing either the name of the soldier who lay there, or a number by which, on reference to the books of the Cemetery, the name of the soldier could be known. I pleaded for the plan that would keep each grave separate and distinct, and would allow any father or mother, or sister or brother, from the far South to know the identical spot where the bones of their dear one lay, rather than that they should be shown a vast open area and be told that somewhere within those bounds their young hero lay buried. I was modest in those days, and, when one of the ladies at the close of the meeting told me that she wanted to kiss me for my speech, I blushed and declined. As long as I was in Richmond I continued to work actively for the Memorial Association, and, when I left Richmond to come to Charleston, I received from the President a letter, of which the following is a copy:
Richmond, November 8, 1866.
My Dear Sir—As the organ of the Hollywood Memorial Association, I desire to express to you our grateful acknowledgment of your untiring efforts in our behalf, and our sense of your valuable and disinterested services in advancing our solemn and sacred purpose.
Your taste and ardor have been efficient in securing for us a large share of general sympathy.
We sincerely regret to lose you from our counsels, but feel assured of your continued sympathy and interest, as you may of our best wishes for your success and happiness.
Be pleased to accept our acknowledgments, and with them the accompanying slight memorial.
I am, with high respect, your friend,
N. MACFARLAND,
President H. M. A.
To Captain F. W. Dawson.
The “slight memorial” of which Mrs. MacFarland speaks is a set of studs and sleeve buttons of gold, with the Confederate battle-flag in enamel on each one. I hope that my children will prize these; not only because they bear upon them the flag under which their father fought, but because of the source whence they came, and the work and sympathy they commemorate.
I had much to do with another undertaking of a totally different character. My immediate circle of friends, among the men in Richmond, consisted of Captain Philip H. Haxall, who had been on General Lee’s staff for a short time; Charlie Minnigerode, whom I have spoken of before, and who was now fast recovering from his wound; Willie Myers, who married a niece of Captain Pegram, Miss Mattie Paul, and died of consumption, dear fellow, some years ago; Page McCarty, who afterwards blighted his life by killing Mordecai in a duel; Jack Elder, the artist; and John Dunlop, my old Petersburg friend, and a few others. We had been in the habit of meeting at night, when we had any time to spare, in what we called “the chicken coop,” which was a sort of summer-house in the rear of a restaurant in Broad Street. Here we founded the Richmond Club, of which Colonel D. G. MacIntosh, of South Carolina, who had married the beautiful Virginia Pegram, and was then living in Richmond, was the first President. I was the first Secretary. I mention the Richmond Club here, because it soon grew to be a large and prosperous concern, with a handsome club house of its own, and because there were features in the constitution and by-laws which might be adopted with advantage by similar associations. Card-playing for money was absolutely prohibited, and what was more peculiar than this, and was a hobby of my own, no member was allowed to take any refreshments whatever in the club at the expense of another. No “treating” was permitted, unless a stranger should have been invited to the club by a member, in which case the member who invited him might ask other friends to join the party. It was an admirable rule, and was effectual in preventing that hard drinking which is the bane of most clubs, and which is difficult, at times, to avoid so long as one member feels under any obligation, or is permitted, to invite other members to drink with him at his expense, which involves an obligation on their part to return the compliment.
My health now was not as good as it had been. I was attacked by chills and fever, and obliged to give up my work. I think the malady was brought on by my exposure to the sun, in my tramps about the streets in the summer. Dr. Barney, of Richmond, insisted upon my going to his house, and Mrs. Barney was assiduous in her kindness. As soon as I began to regain my strength I went up to Mr. Barton Haxall’s beautiful place, near Orange Courthouse, and recovered rapidly. This was in August or September, 1866. I had for a short time been engaged to be married to Miss Mary Haxall, one of Mr. Haxall’s daughters, but was unceremoniously jilted not long before I went up to Orange. A brighter or wittier girl than Mary Haxall, in those days, it were hard to find; and the unkindest cut of all was that she should have ended by marrying a man whom she might never have known had I not presented him to her. This is Mr. Alexander Cameron, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer of Richmond, who is, I am told, desperately in love with his wife after all these years, and proves his affection by allowing her to have her own way in everything. Before my engagement to her, I was at a party as her escort, when Mr. George, of Richmond, appeared discourteous in his conduct towards her, in consequence of a difference of opinion as to an engagement to dance. As soon as I had conducted her home I sent Mr. George a challenge. Page McCarty acted as my friend, in the matter; and part of his plan of action was to have the ground for the combat on the other side of Hollywood Cemetery, so that the duelists would have the satisfaction of passing through or around the Cemetery on their way to the place of meeting. Page told me, with his peculiar drawl, that he knew I could stand it, and he thought it might unsettle the nerves of the other fellow. The whole of the arrangements had been made, and we were to fight the next morning, when some cool headed friend (I do not remember who it was), intervened, and the difficulty was adjusted, as it ought to have been. There was so little expectation of a settlement that I made a visit to Miss Jennie Cooper, the daughter of Adjutant-General Cooper, late in the evening, and communicated to her my last wishes; and gave her my watch to take care of, and dispose of, in the event that the walk through the Cemetery should not have the expected effect upon Mr. George’s nerves. My experience with Miss Haxall prompts me to say that an attractive girl is exceedingly dangerous to the peace of mind of any one whom she may undertake to instruct in the round dances. The crisis was brought on, I believe, by some tableaux for the benefit of the Memorial Association, or something of that kind. In the tableaux Miss Mary was “Cleopatra” and I was a Confederate soldier lying dead on the battle-field, wearing for the occasion the uniform coat of Major McGraw, who was a Lieutenant in the Purcell Battery in 1862, when I joined it, and had risen to the rank of Major and lost an arm in the service. It was the morning after the tableaux that I became engaged to Miss Mary, and presented her with a gold brooch which exhausted my pocket money, and on which brooch her initials and mine were tenderly scratched with the point of a pin. In less than a fortnight the play was over. But when I returned to Richmond, from Orange, I went to see Miss Mary and her sister Miss Lottie Haxall, who were then making a visit to Mr. Conway Robinson, their uncle, who lives near the Soldier’s Home at Washington. Miss Lottie Haxall, the younger sister of Miss Mary, was a thoroughly high-bred girl in every way, and noble in every phase of her character.
