Old Times in Dixie Land: A Southern Matron's Memories

CHAPTER V.

MY DAUGHTER LAURA’S DIARY.

From my daughter Laura’s diary, May 21st, 1863, let me quote: “The Yankees have been passing this house all day, regiment after regiment on their way to attack Port Hudson. Two transports have also gone by on the river crowded with soldiers. Heaven protect our beleaguered men—so few against so many! A Lieutenant Francis was perfectly radiant this morning because a boat was waiting to take his regiment (the 6th New York) North, as their time is out. He was very cordial, perhaps because he has a brother in the Confederate army.

“A Dutch cavalry sergeant lingered, and for half an hour stood guard, with his drawn sword keeping away many of the vandals. He claimed to belong to the regular United States army and said his time would be up in four months when he should return ‘to de faderland,’ but he thought they would ‘vip’ us at Port Hudson. When a negro and a white man came together through the backyard for water from the cistern, with horrible oaths and imprecations he drew his sword and with the back of it struck the negro and ordered them both to leave. ‘You nigger,’ said he, ‘you hab no peesnis to enter de blantation! ve don’ vant you! you steals eberyting!’ I am sorry for the poor deluded negroes who flock after this army.

“We were all in the parlor this evening when five Yankee quartermasters came in out of the rain. ‘Old Specs,’ as we call him, was among the number. They introduced each other and then very pressingly requested me to play the ‘Bonnie Blue Flag.’ At last I complied and began to sing, though it nearly kills me to be polite to the Yanks:

“‘As long as the union was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers we were kind, we were just,
But now that Northern treachery——’

“Here I broke down, and bursting into tears, left the room with my handkerchief to my eyes. They then expressed sorrow that my feelings should have been so disturbed and sent Clara to ask me to come back. She begged so, I dried my tears and returned. Two of them engaged in a discussion with me. One said: ‘The secession vote in Louisiana was controlled and indicated nothing.’ ‘In all true republican governments,’ I answered, ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God; we do not live under an aristocracy or a monarchy.’ ‘But,’ said the man, ‘two-thirds of the people were not permitted to vote; your negroes did not go to the polls.’ ‘They are not freemen,’ I replied—‘but being a woman I know nothing’—and again the tears rushed to my eyes. Thereupon, one of them, Capt. Ives, joined in, saying: ‘The masters voted for the negroes of course, and,’ he continued, ‘it is not fair—two gentlemen against one lady. I take the lady’s part.’ Then in a lower tone, but a perfectly audible one, he said: ‘For God’s sake talk of something else besides the Union and the Confederacy. I’m sick of both.’

“Mrs. Phillips, with Mrs. French, our neighbor, went down to headquarters to ask Gen. Banks for a guard. She reports that he said he would give her none, for it was the women who had brought on and now encouraged the war. Mrs. French said she only wished to be protected from insult, and from hearing such frightful profanity. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘this war is enough to make any man swear. I swear myself.’ ‘But,’ said she, ‘I wish to spare my Christian mother, who is aged and infirm.’ ‘Well,’ said Gen. Banks, ‘I can’t make her young.’ When she told us about it I replied: ‘Banks is nearly as much of a brute as Butler himself.’

“Tues. May 22, 1863.—Capt. Callender of Weitzel’s staff and Capt. Hall of Emory’s came last night to inquire if the soldiers troubled us. They were very polite and spoke so kindly that they reminded us of Southerners. It is a pity to see such perfect gentlemen in such an army. They offered us a guard which I declined, telling them we were Southerners, so not afraid; for it galls me to be obliged to have Yankee protection. Mother has been so worried since, and Clara reproached me so severely for refusing the guard that I have wished I had done differently, and I was glad when the overseer’s big dog came and lay down before our door. I thought it was a special providence. We have always heard Gen. Weitzel well spoken of; he evidently has men like himself on his staff.

“Monday, May 25, 1863.—Saturday evening our hopes of Gen. Kirby Smith being able to detain Gen. Weitzel were dashed to the ground. Two Yankees said they were all safe at Simmsport except two hundred cavalry captured by our boys; but their rear had been much worried. One of these Yankees was sick and asked permission to lie on our front gallery. Mother brought him some cold mint-tea which he at first declined, but when he saw her taste it he changed his mind and drank it. The man said afterward he was afraid she wanted to poison him till he saw her take a spoonful. Then she brought out a big arm-chair and pillows and made him as comfortable as she could. He was grateful, and stated that he was only doing his duty fighting for the old flag.

“One afternoon Sallie Miller rode past, with a Yankee officer. Shame on her! Two young lady guests on their way to Bayou Goula saw her and were indignant with any Southern girl who would ride with a Yankee in the presence of their army.

“Yesterday a quartermaster drove into the lot, breaking the gate which was locked, and going to the corn-crib. At the instance of the Missouri Yankee, propped up in the rocking-chair, we all ran out to the lot, and mother talked so to him, Clara and I assisting volubly, that he agreed to take only two wagon loads of the corn. He seemed actually ashamed for breaking our fence, and we were just in time to save the crib door by giving him the key.“We saw some soldiers driving our cattle and milch cows and calves from a field. ‘What a shame!’ said I. A chaplain I suppose, dressed in a fine black suit, who had come in to get water, replied: ‘Our object, miss, is to starve you out so that your brothers, husbands and sons will quit fighting and come home to provide bread for you. On what ground can you expect protection?’ he asked my mother. ‘Is your husband a Union man?’ ‘No, indeed!’ I struck in, ‘he is a true Southerner.’ He saw a spur hanging up, and remarked that there was a man about. Clara answered: ‘It belongs to my brother.’ Then the man said: ‘I won’t ask where he is, for you might be afraid to tell.’ ‘I am not afraid,’ replied Clara. ‘You may know as well as I that he is not here. He is in Virginia.’

“Mother remonstrated about her cows being driven off to be slaughtered; but seeing that it was useless exclaimed at last, ‘Well, take them all!’ This was too much for Asa Peabody, who seemed to be a friend to our sick soldier; he informed the lieutenant in command that he was on guard by Gen. Weitzel’s orders, and intended nothing should be taken off the place; and he turned two of our best cows back into our front yard.

“The men came continually to the cistern for drinking water. Mother said: ‘Let the water be free, I am glad to have protection for some things, but the heavens will send down more rain if the last drop is used.’ One of them observing some of the girls at the window, drained his cup and taking off his cap to them shouted: ‘Success to our cause!’ ‘To ours!’ I called back. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I drink to the Union. I hope to get to Port Hudson before it falls!’ One impertinent fellow asked: ‘Will you answer me one question, miss! Who have destroyed most of your property, Yankees or Rebels?’ ‘The Yankees, of course,’ I said. ‘Well, yours is an exceptional case,’ he retorted. Oh! I never saw so many soldiers and so many cannon!

“Asa Peabody was reproved by our Missourian for using profane language in the presence of ladies. He answered very contritely, ‘I’ll be damned if I will do so any more! You are right.’ He was a brave, good man. We heard of his kindness to many women along the march, and I hope our guerillas whom he so dreaded—as anybody in the world would—did not get him, for he vowed he should ‘keep his eyes peeled’ for them.

“In a recent bombardment at Port Hudson—when the spectacle was sublime—an old negro woman said she knew the world was coming to an end ‘becaze de white folks dun got so dey kin make lightnin’.’

“May 26, 1863.—A Yankee officer called yesterday evening; said he belonged to the famous (infamous, I say) Billy Wilson Zouaves, whose bad character is now wholly undeserved. We were still in the parlor when Col. Irwin, Asst.-Ad.-Gen., called, another officer with him. We tried to be civil, but I deeply feel the humiliation of enforced association with this invading enemy. However, Gen. Grover has been very considerate since he knew we are a household of women. Two wagon-masters came for corn and took what they wanted, breaking open the crib. A chaplain, Mr. Whiteman, very kindly took a note from mother to Gen. Grover, and promised to intercede for her. The General came immediately, and said nothing more should be taken unless it was paid for. Mother declared she would beg her bread before she would buy it with their money; but I told her she had begged the bread of the family, which already belonged to us, by prayers and intercessions and tears enough to make it very bitter food. Some of the quartermasters have since given her statements of what has been taken from Myrtle Grove. ‘Corn we must have,’ said one man, ‘but I will leave this untouched if you will tell me where I can procure more on some other plantation.’ Mother then directed him to Tanglewood where father had an immense quantity stored, and from which place the hands had all been moved into the interior, after the large crop of cotton had been burned by our own people. When this cotton on Tanglewood was burning the negroes stood around crying bitterly; and father and mother both call it ‘suicidal policy of the Confederates’ to destroy the only ‘sinew of the war’ we have which will bring outside cash to purchase arms and other military supplies.”

It should be related that when we heard of General Banks’ being at Simmsport my daughter Clara thought we ought to send or go at once to his headquarters and ask for protection. I find the following copy of a letter which partly explains the safety accorded us by the Federal army during the period recounted.

“To Major General Banks, in Command of U. S. Troops at Simmsport, La.

“Dear Sir:

“I reside near the head of the Atchafalaya where it first flows out of Old River, and our male friends are all absent. We are all natives of Louisiana, and, though we cannot bid you welcome, we hope and trust we may confide in your protection and in the generosity and honor which belongs to United States officers.

“We have no valuable information to give, nor do we think you would ask or require us to betray our own people if we had it in our power. But we can promise to act fairly and honorably, and to do nothing unworthy the high character of Judge Merrick, who is the head of this family. Therefore, we expect to prove ourselves worthy of any generous forbearance you may find it in your power to extend toward defenseless women and children, who appeal thus to your sympathy and manhood; for

“‘No ceremony that to great one ’longs,
Not the King’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does.’

“Very respectfully,
“Caroline E. Merrick.”

The result of this letter, which I presented in person, was the following pass:

“Headquarters, Department of the Gulf,
19th Army Corps,
Simmes’ Plantation, May 19, 1863.

“Guards and Patriots:

“Pass Mr. Chalfant, Mrs. Merrick, and party, with their carriages and drivers, to their homes, near the head of the Atchafalaya.

“Richd. B. Irwin,
“A. A. General.”

“Camp Clara, Jackson, Miss., May 31, 1863.—We have good water and our men are improving, but many are ill with typhoid fever”—thus my brother wrote. “The sickness enlists my deepest sympathy. The number of soldiers’ graves is astonishing. From morning until night negroes are constantly digging them for instant use. General Lovell inspected our battery the other day and said he wanted it down on the river; so just as soon as our horses arrive we are to go to work. The men are well drilled, but we lack horses and ammunition. I hear David’s regiment is at Petersburg, Va.”

In Confederate times the people were patient under the sickness in camp, and never a complaint was sent to Richmond about poor food and bad water which caused as many fatalities as powder and ball. Increased knowledge and improved methods of camp sanitation seem almost to justify the indignant protests against embalmed beef and typhoid-breeding water that have been heaped upon Congress and officers of the War Department in the late Spanish-American war. One out of the four of my father’s great-grandsons who enlisted for the Spanish-American struggle lost his life in an unhealthy Florida camp before he could be sent to Cuba. It is plain to every fair-minded investigator that many of these fatalities were due to a lack of those essentials in which every housekeeping woman, by nature and training, is especially qualified. It was a relief to the minds of the mothers of the nation to learn that near the close of the late Cuban conflict a woman had been appointed on the National Military Medical Commission. It is a woman’s proper vocation to care for the sick. Men who would exclude women from the ballot-box on the plea that they only who fight ought to vote, should remember Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale who have served armies so effectually.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said: “The nursing movement is a revival of old virtues. Since the siege of Troy and earlier we have had princesses binding wounds with their hands. It is strictly the woman’s part, and men understand it so. Every man is on his knees before ladies carrying lint; whereas if they stir an inch as thinkers or artists from the beaten line (involving more good to general humanity than is involved in lint), the very same men would condemn the audacity of the very same women.”

A young naval officer, at my dinner table, once dissented from such views which I had expressed, and of which Bishop Warren of the M. E. Church had heartily approved. “Until women,” said this young officer, “furnish this government for its defense with soldiers and sailors from their own ranks they should be prohibited from voting.” “Dear sir,” I replied, “how many soldiers and sailors does this country now possess in its active service whom the women have not already furnished from their own ranks?”

The young man yielded but was not convinced, even when an eminent physician remarked that he had heard many a young mother say that she would rather march up to the cannon’s mouth than to lie down to meet her peculiar trial. He further stated that when their hour came they were always full of courage, and, in his opinion, their maternity ought to count for something to them of great value in the government.

All men in an army do not fight. No more important branch of the military service existed during the civil war than that which the women of the Confederacy controlled. They planted and gathered and shipped the crops which fed the children and slaves at home and the armies in the field; they raised the wool and cotton that clothed the soldiers and the hogs and cattle that made their meat; they spun and wove the crude product into cloth for the home and the army; their knitting needles clicked until the great surrender, manufacturing all the socks and “sweaters” and comforters which the Confederate soldier-boys possessed—our nearly naked boys toward the last, so often on the march called “Ragged Rebels.”

Clyx.com