The next morning Dr. Suckley called in his headquarters ambulance to take us to the steamer. Just at the close of breakfast we had announced our intention of going. There was to be a sudden breaking up and severing of old associations. The staff were all en route to their respective homes except the adjutant-general, Major Charles Pickett. He and Mrs. Dr. Burwell, the only brother and sister of my Soldier, were to remain with their families for a time in the old Pickett home.

We said our sad good-bye in the great fruit and flower garden at the rear of the house, and passing all alone through the large parlors and wide halls, crept quietly out and softly closed the door behind us. The only evidence of life in the dear old house as we looked back was Dr. Burwell's big dog which, having escaped from the backyard, howled mournfully within the gates. The blinds and window-shades had not been opened or raised since the Federal forces had occupied the city.

As we boarded the steamer that morning I realized for the first time that our cause was lost. In all the days of our beautiful married life cheer after cheer had always greeted us wherever we had gone—salute from soldier or sailor, whether on or off duty. This morning these honors were replaced by stares of surprise, of mingled curiosity and hate. Dr. Suckley recognized this feeling at once, and, with a quizzical smile at my caged-tigress expression of rage, put his arm in that of my Soldier, and with a haughty glance at the men, walked boldly on board. I was shown into the surgeon-general's stateroom, in which there were many evidences of thoughtful care for my comfort. We were soon under way.

My Soldier and Dr. Suckley called each other by their given names and laughed and talked as cordially as if they had loved the same dear cause and fought for it side by side. At the table they drank to each other's health and to the friends and memories of olden times. A stranger could not have told which of the two soldiers had furled his banner.

They chatted of Texas, and the great annexation strife which had changed the political complexion of the nation away back in what seemed to my youthful view a remote antiquity. They talked of Mexico, and my General recalled reminiscences of the battles in which he had fought in that wonderful tropical country. They discussed the wild, free, fresh, novel life of the far-off Pacific Coast, the wealth of the gold-mines of California, its luscious and abundant fruits, and the friends they had known there. They told stories of the great Northwest, that was like a mythologic region to me, of the Chinook Indians, and of the San Juan Island and the English officers who had occupied the island conjointly with my Soldier. I found myself wondering if it had been a dream, and there had been no internecine strife.

Just before reaching City Point, which is a few hours' distance from Richmond, Dr. Suckley came up and told me that we were to stop for General Ingalls, Grant's Quartermaster-General, who wished to come on board to pay his respects, beseeching me, in his sweet gracious way, to be more cordial with him than I had been with another of my Soldier's old friends.

He turned for sympathy to my husband, who looked imploringly at him and at me. Presently my Soldier drew me to one side and whispered:

"Suckley voiced my wishes, my little wife, and I want you to meet my old friend just as cordially as you can. Put your little hand in his and forget everything except that he is one of your husband's oldest and dearest friends."

I promised with all my heart what he asked, and really intended to keep my word. I loved to do everything he bade me. I liked him to make things hard for me sometimes, that I might show him how sincere and loving my obedience was. But when General Ingalls came on board, was given a salute and received, as became his rank, with the honors the absence of which I had marked when my own General came, I slipped my hand out of my Soldier's and ran back to my stateroom as fast as I could.

There I burst out crying and shook our baby, waking him, and told him how his dear father had been treated—that he had not had any honors paid him at all, and that a dreadful old bad Yankee General had come on board and taken them all, and that when he grew up and was a big man he must fight and fight and fight, and never surrender, and never forgive the Yankees; no, not even if his poor, dethroned father asked him to do so. I told him how his father had asked me to shake hands with this Yankee General, because he was his friend, and that I was going to do it because his father wanted me to; that I tried and could not and that he never must, either—never, never!

I did not know there was a witness to all my bitterness till I heard a smothered chuckle and, looking up, saw my Soldier and his friend, General Rufus Ingalls, standing over me. With a twinkle in his eye, and in a voice full of suppressed laughter, General Ingalls said, as he patted me on the head:

"I don't blame you one bit, little woman—not a damn bit. I should feel just as terrible about it as you do if I were in your place. It's all different with Pickett and me, you see. We don't mind. Why, do you know, child, we have slept under the same blanket, fought under the same flag, eaten out of the same mess-pan, dodged the same bullets, scalped the same Indians, made love to the same girls—aye, Pickett, it won't do, by Jove, to tell her all we have done together—no, no—come, shake hands. I am dreadful sorry we have had this terrible kick-up in the family, and all this row and bloodshed, but we are all Americans, damn it, anyhow, and your fellows have been mighty plucky to hold out as they have. Come, that's a good child; shake hands. May I kiss her, Pickett? No—damn it, I shan't ask you. There, there! Here is a basket of trash I had the orderly rake together. I don't know what it all is, but I told the man to do the best he could. Here, Mr. George junior—with your bright eyes and your won't-cry mouth—here is a green chip for a pair of red shoes."

General Ingalls put into our baby's hands his first greenback, and it was the only money we had, too—every cent. Baby and I said good-bye, and he and my Soldier went out on deck. While I was peeping into the basket "Mr. George junior" tore the note in two. I caught the pieces and stuck my bonnet-pin through them till I could paste them together. One of the officers brought me some glue, and I cut a hundred-dollar Confederate note in two to mend it with. Poor Confederate money!

[A] These verses were written on the back of a Confederate note, and for a time were ascribed to John Esten Cooke and to Colonel Wythe Mumford; afterward attributed to Colonel Jonas.