A Confederate Girl's Diary Part 24

They are watching you still!" she would exclaim. But if my own dear brother stood there, I could not have raised my eyes; we only hurried on faster, with a hundred Yankees eyes fixed on our flying steps.

My friend Colonel Steadman was one of the commissioners for arranging the terms of the capitulation, I see. He has not yet arrived.

Dreadful news has come of the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg. Think I believe it all? He may have been defeated; but not one of these reports of total overthrow and rout do I credit. Yankees jubilant, Southerners dismal. Brother, with principles on one side and brothers on the other, is correspondingly distracted.

Sat.u.r.day, July 18th.

It may be wrong; I feel very contrite; but still I cannot help thinking it is an error on the right side. It began by Miriam sending Mr. Conn a box of cigars when she was on Ca.n.a.l the other day, with a note saying we would be delighted to a.s.sist him in anyway. Poor creature! He wrote an answer which breathed desolation and humility, under his present situation, in every line. The cigars, an unexpected kindness, had touched a tender cord evidently. He said he had no friends, and would be grateful for our a.s.sistance.

But before his answer arrived, yesterday morning I took it into my head that Colonel Steadman was also at the Custom-House, though his arrival had not been announced, the Yankees declining to publish any more names to avoid the excitement that follows. So Miriam and I prepared a lunch of chicken, soup, wine, preserves, sardines, and cakes, to send to him.

And, fool-like, I sent a note with it. It only contained the same offer of a.s.sistance; and I would not object to the town crier's reading it; but it upset Brother's ideas of decorum completely. He said nothing to Miriam's, because that was first offense; but yesterday he met Edmond, who was carrying the basket, and he could not stand the sight of another note. I wish he had read it! But he said he would not a.s.sume such a right. So he came home very much annoyed, and spoke to Miriam about it. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I was swimming in the bathtub in blissful unconsciousness, else I should have drowned myself.

He said, "I want you both to understand that you shall have everything you want for the prisoners. Subscribe any sum of money, purchase any quant.i.ty of clothing, send all the food you please, but, for G.o.d's sake, don't write to them! In such a place every man knows the other has received a letter, and none know what it contains. I cannot have my sisters' names in everybody's mouth. Never do it again!" All as kind and as considerate for us as ever, and a necessary caution; I love him the better for it; but I was dismayed for having rendered the reproof necessary. For three hours I made the most hideous faces at myself and groaned aloud over Brother's displeasure. He is so good that I would rather bite my tongue off than give him a moment's pain. Just now I went to him, unable to keep silence any longer, and told him how distressed I was to have displeased him about that note. "Don't think any more about it, only don't do it again, dear," was his answer. I was so grateful to him for his gentleness that I was almost hurried into a story. I began, "It is the first time--" when I caught myself and said boldly, "No, it is not. Colonel Steadman has written to me before, and I have replied. But I promise to you it shall not occur again if I can avoid it." He was satisfied with the acknowledgment, and I was more than gratified with his kindness. Yet the error _must_ have been on the right side!

Colonel Steadman wrote back his thanks by Edmond, with heartfelt grat.i.tude for finding such friends in his adversity, and touching acknowledgments of the acceptable nature of the lunch. His brother and Colonel Lock were wounded, though recovering, and he was anxious to know if I had yet recovered. And that was all, except that he hoped we would come to see him, and his thanks to Brother for his kind message.

Brother had sent him word by one of the prisoners that though he was not acquainted with him, yet as his sisters' friend he would be happy to a.s.sist him if he needed money or clothing. There was no harm in either note, and though I would not do it again, I am almost glad I let him know he still had friends before Brother asked me not to write.

And as yet we can't see them. A man was bayoneted yesterday for waving to them, even. It only makes us the more eager to see them. We did see some. Walking on Rampart Street with the Peirces yesterday, in front of a splendid private house, we saw sentinels stationed. Upon inquiry we learned that General Gardiner and a dozen others were confined there.

Ada and Miriam went wild. If it had not been for dignified Marie, and that model of propriety, Sarah, there is no knowing but what they would have carried the house by storm. We got them by without seeing a gray coat, when they vowed to pa.s.s back, declaring that the street was not respectable on the block above. We had to follow. So! there they all stood on the balcony above. We thought we recognized General Gardiner, Major Wilson, Major Spratley, and Mr. Dupre. Miriam was sure she did; but even when I put on a bold face, and tried to look, something kept me from seeing; so I had all the appearance of staring, without deriving the slightest benefit from it. Wonder what makes me such a fool?

Mr. Conn writes that Captain Bradford is wounded, but does not say whether he is here.

Thursday, July 23d.

It is bad policy to keep us from seeing the prisoners; it just sets us wild about them. Put a creature you don't care for in the least, in a situation that commands sympathy, and nine out of ten girls will fall desperately in love. Here are brave, self-sacrificing, n.o.ble men who have fought heroically for us, and have been forced to surrender by unpropitious fate, confined in a city peopled by their friends and kindred, and as totally isolated from them as though they inhabited the Dry Tortugas! Ladies are naturally hero-wors.h.i.+pers. We are dying to show these unfortunates that we are as proud of their bravery as though it had led to victory instead of defeat. Banks wills that they remain in privacy. Consequently our vivid imaginations are constantly occupied in depicting their sufferings, privations, heroism, and manifold virtues, until they have almost become as demiG.o.ds to us. Even horrid little Captain C---- has a share of my sympathy in his misfortune!

Fancy what must be my feelings where those I consider as gentlemen are concerned! It is all I can do to avoid a most tender compa.s.sion for a very few select ones. Miriam and I are looked on with envy by other young ladies because some twenty or thirty of our acquaintance have already arrived. To know a Port Hudson defender is considered as the greatest distinction one need desire. If they would only let us see the prisoners once to sympathize with, and offer to a.s.sist them, we would never care to call on them again until they are liberated. But this is aggravating. Of what benefit is it to send them lunch after lunch, when they seldom receive it? Colonel Steadman and six others, I am sure, did not receive theirs on Sunday. We sent with the baskets a number of cravats and some handkerchiefs I had embroidered for the Colonel.

Brother should forbid those gentlemen writing, too. Already a dozen notes have been received from them, and what can we do? We can't tell them not to. Miriam received a letter from Major Spratley this morning, raving about the kindness of the ladies of New Orleans, full of hope of future successes, and vows to help deliver the n.o.ble ladies from the hands of their oppressors, etc. It is a wonder that such a patriotic effusion could be smuggled out. He kindly a.s.sures us that not only those of our acquaintance there, but all their brother officers, would be more than happy to see us in their prison. Position of affairs rather reversed since we last met!

BOOK V

NEW ORLEANS, August, 1863.

Friday, 14th.

Doomed to be bored! To-night Miriam drags me to a _soiree musicale_, and in the midst of my toilet, I sit down with bare shoulders to scratch a dozen lines in my new treasure which has been by me for three days, untouched. I don't know what tempts me to do it except perversity; for I have nothing to say.

I was in hopes that I would never have occasion to refer to the disagreeable subject that occupied the last pages of my old journal, but the hope proves fallacious, and wherever I turn, the same subject is renewed. So there is no longer any reason in waiting until all mention can be avoided. Yesterday a little, sly, snaky creature asked me if I knew "the Hero of Port Hudson." "Yes," I said briefly.

"Unmistakable! I see it in your face!" she remarked. "See what?" "That you betray yourself. Do you know that every one believes that you are engaged to him?" In surprise I said no; such a thing had never been mentioned before me until then. "Well! they say so, and add, too, that you are to be married as soon as the war is over." "'They' are paying me an undeserved compliment," I returned. Where could such a report have originated? Not certainly from him, and not, most a.s.suredly, from me. Where does Dame rumor spring from? He is a stranger here, and I have never mentioned his name except to the Peirces, who would no more report such a thing than I would myself. I won't mind it if it does not reach his ears; but what a.s.surance have I that it will not? That would be unpleasant! Why can't "they say" let everybody settle their own affairs?

Here comes Miriam after me! What a bore! What a bore! And she looks as though it was a pleasure to go out! How I hate it!

Glancing up the page, the date strikes my eye. What tempted me to begin it Friday? My dear Ada would s.h.i.+ver and declare the blank pages were reserved for some very painful, awful, uncomfortable record, or that "something" would happen before the end of it. Nothing very exciting can happen, except the restoration of peace; and to bring that about, I would make a vow to write only on Fridays.

Sunday, 16th.

Coming out of church this morning with Miriam, a young lady ran up with an important air, as though about to create a sensation. "I have a message for you both," she said, fixing her eyes on mine as though she sought something in them. "I visit the prisoners frequently, you know, and day before yesterday Captain Steadman requested me to beg you to call, that he will not take a refusal, but entreated you to come, if it were only once." The fates must be against me; I had almost forgotten his existence, and having received the same message frequently from another, I thoughtlessly said, "You mean _Colonel_, do you not?"

Fortunately Miriam asked the same question at the instant that I was beginning to believe I had done something very foolish. The lady looked at me with her calm, scrutinizing, disagreeable smile--a smile that had all the unpleasant insinuations eyes and lips can convey, a smile that looked like "I have your secret--you can't deceive _me_"--and said with her piercing gaze, "No, _not_ the Colonel. He was very ill that day (did you know it?) and could not see us. This was _really_ the Captain." "He is very kind," I stammered, and suggested to Miriam that we had better pa.s.s on. The lady was still eyeing me inquisitively.

Decidedly, this is unpleasant to have the reputation of being engaged to a man that every girl is crazy to win! If one only cared for him, it would not be so unpleasant; but under the circ.u.mstances,--_ah ca!_ why don't they make him over to the young lady whose father openly avows he would be charmed to have him for a son-in-law? This report has cost me more than one impertinent stare. The young ladies think it a very enviable position. Let some of them usurp it, then!

So the young lady, not having finished her examination, proposed to accompany us part of the way. As a recompense, we were regaled with charming little anecdotes about herself, and her visits. How she had sent a delightful little custard to the Colonel (here was a side glance at my demure face) and had carried an autographic alb.u.m in her last visit, and had insisted on their inscribing their names, and writing a verse or so. "How interesting!" was my mental comment. "Can a man respect a woman who thrusts him her alb.u.m, begging for a compliment the first time they meet? What fools they must think us, if they take such as these for specimens of the genus!"

Did we know Captain Lanier? Know him, no! but how vividly his face comes before me when I look back to that grand smash-up at Port Hudson, when his face was the last I saw before being thrown, and the first I recognized when I roused myself from my stupor and found myself in the arms of the young Alabamian. At the sound of his name, I fairly saw the last ray of sunset flas.h.i.+ng over his handsome face, as I saw it then.

No, I did not know him. He had spoken to me, begging to be allowed to hold me, and I had answered, entreating him not to touch me, and that was all I knew of him; but she did not wait for the reply. She hurried on to say that she had sent him a bouquet, with a piece of poetry, and that he had been heard to exclaim, "How beautiful!" on reading it.

"And do you know," she continued, with an air that was meant to be charmingly naf, but which was not very successful, as navete at twenty-nine is rather flat, "I am _so_ much afraid he thinks it original! I forgot to put quotation marks, and it would be _so_ funny in him to make the mistake! For you know I have not much of the--of that sort of thing about me--I am not a poet--poetess, author, you know." Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!" If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, "You know him well, of course." "No, I never saw him before!" she answered with a new outburst of navete.

Monday, August 24th.

A letter from Captain Bradford to Miriam. My poor Adonis, that I used to ridicule so unmercifully, what misfortunes have befallen him! He writes that during the siege at Port Hudson he had the top of his ear shot off (wonder if he lost any of that beautiful golden fleece yclept his hair?), and had the cap of his knee removed by a sh.e.l.l, besides a third wound he does not specify. Fortunately he is with kind friends.

And he gives news of Lydia, most acceptable since such a time has elapsed since we heard from her.... He says, "Tell Miss Sarah that the last I saw of John, he was crossing the Mississippi in a skiff, his parole in his pocket, his sweet little sister by his side," (O you wretch! at it again!) "and Somebody else in his heart." How considerate to volunteer the last statement! Then followed half a page of commendation for his bravery, daring, and skill during the siege (the only kind word he ever spoke of him, I dare say), all looking as though I was to take it as an especial compliment to myself, and was expected to look foolish, blush, and say "Thanky" for it. As though I care!

Monday night.

I consider myself outrageously imposed upon! I am so indignant that I have spent a whole evening making faces at myself. "Please, Miss Sarah, look natural!" William pet.i.tions. "I never saw you look cross before."

Good reason! I never had more cause! However, I stop in the midst of a hideous grimace, and join in a game of hide the switch with the children to forget my annoyance.

Of course a woman is at the bottom of it. Last night while Ada and Marie were here, a young lady whose name I decline to reveal for the sake of the s.e.x, stopped at the door with an English officer, and asked to see me in the entry. I had met her once before. Remember this, for that is the chief cause of my anger. Of course they were invited in; but she declined, saying she had but a moment, and had a message to deliver to me alone, so led me apart. "Of course you know who it is from?" she began. I told a deliberate falsehood, and said no, though I guessed instantly. She told me the name then. She had visited the prison the day before, and there had met the individual whose name, joined to mine, has given me more trouble and annoyance during the last few months than it would be possible to mention. "And our entire conversation was about you," she said, as though to flatter my vanity immensely. He told her then that he had written repeatedly to me, without receiving an answer, and at last had written again, in which he had used some expressions which he feared had offended my reserved disposition. Something had made me angry, for without returning letter or message to say I was not displeased, I had maintained a resolute silence, which had given him more pain and uneasiness than he could say. That during all this time he had had no opportunity of explaining it to me, and that now he begged her to tell me that he would not offend me for worlds--that he admired me more than any one he had ever met, that he could not help saying what he did, but was distressed at offending me, etc. The longest explanation! And she was directed to beg me to explain my silence, and let him know if I was really offended, and also leave no entreaty or argument untried to induce me to visit the prison; he _must_ see me.

As to visiting the prison, I told her that was impossible. (O how glad I am that I never did!) But as to the letters, told her "to a.s.sure him that I had not thought of them in that light, and had pa.s.sed over the expressions he referred to as idle words it would be ridiculous to take offense at; and that my only reason for persevering in this silence had been that Brother disapproved of my writing to gentlemen, and I had promised that I would not write to him. That I had feared he would misconstrue my silence, and had wished to explain it to him, but I had no means of doing so except by breaking my promise; and so had preferred leaving all explanation to time, and some future opportunity."

"But you did not mean to pain him, did you?" the dear little creature coaxingly lisped, standing on tiptoe to kiss me as she spoke. I a.s.sured her that I had not. "He has been dangerously ill," she continued, apologizingly, "and sickness has made him more morbid and more unhappy about it than he would otherwise have been. It has distressed him a great deal."

I felt awkwardly. How was it that this girl, meeting him for the first and only time in her life, had contrived to learn so much that she had no right to know, and appeared here as mediator between two who were strangers to her, so far usurping a place she was not ent.i.tled to, as to apologize to _me_ for his sensitiveness, and to entreat me to tell him he had not forfeited my esteem, as though _she_ was his most intimate friend, and I a pa.s.sing acquaintance? Failing to comprehend it, I deferred it to a leisure moment to think over, and in the mean time exerted myself to be affable.

I can't say half she spoke of, but as she was going she said, "Then will you give me permission to say as many sweet things for you as I can think of? I'm going there to-morrow." I told her I would be afraid to give her _carte blanche_ on such a subject; but that she would really oblige me by explaining about the letters. She promised, and after another kiss, and a few whispered words, left me.

Maybe she exaggerated, though! Uncharitable as the supposition was, it was a consolation. I was unwilling to believe that any one who professed to esteem me would make me the subject of conversation with a stranger--and such a conversation! So my comfort was only in hoping that she had related a combination of truth and fiction, and that he had not been guilty of such folly.

Presently it grew clearer to me. I must be growing in wickedness, to fathom that of others, I who so short a time ago disbelieved in the very existence of such a thing. I remembered having heard that the young lady and her family were extremely anxious to form his acquaintance, and that her cousin had coolly informed Ada that she had selected him among all others, and meant to have him for a "beau" as soon as she could be introduced to him; I remembered that the young lady herself had been very anxious to discover whether the reputation common report had given me had any foundation.

As soon as we were alone, I told mother of our conversation in the entry, and said, "And now I am certain that this girl has made use of my name to become acquainted with him."

Thursday, 10th September.

O my prophetic soul! part of your forebodings are already verified! And in what an unpleasant way!

Day before yesterday an English officer, not the one who came here, but one totally unknown to me, said at Mrs. Peirce's he was going to visit the Confederate prisoners. He was asked if he knew any. Slightly, he said; but he was going this time by request; he had any quant.i.ty of messages to deliver to Colonel ---- from Miss Sarah Morgan. "How can that be possible, since you are not acquainted with her?" Ada demanded.

He had the impudence to say that the young lady I have already mentioned had requested him to deliver them for her, since she found it impossible. Fortunately for me, I have two friends left. Feeling the indelicacy of the thing, and knowing that there must be some mistake that might lead to unpleasant consequences, Ada and Marie, my good angels, insisted on hearing the messages. At first he refused, saying that they were entrusted to him confidentially; but being a.s.sured that they were really intimate with me, whereas the other was a perfect stranger, and that I would certainly not object to their hearing what I could tell a gentleman, he yielded, fortunately for my peace of mind, and told all.