Dixie After the War. Myrta Lockett Avary

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СКАЧАТЬ Men she could avoid seeing except at table; but with ladies for her guests, more olive branches must be exchanged than genuine feeling between late enemies could possibly warrant. But her guests found her a perfect hostess, grave, sincere, hospitable.

      There was a young married pair. When her faithful coloured man went up to their rooms to render service, they were afraid of him, were careful he should not enter, seemed to fear that of himself or as the instrument of his former owners he might do them injury.

      Such queer, contradictory ideas Yankees had of us and our black people. A Northern girl visiting the niece of Alexander H. Stephens at a plantation where there were many negroes, asked: “Where are the blood-hounds?” “The blood-hounds! We haven’t any.” “How do you manage the negroes without them? I thought all Southerners kept blood-hounds – that only blood-hounds could keep negroes from running away.” “I never saw a blood-hound in my life,” Miss Stephens replied. “I don’t know what one is like. None of our friends keep blood-hounds.”

      But to the Sutherlin Mansion. The bride asked: “Mrs. Sutherlin, what room did Mr. Davis occupy?”

      “That in which you sleep.”

      The bride was silent. Then: “It is a pleasant room. The mocking-birds are singing when we wake in the morning. Sometimes, I hear them in the night.”

      A shadow fell on the hostess’ face. The words recalled the thought of Mr. Davis, now shut out from the sight of the sky and the voice of the birds.

      It has been said of this or that place at which Mr. Davis, moving southward from Danville, stopped, that it was the “Last Capital of the Confederacy.” He held a Cabinet meeting in Colonel Wood’s house in Greensboro; was in Charlotte several days; held a Cabinet meeting or council of war in the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, S. C.; and in the Old Bank, Washington, Ga. He said in council at Abbeville: “I will listen to no proposition for my safety. I appeal to you for our country.”

      He stopped one night at Salisbury, with the Episcopal minister, whose little daughter ran in while all were at the breakfast-table, and standing between her father and Mr. Davis, cried out in childish terror and distress: “O, Papa, old Lincoln’s coming and is going to kill us all!” President Davis laid down his knife and fork, lifted her face, and said reassuringly: “No, no, my little lady! Mr. Lincoln is not such a bad man, and I am sure he would not harm a little girl like you.”

      While the President was at Charlotte, there was another memorable peace effort, Sherman and Johnston arranging terms. Johnston’s overture was dated April 13; Sherman’s reply, “I am fully empowered to arrange with you any terms for the suspension of hostilities,” April 14, the last day of Lincoln’s life. Mr. Davis wrote General Johnston: “Your course is approved.” Mr. Stanton nearly branded Sherman as a traitor. Sherman gave Johnston notice that he must renew hostilities. Mr. Davis left Charlotte, thinking war still on.

      In Washington, Ga., the first town in America named for the Father of his Country, the Confederate Government breathed its last. A quiet, picturesque, little place, out of track of the armies, it was suddenly shaken with excitement, when Mr. Davis, attended by his personal staff, several distinguished officers, besides a small cavalry escort, rode in.

      Mrs. Davis had left the day before. As long as her wagons and ambulances had stood in front of Dr. Ficklen’s house, the people of Washington were calling upon her; first among them, General Toombs with cordial offers of aid and hospitality, though there had been sharp differences between him and Mr. Davis. Here, it may be said, she held her last reception as the First Lady of the Confederacy. She had expected to meet her husband, and went away no doubt heavy of heart – herself, her baby, Winnie, and her other little children, and her sister, Maggie Howell, again to be wanderers of woods and waysides. With them went a devoted little band of Confederate soldiers, their volunteer escort, Burton Harrison, the President’s secretary, and one or two negro servants whose devotion never faltered.

      On a lovely May morning, people sat on the Bank piazza asking anxiously: “Where can Mr. Davis be?” “Is he already captured and killed?” Dr. Robertson, an officer of the bank, and his family lived in the building. With them was General Elzey, on parole, his wife and son. Kate Joyner Robertson and her brother, Willie, sixteen years old and a Confederate Veteran, were on the piazza; also David Faver, seventeen, and a Confederate Veteran; these boys were members of the Georgia Military Institute Battalion. A description of this battalion was recently given me by Mr. Faver:

      “There were as many negroes – body-servants – in our ranks as boys when we started out, spick and span. We saw actual service; guarded the powder magazines at Augusta and Savannah, fought the Yankees at Chattanooga, stood in front of Sherman in South Carolina. Young Scott Todd lost his arm – Dr. Todd, of Atlanta, carries around that empty sleeve today. I bore handsome Tom Hamilton off the field when he was shot. I was just fifteen when I went in; some were younger. Henry Cabaniss and Julius Brown were the smallest boys in the army. We were youngsters who ought to have been in knee pants, but the G. M. I. never quailed before guns or duty! I remember (laughing) when we met the Cits in Charleston. They were all spick and span – ‘Citadel Cadets’ blazoned all over them and their belongings. We were all tattered and torn, nothing of the G. M. I. left about us! Rags was the stamp of the regular, and we ‘guyed’ the Cits. We had seen fighting and they had not.” Sixteen-year-old Lint Stephens, Vice-President Stephens’ nephew, was of this juvenile warrior band. On the occasion of his sudden appearance at home to prepare for war, Mr. Stephens asked what he had quit school for. “To fight for the fair sex,” he replied. And to this day some people think we fought to keep negroes in slavery!

      A “Georgia Cracker” rode in from the Abbeville road, drew rein before the bank, and saluting, drawled: “Is you’uns seen any soldiers roun’ here?” There were Confederate uniforms on the piazza. “What kind of soldiers?” he was asked, and General Elzey said: “My friend, you have betrayed yourself by that military salute. You are no ignorant countryman, but a soldier yourself.” The horseman spurred close to the piazza. “Are there any Yankees in town?” “None. Tell us, do you know anything about President Davis?” After a little more questioning, the horseman said: “President Davis is not an hour’s ride from here.”

      The piazza was all excitement. “Where should the President be entertained?” Ordinarily, General Toombs was municipal host. Everybody is familiar with the reply he made to a committee consulting him about erecting a hotel in Washington: “We have no need of one. When respectable people come here, they can stop at my house. If they are not respectable, we do not want them at all.” Everybody knew that all he had was at the President’s command. But – there had been the unpleasantness. “Bring the President here,” Mrs. Robertson said promptly. Dr. Robertson added: “As a government building, this is the proper place.” Willie Robertson, commissioned to convey the invitation, rode off with the courier, the envy of every other G. M. I. in town. The little “Bats” were ready to go to war again.

      Soon, the President dismounted in front of the bank. Mrs. Faver (Kate Joyner Robertson that was) says: “He wore a full suit of Confederate gray. He looked worn, sad, and troubled; said he was tired and went at once to his room. My mother sent a cup of tea to him. That afternoon, or next morning, all the people came to see him. He stood in the parlor door, they filed in, shook hands, and passed out.” So, in Washington, he held his last Presidential reception.

      “To hear Mr. Davis,” Mr. Faver reports, “you would have no idea that he considered the cause lost. He spoke hopefully of our yet unsurrendered forces. Secretary Reagan, General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses were General Toombs’ guests. That night after supper, they walked to the bank; my father’s house was opposite General Toombs’. I walked behind them. I think they held what has been called the Last Cabinet Meeting that night.”

      Mr. Trenholm, too ill to travel, had stopped at Charlotte; Secretary of State Benjamin had СКАЧАТЬ