A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865. Avary Myrta Lockett

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СКАЧАТЬ next train, perhaps that will be in time to get your trunk off with you to Culpeper. If not, your trunk will follow you immediately. I’ll see the conductor and do what I can. I’m going out of town to-morrow, but Captain Jeter is here and I’ll tell him about your trunk-check. He’ll be sure to see Mr. C – .”

      I was to see Dan the next day, and nothing else mattered. I made my mind easy about that trunk, and my new friend took me to the American, where I spent the evening very pleasantly in receiving old acquaintances and making new ones.

      But with bedtime another difficulty arose: I had never slept in a room at a hotel by myself in my life. Fortunately, Mrs. Hopson, of Norfolk, happened to be spending the night there. I sent up a note asking if I might sleep with her, and went up to her room half an hour later prepared for a delightful talk about Norfolk. When we were ready for bed, she took up one of her numerous satchels and put it down on the side where I afterward lay down to sleep.

      “I put that close by the bed because it contains valuables,” she said with an impressive solemnity I afterward understood.

      Of course I asked no questions, though she referred to the valuables several times. We were in bed and the lights had been out some time when I had occasion to ask her where she had come from there.

      “Oh, Nell!” she said, “didn’t you know? I’ve been to Charlottesville and I’ve come from there to-day. Didn’t you know about it? John” (her son) “was wounded. Didn’t you know about it? Of course I had to go to him. They had to perform an operation on him. I was right there when they did it.” Here followed a graphic account of the operation. “It was dreadful. You see that satchel over there?” pointing to the one just beneath my head on the floor.

      “Yes, I see it.”

      “Well, John’s bones are right in there!”

      “Good gracious!” I cried, and jumped over her to the other side of the bed.

      “Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “You look like you were scared, Nell. Why, Nell, the whole of John wouldn’t hurt you, much less those few bones. I’m carrying them home to put them in the family burying-ground. That’s the reason I think so much of that satchel and keep it so close to me. I don’t want John to be buried all about in different places, you see. But I don’t see anything for you to be afraid of in a few bones. John’s as well as ever – it isn’t like he was dead, now.”

      I lay down quietly, ashamed of my sudden fright, but there were cold chills running down my spine.

      After a little more talk she turned over, and I presently heard a comfortable snore, but I lay awake a long time, my eyes riveted on the satchel containing fragments of John. Then I began to think of seeing Dan in the morning, and fell asleep feeling how good it was that he was safe and sound, all his bones together and not scattered around like poor John’s.

      I reached Culpeper Court-house the next afternoon about four o’clock. Dan met me looking tired and shabby, and as soon as he had me settled went back to camp.

      “I’ll come to see you as often as I can get leave,” he said when he told me good-by. “We may be quartered here for some time – long enough for us to get ourselves and our horses rested up, I hope; but I’m afraid I can’t see much of you. Hardly worth the trouble of your coming, is it, little woman?”

      “Oh, Dan, yes,” I said cheerfully; “just so you are not shot up! It would be worth the coming if I only got to see you through a car window as the train went by.”

      A few days after my arrival a heavy snow-storm set in. As my trunk had not yet come, I was still in the same dress in which I had left Petersburg, and, though we were all willing enough to lend, clothes were so scarce that borrowing from your neighbor was a last resort. I suffered in silence for a week before my trunk arrived, and then it was exchanging one discomfort for another, for my flannels were so tight from shrinkage and so worn that I felt as if something would break every time I moved.

      During this snow-storm the roads were lined with Confederate troops marching home footsore and weary from Maryland. Long, hard marches and bloody battles had been their portion. In August they had come, after their work at Seven Pines, Cold Harbor, and Malvern Hill, to drive Pope out of Culpeper, where he was plundering. They had driven him out and pressed after, fighting incessantly. Near Culpeper there had been the battle of Cedar Mountain, where Jackson had defeated Pope and chased him to Culpeper Court-house. Somewhat farther from Culpeper had been fought the second battle of Manassas, and, crowding upon these, the battles of Germantown, Centreville, Antietam – more than I can remember to name. Lee’s army was back in Culpeper now with Federal troops at their heels, and McClellan, not Pope, in command. Civilians, women, children, and slaves feared Pope; soldiers feared McClellan – that is, as much as Lee’s soldiers could fear anybody.

      I found our tired army in Culpeper trying to rest and fatten a little before meeting McClellan’s legions. Then – I am not historian enough to know just how it happened – McClellan’s head fell and Burnside reigned in his stead. Better and worse for our army, and no worse for our women and children, for Burnside was a gentleman even as McClellan was and as Pope was not, and made no war upon women and children until the shelling of Fredericksburg.

      CHAPTER V

      I MEET BELLE BOYD AND SEE DICK IN A NEW LIGHT

      The tallow candles were lighted on each side of my bureau – the time came when I remembered those two tallow candles as a piece of reckless and foolish extravagance – when there was a rap at my door and Mrs. Rixey entered to ask if I would share my room with a lady who had come unexpectedly. A heavy snow was falling, and the wind was blowing it into drifts. The idea of sending anybody out in such weather was not to be thought of for a moment, so saying yes I hurried through with my dressing and went down to the parlor. Mrs. Rixey’s house was filled with Confederates who were there either because it was near the army or because they were awaiting an opportunity to run the blockade. Our evenings were always gay, and when I entered the parlor this evening there was as usual a merry party, and, also as usual, there were several officers of rank in the room. I was so busy-sending messages to mother and Milicent by a little lady who meant to run the blockade to Baltimore as soon as possible, that I did not catch my roommate’s name when Mrs. Rixey introduced her.

      She seemed to be nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty – rather young, I thought, to be traveling alone. True, I was not older, but then I was married, which made all the difference in the world. What made her an object of special interest to every woman present, was that she was exceedingly well dressed. It had been a long, long time since we had seen a new dress! She was a brilliant talker, and soon everybody in the room was attracted to her, especially the men. She talked chiefly to the men – indeed, I am afraid she did not care particularly for the women – and at first we were a little piqued; but when we found that she was devoted to The Cause we were ready to forgive her anything. She soon let us know that she had come directly from Washington, where she had been a prisoner of the United States. She showed us her watch and told us how the prisoners in Washington had made the money up among themselves and presented it to her just before she left. I wish I had listened better to her account of her prison life and her adventures; but I was on the outer rim of the charmed circles, my head was full of Milicent and mother, Dan was at camp, and I couldn’t see him. I got sleepy, slipped quietly out of the room, and went upstairs and to bed. My roommate undressed and got to bed so quickly that night that I did not wake. The next morning when the maid came in to make the fire, we woke up face to face in the same bed, and then she told me that her name was Belle Boyd, and I knew for the first time that my bedfellow was the South’s famous female spy. When we got up she took a large bottle of cologne and poured it into the basin in which she was going to bathe. It was the first cologne I had seen for more than a year, and it was the last I saw until СКАЧАТЬ