Dixie After the War

This book may be called a revelation. It seems to me a body of discoveries that should not be kept from the public – discoveries which have origin in many sources but are here brought together in one book for the first time.

No book hitherto published portrays so fully and graphically the social conditions existing in the South for the twelve years following the fall of Richmond, none so vividly presents race problems. It is the kind of history a witness gives. The author received from observers and participants the larger part of the incidents and anecdotes which she employs. Those who lived during reconstruction are passing away so rapidly that data, unless gathered now, can never be had thus at first hand; every year increases the difficulty. Mrs. Avary’s experience as author, editor and journalist, her command of shorthand and her social connections have opened up opportunities not usually accessible to one person; added to this is the balance of sympathy which she is able to strike as a Southern woman who has sojourned much at the North. In these pages she renders a public service. She aids the American to better understanding of his country’s past and clearer concept of its present.

In connection with the book’s genesis, it may be said that the author grew up after the war on a large Virginia plantation where her parents kept open house in the true Southern fashion. Two public roads which united at their gates, were thoroughfares linking county-towns in Virginia and North Carolina, and were much traveled by jurists, lawyers and politicians on their way to and from various court sittings; these gentlemen often found it both convenient and pleasant to stop for supper and over night at Lombardy Grove, particularly as a son of the house was of their guild. Perhaps few of the company thus gathered realised what an earnest listener they had in the little girl, Myrta, who sat intent at her father’s or brother’s knee, drinking in eagerly the discussions and stories. To impressions and information so acquired much was added through family correspondence with relatives and friends in Petersburg, Richmond, Atlanta, the Carolinas; also, in experiences related by these friends and relatives when hospitalities were exchanged; interesting and eventful diaries, too, were at the author’s disposal. Such was her unconscious preparation for the writing of this book. Her conscious preparation was a tour of several Southern States recently undertaken for the purpose of collecting fresh data and substantiating information already possessed.

While engaged, for a season, in journalism in New York, she put out her first Southern book, “A Virginia Girl in the Civil War” (1903). This met with such warm welcome that she was promptly called upon for a second dealing with post-bellum life from a woman’s viewpoint. The result was the Southern journey mentioned, the accidental discovery and presentment (1905) of the war journal of Mrs. James Chestnut (“A Diary From Dixie”), and the writing of the present volume which, I think, exceeds her commission, inasmuch as it is not only what is known as a “woman’s book” but is a “man’s book” also, exhibiting a masculine grasp, explained by its origin, of political situations, and an intimate personal tone in dealing with the lighter social side of things, possible only to a woman’s pen. It is a very unusual book. All readers may not accept the author’s conclusions, but I think that all must be interested in what she says and impressed with her spirit of fairness and her painstaking effort to present a truthful picture of an extraordinary social and political period in our national life. Her work stimulates interest in Southern history. A safe prophecy is that this book will be the precursor of as many post-bellum memoirs of feminine authorship as was “A Virginia Girl” of memoirs of war-time.

No successor can be more comprehensive, as a glance at the table of contents will show. The tragedy, pathos, corruption, humour, and absurdities of the military dictatorship and of reconstruction, the topsy-turvy conditions generally, domestic upheaval, negroes voting, Black and Tan Conventions and Legislatures, disorder on plantations, Loyal Leagues and Freedmen’s Bureaus, Ku Klux and Red Shirts, are presented with a vividness akin to the camera’s. A wide interest is appealed to in the earlier chapters narrating incidents connected with Mr. Lincoln’s visit to Richmond, Mr. Davis’ journeyings, capture and imprisonment, the arrest of Vice-President Stephens and the effort to capture General Toombs. Those which deal with the Federal occupation of Columbia and Richmond at once rivet attention. The most full and graphic description of the situation in the latter city just after the war, that has yet been produced, is given, and I think the interpretation of Mr. Davis’ course in leaving Richmond instead of remaining and trying to enter into peace negotiations, is a point not hitherto so clearly taken.

As a bird’s-eye view of the South after the war, the book is expositive of its title, every salient feature of the time and territory being brought under observation. The States upon which attention is chiefly focussed, however, are Virginia and South Carolina, two showing reconstruction at its best and worst. The reader does not need assurance that this volume cost the author years of well-directed labour; hasty effort could not have produced a work of such depth, breadth and variety. It will meet with prompt welcome, I am sure, and its value will not diminish with years.

Clement A. Evans.

Atlanta, Ga.

CHAPTER I

The Falling Cross

“The Southern Cross” and a cross that fell during the burning of Columbia occur to my mind in unison.

With the Confederate Army gone and Richmond open to the Federal Army, her people remembered New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia. New Orleans, where “Beast Butler” issued orders giving his soldiers license to treat ladies offending them as “women of the town.” Atlanta, whose citizens were ordered to leave; General Hood had protested and Mayor Calhoun had plead the cause of the old and feeble, of women that were with child; and of them that turned out of their houses had nowhere to go, and without money, food, or shelter, must perish in woods and waysides. General Sherman had replied: “I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” “The order to depopulate Atlanta was obeyed amid agonies and sorrows indescribable,” Colonel J. H. Keatley, U. S. A., has affirmed.

There are some who hold with General Sherman that the most merciful way to conduct war is to make it as merciless and horrible as possible, and so end it the quicker. One objection to this is that it creates in a subjugated people such hatred and distrust of the conquering army and government that a generation or two must die out before this passes away; and therefore, in a very real sense, the method does not make quick end of conflict.

Richmond remembered how Mayor Goodwin went to meet General Sherman and surrendered Columbia, praying for it his pity and protection. General Sherman had said: “Go home and sleep in peace, Mr. Mayor. Your city shall be safe.” Mayor Goodwin returned, praising General Sherman. By next morning, the City of Gardens was almost swept from the face of the earth. The rabble (“my bummers,” General Sherman laughingly called his men set apart for such work), pouring into the town, had invaded and sacked homes, driving inmates – among these mothers with new-born babes – into the streets; they had demolished furniture, fired dwellings.

Houses of worship were not spared. The Methodist Church, at whose altar the Sabbath before Rev. William Martin had administered the Sacrament to over four hundred negroes, was burned. So was the Ursuline Convent. This institution was a branch of the order in Ohio; it sheltered nuns and students of both sections; Protestant and Catholic alike were there in sanctuary. One Northern Sister had lost two brothers in the Federal Army. Another was joyously hoping to find in Sherman’s ranks one or more of her five Yankee brothers. The shock of that night killed her. A Western girl was “hoping yet fearing” to see her kinsmen. Guards, appointed for protection, aided in destruction. Rooms were invaded, trunks rifled. Drunken soldiers blew smoke in nuns’ faces, saying:

“Holy! holy! O yes, we are holy as you!” And: “What do you think of God now? Is not Sherman greater?” Because of the sacred character of the establishment, because General Sherman was a Catholic, and because he had sent assurances of protection to the Mother Superior, they had felt safe. But they had to go.

“I marched in the procession through the blazing streets,” wrote the Western girl, “venerable Father O’Connell at the head holding high the crucifix, the black-robed Mother Superior and the religieuses following with their charges, the white-faced, frightened girls and children, all in line and in perfect order. They sought the Catholic church for safety, and the Sisters put the little ones to sleep on the cushioned pews; then the children, driven out by roystering soldiers, ran stumbling and terror-stricken into the graveyard and crouched behind gravestones.”

One soldier said he was sorry for the women and children of South Carolina, but the hotbed of secession must be destroyed. “But I am not a South Carolinian,” retorted the Western girl, “I am from Ohio. Our Mother Superior was in the same Convent in Ohio with General Sherman’s sister and daughter.” “The General ought to know that,” he responded quickly. “If you are from Ohio – that’s my state – I’ll help you.” For answer, she pointed to the Convent; the cross above it was falling.

They recur to my mind in unison – that cross, sacred alike to North and South, falling above a burning city, and the falling Southern Cross, Dixie’s beautiful battle-flag.

Two nuns, conferring apart if it would not be well to take the children into the woods, heard a deep, sad voice saying: “Your position distresses me greatly!” Startled, they turned to perceive a Federal officer beside a tombstone just behind them. “Are you a Catholic,” they asked, “that you pity us?” “No; simply a man and a soldier.” Dawn came, and with it some Irish soldiers to early Mass. Appalled, they cried: “O, this will never do! Send for the General! The General would never permit it!”

At reveille all arson, looting and violence had ceased as by magic, even as conflagration had started as by magic in the early hours of the night when four signal rockets went up from as many corners of the town. But the look of the desolated city in the glare of daylight was indescribable. Around the church were broken and empty trunks and boxes; in the entrance stood a harp with broken strings.

General Sherman came riding by; the Mother Superior summoned him; calmly facing the Attila of his day, she said in her clear, sweet voice: “General, this is how you keep your promise to me, a cloistered nun, and these my sacred charges.” General Sherman answered: “Madame, it is all the fault of your negroes, who gave my soldiers liquor to drink.”

General Sherman, in official report, charged the burning of Columbia to General Hampton, and in his “Memoirs” gives his reason: “I confess that I did so to shake the faith of his people in him”; and asserts that his “right wing,” “having utterly ruined Columbia,” passed on to Winnsboro.

Living witnesses tell how that firing was done. A party of soldiers would enter a dwelling, search and rifle; and in departing throw wads of burning paper into closets, corners, under beds, into cellars. Another party would repeat the process. Family and servants would follow after, removing wads and extinguishing flames until ready to drop. Devastation for secession, that was what was made plain in South Carolina; if the hotbed of “heresy” had to be destroyed for her sins, what of the Confederate Capital, Richmond, the long-desired, the “heart of the Rebellion”?

CHAPTER II

“When This Cruel War is Over”

“When this cruel war is over” was the name of one of our war songs. So many things we planned to do when the war should be over. With the fall of the Southern Capital the war was over, though we did not know it at once.

Again and again has the story been told of Sunday, April 2, in Richmond. The message brought into St. Paul’s Church from Lee to Davis, saying Richmond could no longer be defended; the quiet departure of the President; the noble bearing of the beloved rector, Rev. Dr. Minnegerode; the self-control of the troubled people remaining; the solemn Communion Service; these are all a part now of American history of that sad time when brother strove with brother; a time whose memories should never be revived for the purpose of keeping rancor alive, but that should be unfalteringly remembered, and every phase of it diligently studied, that our common country may in no wise lose the lesson for which we of the North and South paid so tremendous a price.

Into Dr. Hoge’s church a hurried messenger came. The pastor read the note handed up to him, bowed his head in silent prayer, and then said: “Brethren, trying scenes are before us; General Lee has suffered reverses. But remember that God is with us in the storm as well as in the calm. Go quietly to your homes, and whatever may be in store for us, let us not forget that we are Christian men and women. The blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be with us all. Amen.” So other pastors commended their people.

None who lived through that Sabbath could forget it. Our Government, our soldiers, hurrying off; women saying goodbye to husband, lover, brother, or friend, and urging haste; everybody who could go, going, when means of transportation were insufficient for Government uses, and “a kingdom for a horse” could not buy one – horses brought that day $1,000 apiece in gold; handsome houses full of beautiful furniture left open and deserted; people of all sexes, colors and classes running hither and yon; boxes and barrels dragged about the streets from open commissary stores; explosions as of earthquakes; houses aflame; the sick and dying brought out; streets running liquid fire where liquor had been emptied into gutters, that it might not be available for invading troops; bibulous wretches in the midst of the terror, brooding over such waste; drunken roughs and looters, white and black, abroad; the penitentiary disgorging striped hordes; the ribald songs, the anguish, the fears, the tumult; the noble calm of brave souls, the patient endurance of sweet women and gentle children – these are all a part of American history, making thereon a page blistered with tears for some; and for others, illumined with symbols of triumph and glory.

And yet, we are of one blood, and the triumph and glory of one is the triumph and glory of the other; the anguish and tears of one the anguish and tears of the other; and the shame of one is the shame of both.

The fire was largely due to accident. In obedience to law, Confederate forces, in evacuating the city, fired tobacco warehouses, ordnance and other Government stores, gunboats in the James and bridges spanning the river. A wind, it is said, carried sparks towards the town, igniting first one building and then another; incendiarism lent aid that pilfering might go on in greater security through public disorder and distress.

During the night detonations of exploding gunboats could be heard for miles, the noise and shock and lurid lights adding to the wretchedness of those within the city, and the anxieties of those who beheld its burnings from afar; among these, the advancing enemy, who was not without uneasy speculations lest he find Richmond, as Napoleon found Moscow, in ashes. General Shepley, U. S. A., has described the scene witnessed from his position near Petersburg, as a most beautiful and awful display of fireworks, the heavens at three o’clock being suddenly filled with bursting shells, red lights, Roman candles, fiery serpents, golden fountains, falling stars.

Nearly all the young men were gone; the fire department, without a full force of operatives, without horses, without hose, was unable to cope with the situation. Old men, women and children, and negro servants fought the flames as well as they could.

Friends and relatives who were living in Richmond then have told me about their experiences until I seem to have shared them. One who appears in these pages as Matoaca, gives me this little word-picture of the morning after the evacuation:

“I went early to the War Department, where I had been employed, to get letters out of my desk. The desk was open. Everything was open. Our President, our Government, our soldiers were gone. The papers were found and I started homeward. We saw rolls of smoke ahead, and trod carefully the fiery streets. Suddenly my companion caught my arm, crying: ‘Is not that the sound of cavalry?’ We hurried, almost running. Soon after we entered the house, some one exclaimed:

“‘God help us! The United States flag is flying over our Capitol!’

“I laid my head on Uncle Randolph’s knee and shivered. He placed his hand lightly on my head and said: ‘Trust in God, my child. They can not be cruel to us. We are defenseless.’ He had fought for that flag in Mexico. He had stood by Virginia, but he had always been a Unionist. I thought of New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia.”

An impression obtained that to negro troops was assigned the honor of first entering Richmond, hauling down the Southern Cross and hoisting in its place the Stars and Stripes. “Harper’s Weekly” said: “It was fitting that the old flag should be restored by soldiers of the race to secure whose eternal degradation that flag had been pulled down.” Whether the assignment was made or not, I am unable to say; if it was, it was not very graceful or wise on the part of our conquerors, and had it been carried out, would have been prophetic of what came after – the subversion.

White troops first entered Richmond, and a white man ran up the flag of the Union over our Capitol. General Shepley says that to his aide, Lieutenant de Peyster, he accorded the privilege as a reward for caring for his old flag that had floated over City Hall in New Orleans. On the other hand, it is asserted that Major Stevens performed the historic office, running up the two small guidons of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, which were presently displaced by the large flag Lieutenant de Peyster had been carrying in the holster at his saddle-bow for many a day, that it might be in readiness for the use to which he now put it.

CHAPTER III

The Army of the Union: The Children and the Flag

The Army of the Union entered Richmond with almost the solemnity of a processional entering church. It was occasion for solemn procession, that entrance into our burning city where a stricken people, flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, watched in terror for their coming.

Our broken-hearted people closed their windows and doors and shut out as far as they could all sights and sounds. Yet through closed lattice there came that night to those living near Military Headquarters echoes of rejoicings.

Early that fateful morning, Mayor Mayo, Judge Meredith and Judge Lyons went out to meet the incoming foe and deliver up the keys of the city. Their coach of state was a dilapidated equipage, the horses being but raw-boned shadows of better days when there were corn and oats in the land. They carried a piece of wallpaper, on the unflowered side of which articles of surrender were inscribed in dignified terms setting forth that “it is proper to formally surrender the City of Richmond, hitherto Capital of the Confederate States of America.” Had the words been engraved on satin in letters of gold, Judge Lyons (who had once represented the United States at the Court of St. James) could not have performed the honours of introduction between the municipal party and the Federal officers with statelier grace, nor could the latter have received the instrument of submission with profounder courtesy. “We went out not knowing what we would encounter,” Mayor Mayo reported, “and we met a group of Chesterfields.” Major Atherton H. Stevens, of General Weitzel’s staff, was the immediate recipient of the wallpaper document.

General Weitzel and his associates were merciful to the stricken city; they aided her people in extinguishing the flames; restored order and gave protection. Guards were posted wherever needed, with instructions to repress lawlessness, and they did it. To this day, Richmond people rise up in the gates and praise that Army of the Occupation as Columbia’s people can never praise General Sherman’s. Good effect on popular sentiment was immediate.

Among many similar incidents of the times is this, as related by a prominent physician:

“When I returned from my rounds at Chimborazo I found a Yankee soldier sitting on my stoop with my little boy, Walter, playing with the tassels and buttons on his uniform. He arose and saluted courteously, and told me he was there to guard my property. ‘I am under orders,’ he said, ‘to comply with any wish you may express.’”

Dr. Gildersleeve, in an address (June, 1904) before the Association of Medical Officers of the Army and Navy, C. S. A., referred to Chimborazo Hospital as “the most noted and largest military hospital in the annals of history, ancient or modern.” With its many white buildings and tents on Chimborazo Hill, it looked like a town and a military post, which latter it was, with Dr. James B. McCaw for Commandant. General Weitzel and his staff visited the hospital promptly. Dr. McCaw and his corps in full uniform received them. Dr. Mott, General Weitzel’s Chief Medical Director, exclaimed: “Ain’t that old Jim McCaw?” “Yes,” said “Jim McCaw,” “and don’t you want a drink?” “Invite the General, too,” answered Dr. Mott. General Weitzel issued passes to Dr. McCaw and his corps, and gave verbal orders that Chimborazo Confederates should be taken care of under all circumstances. He proposed to take Dr. McCaw and his corps into the Federal service, thus arming him with power to make requisition for supplies, medicines, etc., which offer the doctor, as a loyal Confederate, was unable to accept.

Others of our physicians and surgeons found friends in Federal ranks. To how many poor Boys in Blue, longing for home and kindred, had not they and our women ministered! The orders of the Confederate Government were that the sick and wounded of both armies should be treated alike. True, nobody had the best of fare, for we had it not to give. We were without medicines; it was almost impossible to get morphia, quinine, and other remedies. Quinine was $400 an ounce, when it could be bought at all, even in the earlier years of the war. Our women became experts in manufacturing substitutes out of native herbs and roots. We ran wofully short of dressings and bandages, and bundles of old rags became treasures priceless. But the most cruel shortage was in food. Bitter words in Northern papers and by Northern speakers – after our defeat intensified, multiplied, and illustrated – about our treatment of prisoners exasperated us. “Will they never learn,” we asked, “that on such rations as we gave our prisoners, our men were fighting in the field? We had not food for ourselves; the North blockaded us so we could not bring food from outside, and refused to exchange prisoners with us. What could we do?”

I wonder how many men now living remember certain loaves of wheaten bread which the women of Richmond collected with difficulty in the last days of the war and sent to Miss Emily V. Mason, our “Florence Nightingale,” for our own boys. “Boys,” Miss Emily announced – sick soldiers, if graybeards, were “boys” to “Cap’n,” as they all called Miss Emily – “I have some flour-bread which the ladies of Richmond have sent you.” Cheers, and other expressions of thankfulness. “The poor, sick Yankees,” Miss Emily went on falteringly – uneasy countenances in the ward – “can’t eat corn-bread – ” “Give the flour-bread to the poor, sick Yankees, Cap’n!” came in cheerful, if quavering chorus from the cots. “We can eat corn-bread. Gruel is good for us. We like mush. Oughtn’t to have flour-bread nohow.” “Poor fellows!” “Cap’n” said proudly of their self-denial, “they were tired to death of corn-bread in all forms, and it was not good for them, for nearly all had intestinal disorders.”