Dixie After the War. Myrta Lockett Avary

have extended far enough, they might have won it back; they would have beheld some things unbelievable. For instance, they would have seen the little boy who played with the buttons and tassels, grown to manhood and wearing the uniform of an officer of the United States; they would have seen Southern men walking the streets of Richmond and other Southern cities with “U. S. A.” on their haversacks; and Southern men and Northern men fighting side by side in Cuba and the Philippines, and answering alike to the name, “Yankees.”

      On the day of the occupation, Miss Mason and Mrs. Rhett went out to meet General Weitzel and stated that Mrs. Lee was an invalid, unable to walk, and that her house, like that of General Chilton and others, was in danger of fire. “What!” he exclaimed, “Mrs. Lee in danger? General Fitz Lee’s mother, who nursed me so tenderly when I was sick at West Point! What can I do for her? Command me!” “We mean Mrs. Robert E. Lee,” they said. “We want ambulances to move Mrs. Lee and other invalids and children to places of safety.” Using his knee as a writing-table, he wrote an order for five ambulances; and the ladies rode off. Miss Emily’s driver became suddenly and mysteriously tipsy and she had to put an arm around him and back up the vehicle herself to General Chilton’s door, where his children, her nieces, were waiting, their dollies close clasped.

      “Come along, Virginia aristocracy!” hiccoughed the befuddled Jehu. “I won’t bite you! Come along, Virginia aristocracy!”

      A passing officer came to the rescue, and the party were soon safely housed in the beautiful Rutherford home.

      The Federals filled Libby Prison with Confederates, many of whom were paroled prisoners found in the city. Distressed women surrounded the prison, begging to know if loved ones were there; others plead to take food inside. Some called, while watching windows: “Let down your tin cup and I will put something in it.” Others cried: “Is my husband in there? O, William, answer me if you are!” “Is my son, Johnny, here?” “O, please somebody tell me if my boy is in the prison!” Miss Emily passed quietly through the crowd, her hospital reputation securing admission to the prison; she was able to render much relief to those within, and to subdue the anxiety of those without.

      “Heigho, Johnny Reb! in there now where we used to be!” yelled one Yankee complacently. “Been in there myself. D – d sorry for you, Johnnies!” called up another.

      A serio-comic incident of the grim period reveals the small boy in an attitude different from that of him who was dandled on the Federal knee. Some tiny lads mounted guard on the steps of a house opposite Military Headquarters, and, being intensely “rebel” and having no other means of expressing defiance to invaders, made faces at the distinguished occupants of the establishment across the way. General Patrick, Provost-Marshal General, sent a courteously worded note to their father, calling his attention to these juvenile demonstrations. He explained that while he was not personally disturbed by the exhibition, members of his staff were, and that the children might get into trouble. The proper guardians of the wee insurgents, acting upon this information, their first of the battery unlimbered on their door-step, saw that the artillery was retired in good order, and peace and normal countenances reigned over the scene of the late engagements.

      I open a desultory diary Matoaca kept, and read:

      “If the United States flag were my flag – if I loved it – I would not try to make people pass under it who do not want to. I would not let them. It is natural that we should go out of our way to avoid walking under it, a banner that has brought us so much pain and woe and want – that has desolated our whole land.

      “Some Yankees stretched a flag on a cord from tree to tree across the way our children had to come into Richmond. The children saw it and cried out; and the driver was instructed to go another way. A Federal soldier standing near – a guard, sentinel or picket – ordered the driver to turn back and drive under that flag. He obeyed, and the children were weeping and wailing as the carriage rolled under it.”

      In Raymond, Mississippi, negro troops strung a flag across the street and drove the white children under it. In Atlanta, two society belles were arrested because they made a detour rather than walk under the flag. Such desecration of the symbol of liberty and union was committed in many places by those in power.

      The Union flag is my flag and I love it, and, therefore, I trust that no one may ever again pass under it weeping. Those little children were not traitors. They were simply human. If in the sixties situations had been reversed, and the people of New York, Boston and Chicago had seen the Union flag flying over guns that shelled these cities, their children would have passed under it weeping and wailing. Perhaps, too, some would have sat on doorsteps and “unbeknownst” to their elders have made faces at commanding generals across the way; while others climbing upon the enemy’s knees would have played with gold tassels and brass buttons.

      Our newspapers, with the exception of the “Whig” and the “Sentinel,” shared in the general wreckage. A Northern gentleman brought out a tiny edition of the former in which appeared two military orders promulgating the policy General Weitzel intended to pursue. One paragraph read: “The people of Richmond are assured that we come to restore to them the blessings of peace and prosperity under the flag of the Union.”

      General Shepley, Military Governor by Weitzel’s appointment, repeated this in substance, adding: “The soldiers of the command will abstain from any offensive or insulting words or gestures towards the citizens.” With less tact and generosity, he proceeded: “The Armies of the Rebellion having abandoned their efforts to enslave the people of Virginia, have endeavoured to destroy by fire their Capital… The first duty of the Army of the Union will be to save the city doomed to destruction by the Armies of the Rebellion.” That fling at our devoted army would have served as a clarion call to us – had any been needed – to remember the absent.

      “It will be a blunder in us not to overlook that blunder of General Shepley’s,” urged Uncle Randolph.1 “The important point is that the policy of conciliation is to be pursued.” With the “Whig” in his hand, Uncle Randolph told Matoaca that the Thursday before Virginia seceded a procession of prominent Virginians marched up Franklin Street, carrying the flag of the Union and singing “Columbia,” and that he was with them.

      The family questioned if his mind were wandering, when he went on: “The breach can be healed – in spite of the bloodshed – if only the Government will pursue the right course now. Both sides are tired of hating and being hated, killing and being killed – this war between brothers – if Weitzel’s orders reflect the mind of Lincoln and Grant – and they must – all may be well – before so very long.”

      These were the men of the Union Army who saved Richmond: The First Brigade, Third Division (Deven’s Division), Twenty-fourth Army Corps, Army of the James, Brevet-Brigadier-General Edward H. Ripley commanding. This brigade was composed of the Eleventh Connecticut, Thirteenth New Hampshire, Nineteenth Wisconsin, Eighty-first New York, Ninety-eighth New York, One Hundredth and Thirty-ninth New York, Convalescent detachment from the second and third divisions of Sheridan’s reinforcements.

      “This Brigade led the column in the formal entry, and at the City Hall halted while I reported to Major-General Weitzel,” says General Ripley. “General Weitzel had taken up his position on the platform of the high steps at the east front of the Confederate Capitol, and there, looking down into a gigantic crater of fire, suffocated and blinded with the vast volumes of smoke and cinders which rolled up over and enveloped us, he assigned me and my brigade to the apparently hopeless task of stopping the conflagration, and suppressing the mob of stragglers, released criminals, and negroes, who had far advanced in pillaging the city. He had no suggestions to make, no orders to give, except to strain every nerve to save the city, crowded as it was with women and children, and the sick and wounded of the Army of Northern Virginia.

      “After requesting Major-General Weitzel to have all the other troops marched out of the city, I took the Hon. Joseph Mayo, then Mayor of Richmond, with me to the City Hall, where I established my headquarters. With the help of the city officials, I distributed my regiment quickly in different sections. The danger to the troops engaged in this terrific fire-fighting was infinitely enhanced by the vast quantities of powder and shells stored in the section burning. Into this sea

1

Gentlemen of the old regime would say: “A woman’s name should appear in print but twice – when she marries and when she dies”; the “Society” page of to-day was unknown to them. They objected to newspaper notoriety for themselves, and were prone to sign pseudonyms to their newspaper articles. Matoaca, loyal to her uncle’s prejudices, requires that I print him only by the name she gives him and the title, one which was affectionately applied to him by many who were not his kin. To give his real name in full would be to give hers.