SOON after we returned to Crowley Hill she determined to go to the North Carolina farms and see the people, so as to reassure them as to her taking care of them fully.
We started very early in the morning, Daddy Aleck driving, with baskets packed with lunch for the day and provisions to cook, for we expected to stay three or four days. The drive of thirty miles was charming until it got too hot, and we stopped under a tree by a spring, took out the horses and tied them in the shade and had our lunch, and rested until it became a little cooler. Loch Adèle, as we girls had named the farm, was a very pretty place with a mill and large pond, which we dignified into a loch, much to papa’s amusement. A pretty rolling country, and the Pee Dee River, called the Yadkin as soon as it passed the line from South to North Carolina, ran a small rocky stream about a mile from the rambling farmhouse. Flats had brought supplies in large quantities up the river from Chicora, and most of the Charleston furniture had been brought by rail to Cheraw, fifteen miles away, and hauled out to this place, so that the house was thoroughly furnished, pictures hanging on the walls, because it seemed better than to keep them packed. The two lovely bas-reliefs of Thorwaldsen’s, “Night” and “Morning,” looked especially beautiful hanging on the white walls of the drawing-room, and the whole place was homelike and delightful with our Charleston belongings. And the poor negroes were so glad to see us and to realize that “Miss” was going to look after them and to the best of her ability take “Maussa’s” place. They wanted to hear all about papa’s illness and death and the funeral, and who had been honored by taking special place in it. Mamma was interviewed by each one separately, and had to repeat all the details over and over. She was very patient, to my great surprise, and, I think, to the people’s, too, for she had never been as willing to listen to their long rigmaroles as papa had been. But now she listened to all and consoled them and wept with them over their mutual loss. Altogether the visit did us both good.
Old Daddy Hamedy, who was head man on the place, had been a first-class carpenter and still was, but when there was needed some one to take supervision of the farm and people up there, papa chose him on account of his character and intelligence. Papa had engaged a white man, a Mr. Yates, who lived some miles away, to give an eye to the place from time to time and write him how things went on, and Hamedy was to apply to Mr. Yates if anything went wrong. He was originally from the North, but he had bought a farm near the little town of Morven some years before, and lived here ever since. Mamma sent to ask Mr. Yates to come and see her, and he came. He was a very smart man, but impressed me most unpleasantly as unreliable and unscrupulous, as I watched him talking to mamma. He evidently felt that, papa being gone, his time had come, and was quite sure he could manage my mother easily. He was most flattering in his admiration, which was not surprising, for my mother was beautiful in her plain black frock and widow’s cap.
In trying to make easy conversation as he sat and talked to us, he asked: “Miss Allston, do you smoke?”
In some surprise my mother answered: “No, I have never smoked.”
“Well, well,” he said. “You wouldn’t find another lady of your age in this country that didn’t smoke.”
This nearly upset my gravity, for the idea of my mother’s smoking was too much for me, and I went out down to the mill-pond. Into this lake my father had had rolled many hogsheads packed securely with bottles of old Madeira wine, as being the best chance of saving them from the Yankees. They were certainly not safe at Chicora Wood, only about twenty miles from the mouth of Winyah Bay, when gunboats could run up from the sea so easily. So the wine was packed and shipped by his flats in charge of faithful men. I remember when the flats were going, on one occasion, papa wanted to send up a very beautiful marble group of “The Prodigal Son,” which was always in the drawing-room at Chicora, and he called in Joe Washington, who was to take charge of the flat, to look at it, and told him that he would have it carefully packed by the carpenter, and he wanted him to be specially careful of it; whereupon Joe said:
“Please, sir, don’t have it pack. I’ll tek good kere of it, but please lef it so en I kin look at it en enjoy it. I’ll neber let nuthin’ hut it.”
So papa acceded and did not have it packed, and on that open flat, amid barrels and boxes and propelled by oars and poles, only a little shed at one end under which the eight hands could take shelter in case of rain, “The Prodigal Son” and the happy father made their journey of 300 miles in perfect safety. And I may say here the group was brought back when the war was over, and now rests in the old place in the drawing-room at Chicora Wood. How it escaped Sherman I do not know; some one must have hid it in the woods.
I INSERT here an extract from my diary:
“Croley Hill, Sunday July 19th, 1864.
JUST as we were leaving for Church the paper came and there in it was the dreadful intelligence that my cousin Gen’l Johnston Pettigrew, who was wounded on the 17th had died of his wounds. It is too dreadful! If I could I would hope that this, like the first might be a false report, but something tells me it is true.... Next to Uncle (James L. Petigru) he was the light of the family, so clever, so learned, so noble; and how I have almost adored him in his nobleness and wisdom; how I have sat and listened to Uncle and himself talking until I thought nothing could ever be as brilliant and pleasant as that; but now both have gone and we shall never see their equals again.... I am glad I have Cousin Johnston’s beautiful book ‘Spain and the Spaniards’ which he gave me. We heard he was wounded at Gettysburg but his name was not mentioned among the generals and never since, so we supposed it was a mistake, and Now....” This was a terrible blow and distress. After this, sad news kept coming in of reverses, and things looked dark. The hospitals were in great need of stimulants and mamma determined to send the rye she had made to the still about twenty miles away and have it made into whiskey. Daddy Aleck took it and told of the dangers he had encountered on the way, so that when it was finished, he was afraid to go for it alone, and mamma told Jinty and me we must ride along with him.
About this time my cousin, Captain Phil Porcher, of the navy, went out on a little vessel, the Juno, which had been built in Charleston harbor to run the blockade, and nothing was ever heard of him or of any of the crew or officers. Weeks passed into months and not a word of the fate of the boat. It was terrible for Aunt Louise and her daughters. Mamma wrote and begged them to come and stay with us, and they came. It was dreadful to see their sufferings. My aunt was a beautiful and heroic figure. They would not act as though they had heard of his death, for each day there was the hope that when the paper came there would be some news of him. They tried so hard to be cheerful and hope against hope. But no news ever did come. It remains one of the mysteries of the deep.”[5]
Phil Porcher was a gallant, charming, and exemplary man, and the greatest loss to the whole family and to the country.
AFTER my aunt and cousins left we began to bury every treasure we had. All the silver which had not been sent to Morven was packed in a wooden chest, and Mr. William Evans, our nearest neighbor, came one day in his wagon to take it as, it was supposed, to the station to send it away by the railroad. Nelson went with him, and they drove by a winding route into some very thick woods near, and Nelson dug a deep hole and the two of them lowered it in with ropes, filled the grave, and marked the spot. That was one weight off of our minds. We kept just enough for daily use. I became an expert in burying. Three sheets were a necessity; one to put the top earth on, with moss and leaves and everything to look natural, then one to put the second colored earth near the surface, and one to put every grain of the yellow clay below, one little pellet of which would tell the tale that a hole had been dug.
Charley came home for a few days on his way to Virginia, the boys at the Arsenal having been called out. He was just sixteen, and it was pitiful to see him weighed down by his knapsack and all the heavy things he had to march with, for he was very thin and gaunt. Mamma consulted him as to what to do with the old Madeira, of which she still had a good deal packed in barrels in the storeroom. He consulted Nelson, and they agreed to pack it in the big piano box, which was still used as a grain bin. So the piano box was cleared out and emptied, and brought into the little front porch, which it nearly filled, as there had been a room cut off from each end of the porch, which originally ran the length of the house, and this left this porch with steps all the way along down to the ground, only about five steps. Here they brought hay and we all helped bring the bottles of wine up quietly from the storeroom, and Nelson, who was an expert, packed them beautifully. It was done so quietly that the servants in the yard knew nothing of it. We all went to bed at the usual hour, but at twelve o’clock Charley and Nelson got up, having provided ropes, spades, and everything necessary in one of the shed-rooms, which Charley occupied, also two pieces of round oak as rollers. They dug a hole big enough for the piano box, using sheets for the earth, as I have described, and how those two accomplished it is a mystery, without help, but they did put that huge box into that deep hole, covered it up, removing the dirt which was too much, and levelled the surface, raked the whole front road, and then brought the wagon and rolled it back and forth over it, making it look natural; so that in the morning there was no trace of anything unusual. Charley left the next day for Virginia, and oh, how miserable we were! Poor mamma, he was her special darling, named after her youngest brother, who gave his life for his friend so long ago.
Mamma was kept very busy, sending supplies in different directions, and having cloth spun and woven. She sent demijohns of whiskey to the hospitals and some down to Mr. Belflowers for use on the plantation in case of sickness (the darkies having a feeling that no woman can be safely delivered of a child without a liberal supply of whiskey).
I cannot mark the passage of time exactly, but the report came that Sherman was advancing, and there came awful rumors of what he was doing and would do. We made long homespun bags, quite narrow, and with a strong waistband, and a strong button, to be worn under the skirts. And into these we put all our treasures. They said every photograph was destroyed, after great indignities. I took all my photos of my dear ones (such sights they look now, but then seemed beautiful). I put them one by one in a basin of clear cold water and left them a few minutes, when I found I could peal them off of the card; and then I pasted them into a little book which I could carry in one of my pockets. The book was Brother’s passport-book when he was travelling abroad, and I have it now with all the pictures in it. Our kind and generous neighbor, Mrs. Wm. Evans, was a very, very thin, tall woman, but when I ran over to see her during these days of anxiety and she came out into the piazza to meet me, I could not believe my eyes. She seemed to be an enormously stout woman! I looked so startled that she said:
“My dear Bessie, they say these brutes take everything but what you have on and burn it before your eyes. So I have bags of supplies, rice and wheat flour and sugar and what little coffee we had, hung round my waist, and then I have on all the clothes I can possibly stand, three dresses for one item.” And then we both laughed until we nearly fell from exhaustion. And when I ran home and told mamma we had another great laugh, and oh, it was such a mercy to have a good hearty laugh in those days of gloom and anxiety. We never quite got to Mrs. Evans’s condition, but we each had treasures unknown to the others concealed about us.
Things in the Confederacy were going worse and worse. It was an agony to read the papers. My sister, Mrs. Van der Horst, came home from Wilmington, bringing her maid, Margaret. Her husband did not think it safe for her to stay any longer there. It was a great comfort to have her with us. The Yankees were reported nearer and nearer, but we never saw any one to hear positively where they were. Then one evening, just at dusk, two horsemen galloped up to the front door, tied their horses and came in. They were Charleston Light Dragoons acting as scouts for General Hampton—Julius Pringle and Tom Ferguson. They came to tell us Hampton was protecting all our troops as they left the State. They were the very last, and Mr. Pringle said to mamma:
“I knew you had wine and whiskey in the house and I came to beg you for God’s sake to destroy it all. Do not let a drop be found in the house, I implore you.”
Mamma said: “But, Julius, I have not sent all that whiskey to the hospitals yet, and it is so greatly needed! I have two demijohns still.”
“Oh, Mrs. Allston, I implore you, do not hesitate. Have those demijohns broken to pieces the first thing to-morrow morning.”
She promised. We gave them a good supper, of which they were in great need. Nelson fed the horses. They took two hours’ sleep and then left in the middle of the night. As they were going, there were shots heard on the public road which ran back of our house about 400 yards. The two dragoons jumped on their horses and galloped off from the front door into the darkness of the night. It was an awful moment. They were gone, our last friends and protectors, and the agony in Mr. Pringle’s face was indescribable.
We found the next morning that the shots had been the forerunners only of the license we had to expect. It was negroes shooting our hogs, which were fat and tempting. Early the next morning mamma called Nelson and Daddy Aleck and had them bring the wheelbarrow and put into it the demijohns with the precious rye whiskey and roll them to a little stream near by, and pour it into the water. We went along and it was a melancholy procession, and Daddy Aleck secretly wept and openly grumbled, as he felt he had risked his life for that whiskey. As it was poured into the branch by Nelson, who also loved whiskey, Daddy Aleck went lower down the stream and knelt down and drank as if he were a four-footed beast. Then we went back and wondered how we could dispose of the two dozen bottles of wine still in the storeroom. Papa had once said it might prove the most salable thing we had after the war. I undertook to conceal them, and, going up into the garret, I found the flooring was not nailed down, and, lifting one board at a time, I laid the bottles softly in, softly because they were placed on the ceiling laths and it was an old house. But the ceiling held and the bottles were disposed of.
After having done all he could to help mamma that day, Nelson came to her and said: “Miss, I want you to give me some provision and let me go for a while.”
She exclaimed: “Nelson, you cannot leave us when these Yankees are coming! You must not leave us unprotected.”
He said: “Miss, I know too much. Ef dem Yankee was to put a pistol to my head and say tell what you know or I’ll shoot you, I cudn’t trust meself. I dunno what I mite do! Le’ me go, miss.” So mamma put up his bag of provisions and he went.
The next day she decided it was best to send Daddy Aleck off, as he said if she let him go he thought he could take the horses in the swamp and save them. So he went, taking the horses and a bag of harness and all the saddles. It was a brave, clever thing of the old man to carry out. But we felt truly desolate when both he and Nelson were gone, and we only had Phibby and Margaret, Della’s maid, and Nellie, Nelson’s wife, and little Andrew, who was a kind of little dwarf, a very smart and competent, well-trained dining-room servant, who looked about fourteen but was said to be over twenty.
AS everything would be seized by the enemy when they came, we lived very high, and the things which had been preciously hoarded until the men of the family should come home were now eaten. Every day we had a real Christmas dinner; all the turkeys and hams were used. One day mamma had just helped us all to a delicious piece of turkey when Phibby rushed in, crying: “Miss, dey cumin!” Bruno, Jane’s little water-spaniel, began to bark, and she rushed out to the wide roofless porch where he was, threw her arms round his neck and held his throat so tight he couldn’t bark, just as a soldier was about to strike him with a sword. I was terrified for her as she knelt there in the middle of the porch, holding him; but they only looked down at her, as they rushed by on each side into the house, calling out:
“Whiskey! We want liquor! Don’t lie; we know you have it! We want whiskey! We want firearms!” Each one said the same thing.
Mamma was very calm. As they clamored she said: “You may search the house. You will find none. I had some whiskey, but it is here no longer.”
They seemed delighted at the sight of the dinner-table, and for a time were occupied eating and pocketing all that could be pocketed. When the renewed cry for wine, whiskey, and firearms came, mamma took from the nail where it hung the huge storeroom key, and went down the steps to the storeroom, just in time to prevent its being smashed in with an axe. She opened the door and they rushed in with many insulting words. Poor Phibby was wild with terror, and followed mamma, closely holding on to her skirt and entreating her not to go.
“Miss, dem’ll kill yu, fu Gawd sake don’ go wid dem.” But mamma showed no sign of excitement or alarm and never seemed to hear the dreadful things they said. They opened box after box in vain, but at last in the box under all the rest they came on a bottle and the men shouted: “We knew you were lying!” The finder struck the head off with one blow, and, putting the bottle to his mouth, took a long draft. Then there was a splutter and choking, and he got rid of it as quickly as possible, to the amusement and joy of the others, who had envied his find. It was our one treasured bottle of olive-oil, which had been put out of reach, to be kept for some great occasion.
Upstairs in her bedroom my sister was having a trying time. She unlocked her trunk to prevent its being ripped open with a sword, and looked on while they ran through it, taking all her jewels and everything of value, holding up each garment for examination and asking its uses, each one being greeted by shouts of laughter. She, having recently come, had not concealed or buried any of her things. After disposing of her big trunk, they turned to a closet, where a man’s leather trunk was. They asked for the key, and when she said she did not have it, they cut it open, and there on top lay a sword. Then there were howls of: “We knew you were lying. You said you had no arms.” Della only answered: “I did not know what was in this trunk.” It was her brother-in-law Lewis Van der Horst’s trunk. He had been killed fighting gallantly in Virginia, and his trunk had been sent home by his friends to his brother without the key.
All this time I was with another party, who were searching for liquor, and I followed them into the garret. It was odd how impossible it was not to follow them and see what they did. I was told afterward that in most places the women shut themselves up in a room while they searched the house; but, with us, we were irresistibly borne to keep up with them and watch them. When I heard them tramping over the garret, the loose boards rattling, I flew up myself and stood there while they opened every box and trunk, taking anything of any value, every now and then quarrelling over who should have a thing. I was in misery, for the boards seemed to be crying aloud: “Take us up and you’ll find something. Take us up.” Whenever they asked me anything I answered with some quick, sharp speech which would intensely amuse any one but the questioner, who generally relapsed into sulky silence. They seemed to be in great dread of being surprised by Hampton’s cavalry, whom they spoke of as “the devil, for you never knew where he was,” so they did everything very rapidly.
All this time there were parties going all over the yard, running ramrods into the ground to find buried things. My terror about that big box of wine was intense as I saw them. They even went under the big piazza at the back of the house and rammed every foot of the earth. It was a marvel that they never thought of coming to the front, having come up at the back of the house from the public road. They never even opened the gate which separated the front yard from the back, and so the great piano box was never found. Little Andrew we never had felt very sure of, and so everything about the burying of things was kept from him. As they left, Margaret and Nellie came in crying bitterly. They had taken every trinket and treasure they had, and all their warm clothes. Margaret was specially loud in her denunciation:
“I always bin hear dat de Yankees was gwine help de nigger! W’a’ kynd a help yu call dis! Tek ebery ting I got in de wurld, my t’ree gold broach,” etc., etc. Poor Margaret had sometimes been supposed to be light-fingered, and she had returned from Wilmington with a good deal of jewelry, which we wondered about; but now, poor soul, it was all gone. For four days the army kept passing along that road, and we heard shouts and shots and drums beating, and every moment expected another visit, but, as I said, they moved in haste, always fearing to leave the main road and be ambushed by Hampton’s ubiquitous scouts. We never went to bed or took off our clothes during that time. We sat fully dressed in the parlor, all night through, Phibby always sitting with us on the floor near the door, leaning straight up against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her, nodding and praying. She was a great comfort. Mamma tried to induce her to go to bed and sleep, saying:
“Ph?be, you have nothing to fear. They won’t hurt you.”
All her answer was: “Miss, yu tink I gwine lef’ yu fu dem weeked men fu kill, no ma’am, not Phibby. I’ll stay right here en pertect yu.”
Mamma read calmly. Della slept on the sofa. I scribbled in my journal. I will make a little extract here from the little paper book I carried in my pocket. It seems very trivial and foolish; but here it is:
“March 8th, 1865.—Twelve o’clock! and we still sit whispering around the fire, Ph?be on the floor nodding, Della with her feet extended trying to rest on the sofa, and I on a stool scribbling, scribbling to while away the time till dawn. Thank God, one more quiet day, and we so hoped for a quiet night, but a little after nine Ph?be ran in saying she heard them coming. Oh, the chill and terror that ran through me when I heard that; but it proved a false alarm.... I never fully understood terror until now, and yet every one says our experience of them is mild.... They delight in making terrible threats of vengeance and seem to gloat over our misery. Yesterday a captain was here who pretended to be all kindness and sympathy over the treatment we had received from the foragers.... He did not enter the house. We placed a chair on the piazza and gave him what we had to eat. But when he began to talk, he seemed almost worse than any other. He vowed never to take a prisoner, said he would delight in shooting down a rebel prisoner and often did it! My disgust was intense, but I struggled hard to keep cool and succeeded somewhat. He asked, ‘Do you know what you are fighting for?’ I replied, ‘Existence.’ He said, ‘We won’t let you have it,’ with such a grin.... He said, ‘At the beginning of this war, I didn’t care a cent about a nigger, but I’d rather fight for ten years longer than let the South have her independence.’ Then, with a chuckle, he said, ‘But we’ll starve you out, not in one place that we have visited have we left three meals.’ At something Della said he exclaimed, ‘Oh, I know what you mean, you mean the Almighty, but the Almighty has got nothing to do with this war.’ Such blasphemy silenced us completely.”
The tales the negroes heard from one another were terrific, as to what the Yankees had done, and what the negroes had done. We never saw any one during this time but those in the yard. Little Andrew, whom we never had felt sure of, behaved very well. We had thought he would probably go off with the Yankees, but whether his experience of them had not been such as to make him desire a closer knowledge I don’t know, but certainly no one could have behaved better than he did, laying the table with the few forks and spoons mamma had managed to hide, and bringing in our scanty meals with as much dignity as if things were unchanged; and he was a help, though he never expressed devotion or the contrary, only brought in specially hair-raising stories of the outrages committed on every side, many of which stories proved to have no foundation in fact.
At last the noises on the highway ceased, and we knew Sherman’s great army had passed on toward the North.
We began to breathe freely and feel that we could go to bed at night and sleep. At first we went to bed with all our clothes on, but gradually we realized that the army had passed entirely, leaving no troops in the country behind them. News began to come in, and we knew that Sherman had burned Columbia and left a trail of desolation where he had passed. The fear of the Confederate troops had kept them to a narrow strip of country. It was like the path stripped by a tornado, narrow but complete destruction in it. Mrs. Evans ventured over to make us a visit. She had not yet assumed her natural proportions, but had lightened her burden so that she could walk the half-mile between our houses. We were eager to hear her experiences, but, to her intense disappointment, she had had none! She had not seen a Yankee! It shows how careful they were not to leave the main road for fear of ambush. She had prepared many brilliant, severe speeches to make to them, for she had a very witty, sharp tongue and was as bold as a lion, so that she felt very sore and aggrieved, and when she heard of our experiences her blood boiled that we had not lashed them with bitter words.
About four days after they passed Daddy Aleck reappeared with the horses, safe and sound, but greatly distressed that he had waked hearing shots near one morning, packed up his things quickly on his horses, and taken them deeper in the swamp and left one of the side-saddles hanging on a limb. Nelson also arrived, looking weary and blanched by his experiences. Daddy Aleck was a naturally brave, combative nature and very tough, but Nelson was a lover of peace and comfort, and camping out in the swamp was no joy to him. He and Daddy Aleck were never friends and distrusted each other, so they had not cared to go together.
ONLY a few days after Daddy Aleck’s and Nelson’s return, Brutus came from Loch Adèle, bearing a piece of paper with hieroglyphics on it in pencil. After much studying over it by each one of us, we found it was a note from dear, faithful Daddy Hamedy: “Miss, cum at once. Mister Yates dun dribe de peeple.” Then mamma questioned the boy, not telling what trouble we had to make out the important document of which he was the bearer. He told his story. General Kilpatrick and the whole army had camped on the place a week. They had burned the gin-house after taking all the provisions they could carry away, and left the negroes without a thing to eat, and the whole country was the same—nothing to eat for the white people who belonged there any more than for them—and Mr. Yates had come to the farm the day before and told Daddy Hamedy they must all leave the country at once and go back down to the low country from which they came. Daddy Hamedy had answered him civilly; he said it would take them a day to prepare, and as soon as Mr. Yates left he had started this runner, Brutus, off. He had travelled all night to bring it quick! Mamma praised him and gave him the best meal she could and told him to go to sleep. Everything was stirring that night, preparing for an early start. Mamma went over to see Mr. Evans and consulted him about it and told him she was going up the next day. He advised her greatly against it, but, finding he could not persuade her to give it up, he said he would ride on horseback along with us. He had saved his riding-horse by taking it in the swamp as Daddy Aleck had.
So at daylight the next morning we started; mamma and I in the carriage with a basket of cooked food, Daddy Aleck driving and Brutus beside him on the box, Mr. Evans riding beside the carriage. It was an awful experience, as it must always be to travel in the track of a destroying army. To begin with, the road was a quagmire. It took an experienced driver like Daddy Aleck to get us through, and even with all his care Brutus and Mr. Evans had often to get a rail from the fences along the road and pry our wheels out of the bog. We were never out of the sight of dead things, and the stench was almost unbearable. Dead horses all along the way and, here and there, a leg or an arm sticking out of a hastily made too-shallow grave. Along the way ten cows dead in one pen, and then eight or ten calves dead in another. Dead hogs everywhere; the effort being to starve the inhabitants out, no living thing was left in a very abundant country. It is a country of small farms, just two-roomed houses; all now tightly shut up, no sign of life. Wells with all means of drawing water destroyed. We stopped at one or two houses and knocked without any response, but at last we knocked at one where a tall, pale woman opened a crack of the door wide enough to talk through. No, she had nothing; could not help us in any way to draw water. So Daddy Aleck got his halters and tied them together and let his horse-bucket down into the well, and I was so thirsty I drank, but mamma would not. As we got beyond Cheraw, fifteen miles on our way, we began to meet some of our people from Morven, who had started on their hundred-mile flight to the low country, in obedience to Mr. Yates’s mandate—forlorn figures, a pot sometimes balanced on the head, and a bundle of clothing swung on the back, a baby in arms, sometimes one or two children trailing behind. Mamma stopped as we got to each traveller and told them to turn back; she had come to feed them and do all she could for them, and they need have no fear. To Daddy Aleck’s great indignation, she took some of the impedimenta from the most heavily loaded and we went on our way. We had made such an early start that few had gone more than a few miles, and all were so rejoiced to see mamma and so thankful to turn back that we began to feel quite cheerful.
It was lucky, for things were worse and worse as we went on; and when finally we got to pretty Loch Adèle a scene of desolation met us—every animal killed, and the negroes had had a kind of superstitious feeling about making use of the meat, or they could have cured meat enough to last the winter; for, though the Yankees had burned down the gin-house, with cotton and provisions and salt, they could not destroy the latter, and there, in a blackened mass, was a small mountain of salt. If Mr. Yates had been any good he could have seen to that. The house was not burned, but everything in it was broken to pieces—beds, sideboard, chairs, tables, and on the floor the fragments of the beautiful big medallions of “Night” and “Morning,” chopped into little pieces. I found one baby’s foot, whole, in the mass of rubbish, which I kept a long time, it was so beautiful, quite the size of a real baby’s.
We had a tremendous afternoon’s work to clear away and make the place habitable for the night, but Brutus worked with me and I got two women to help, and we managed to prop up a table and put boards over the bottomless chairs, and by supper-time, with a bright fire burning, for we had only brought two candles, it was quite a different-looking place. Mamma had brought two roast chickens and a piece of boiled bacon (as she had buried a box of bacon, fortunately) and a loaf of bread and some corn-dodgers which we toasted by the fire, so we had a good supper. The thing that worried us most was the fixing a comfortable bed for Mr. Evans, but we succeeded in propping up things, and, putting some straw and the blankets we had brought, made a comfortable resting-place; but, when it was all fixed, Mr. Evans absolutely refused to occupy it, said he preferred to rest on the three-legged sofa by the fire, and insisted that mamma and I should take the bed. Which, after a little friendly contention, we did, and most thankful was I to stretch myself on anything after the fatigues and agitations of the day.
Early in the morning we were up and busy. Brutus cooked hominy for breakfast and fried some bacon. After breakfast Mr. Evans, seeing mamma equal to the situation, rode back home. Before we had sat down, forlorn-looking country people began to arrive. They sat around the fire on broken chairs while we ate breakfast. Then Mr. Yates arrived. He was so startled when he saw mamma he looked as though he would faint. He said good morning and then went out. People still came and mamma was filled with wonder as to what it meant, till one man said:
“Wall, when’s the auction goin’ to begin?”
Mamma said: “What auction?”
He said: “We was notified by your agent how as there was to be an auction here to-day, an’ everything on the place was to be sold. I come to buy a plough.”
Mamma said: “There will be no auction here to-day.”
Then they one by one rose and said: “I reckon if there ain’t to be no auction, we better be gittin’ home.” And they made their adieus and left.
Then we understood. Mr. Yates had ordered the negroes to leave, and intended to sell out all
CHICORA WOOD.
Photograph by Amelia M. Watson.
the things on the place and take the money, never supposing there was any possibility of mamma’s being informed in time to get up to prevent it. But he reckoned without knowing the negroes or mamma. As soon as they had all left, she summoned Mr. Yates and had a talk with him. She told him she would not need his services any more, that he had quite exceeded his authority in sending the negroes off without consulting her, and that the fact of his having advertised an auction without her consent also showed that he misunderstood the situation. He was quite insolent and said he would not go unless he was paid in full. To which she answered she had no intention of letting him go unpaid, asked for his accounts, looked over them, and gave him a check on Mr. Malloy in Cheraw.
Mamma found that below the salt was a large pile of rough rice which would not burn, and which was ample provision for the negroes. On examination we found that only the outside of the pile of rough rice was scorched. Rough rice (which is the rice still encased in its thick, rough, outer shell) cannot burn, and there was enough rice there to keep the people well fed a long time, and they prefer rice to any other food. They beat it in mortars made by taking about three feet of the trunk of a hardwood-tree and burning out the centre, so as to hold about six quarts of grain. Then they make a pestle from a smaller limb of hardwood neatly smoothed and rounded at the end; and with these crude implements the stiff, hard, almost indestructible hull is easily removed.
Mamma also found that away from the path of the enemy there were supplies of sorghum syrup and potatoes, etc., which people would gladly bring to exchange for salt and rice. So we turned home, an immense load lifted from our hearts. The people would not really suffer!
Mamma made a little talk to the negroes, and told them just to stay quietly there and do their ordinary work, and that she had made arrangements for provisions for them to be brought to the farm every week, and that very soon she would have the flats come up from Chicora Wood and take them all back to the low country, and begged them not to lose their good reputation by breaking the law in any way, now that the whole country was so upset. And she thanked them for having behaved so well ever since papa had been taken, and having made it easy for her by their good conduct. And they courtesied and said: “Tank Gawd” that she had come to “luk after” her people and not let them be driven away by “Po’ buckra.” Altogether it was a very comforting little scene. Daddy Hamedy made a little speech, assuring her of his fidelity to her, and that he would look after everything and let her know if anything went wrong. He apologized much for not having been able to protect the property, but he said General Kilpatrick and the soldiers wouldn’t listen to him at all, and just cut the dam and drained off the water and got Maussa’s wine, and got drunk on it, and sent some off in wagons, and were so harsh to him he just had to keep out of sight of them. By the time they set fire to the gin-house, full of good provisions and all the fine cotton-crop, he was struck down by a severe chill and had to go to bed. And, when one looked at his face, one had to believe in his distress. Three of the young men had gone off with the soldiers. They wanted to take many more, but “tank de Lawd,” they had more sense than to go. We left early the next morning and returned to Crowley.
AFTER this things are vague in my mind, only an impression of distress and gloom. I got a letter from my cousin and friend, Hal Lesesne, telling of the successive falling back which was so terrible to them all. He had been so long in the forts around Charleston, and so greatly desired to see active service in Virginia, and now, alas, things were so black, no one could help fearing. “But be assured,” he said, “we are fighting every step of the way, and make the enemy pay dearly for their gain.” When I got that letter he had already fallen, killed in the very last battle of the war, Averysboro, I think. This was a great sorrow to me; and the surrender was just crushing and numbing to all my being. Men began to come in on their way home from the front, worn, weary, gaunt, and hungry. They had lived days and days and fought on a handful of parched corn. Their shoes were worn out, their uniforms ragged; only their spirit was undimmed, and that made them suffer so in the sense of failure.
My dear brother Charley finally came, a ghost of his former self, shoulders bowed down by marching with his heavy knapsack. He looked so ill and changed, we were not surprised when we found he had typhoid fever. He had been taken in and kindly nursed by friends on his way home, but he was a pitiful sight.