A VIRGINIA GIRL
IN THE CIVIL WAR
1861 - 1865
BEING A RECORD OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCES
OF THE WIFE OF A CONFEDERATE OFFICER
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1903
Copyright, 1903
by D. Appleton and Company
Published February, 1903
Page v
INTRODUCTION
THIS history was told over the tea-cups. One winter, in the South, I had for my neighbor a gentle, little brown-haired lady, who spent many evenings at my fireside,
as I at hers, where with bits of needlework in our hands we gossiped away as women will. I discovered in her an unconscious heroine, and her Civil War experiences
made ever an interesting topic. Wishing to share with others the reminiscences she gave me, I seek to present them here in her own words. Just as they stand, they are,
I believe, unique, possessing at once the charm of romance and the veracity of history. They supply a graphic, if artless, picture of the social life of one of the most
interesting and dramatic periods of our national existence. The stories were not related in strict chronological sequence, but I have endeavored to arrange them in
Page vi
that way. Otherwise, I have made as few changes as possible. Out of deference to the wishes of living persons, her own and her husband's real names have been
suppressed and others substituted; in the case of a few of their close personal friends, and of some whose names would not be of special historical value, the same plan
has been followed.
Those who read this book are admitted to the sacred councils of close friends, and I am sure they will turn with reverent fingers these pages of a sweet and pure
woman's life - a life on which, since those fireside talks of ours, the Death-Angel has set his seal.
Memoirs and journals written not because of their historical or political significance, but because they are to the writer the natural expression of what life has meant
to him in the moment of living, have a value entirely apart from literary quality. They bring us close to the human soul - the human soul in undress. We find ourselves
without preface or apology in personal, intimate relation with whatever makes the yesterday, to-day, to-morrow of the writer. When this current of events and conditions
is impelled and directed by a vital
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and formative period in the history of a nation, we have only to follow its course to see what history can never show us, and what fiction can unfold to us only in part how the people thought, felt, and lived who were not making history, or did not know that they were.
This is the essential value of A Virginia Girl in the Civil War: it shows us simply, sincerely, and unconsciously what life meant to an American woman during the
vital and formative period of American history. That this American woman was also a Virginian with all a love for Virginia and loyalty to the South, gives to
her record of those days that are still "the very fiber of us" a fidelity rarely found in studies of local color. Meanwhile, her grateful affection for the Union soldiers,
officers and men, who served and shielded her, should lift this story to a place beyond the pale of sectional prejudice.
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY.
NEW YORK, November 1, 1902.
Page ix
CONTENTS
I. - HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN HARBOR . . . . 1
II. - HOW I MET DAN GREY . . . . 12
III. - THE FIRST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY . . . . 22
IV. - THE REALITIES OF WAR . . . . 38
V. - I MEET BELLE BOYD AND SEE DICK IN A NEW LIGHT . . . . 51
VI. - A FAITHFUL SLAVE AND A HOSPITAL WARD . . . . 59
VII. - TRAVELING THROUGH DIXIE IN WAR TIMES . . . . 69
VIII. - BY FLAG OF TRUCE . . . . 83
IX. - I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE BLOCKADE . . . . 91
X. - I CROSS THE COUNTRY IN AN AMBULANCE AND THE PAMUNKEY ON A LIGHTER . . . . 101
XI. - THE OLD ORDER . . . . 113
XII. - A DANGEROUS MASQUERADE . . . . 124
XIII. - A LAST FAREWELL . . . . 139
XIV. - THE LITTLE JEW BOY AND THE DEPUTY . . . . 144
XV. - I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY . . . . 150
XVI. - THE FLOWER OF CHIVALRY . . . . 172
XVII. - PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES . . . . 188
XVIII. - WITHIN OUR LINES . . . . 211
XIX. - MY COMRADE GENERAL JEB STUART . . . . 230
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XX. - "WHOSE BUSINESS 'TIS TO DIE" . . . . 244
XI. - RESCUED BY THE FOE . . . . 263
XXII. - WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE . . . . 285
XXIII. - "INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH" . . . . 297
XXIV. - BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH . . . . 315
XXV. - THE BEGINNING OF THE END . . . . 330
XXVI. - HOW WE LIVED IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY . . . . 349
XXVII. - UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES . . . . 365
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A VIRGINIA GIRL IN THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN HARBOR
MANY years ago I heard a prominent lawyer of Baltimore, who had just returned from visit to Charleston, say that the Charlestonians were so in the habit of
antedating everything with the Civil War that when he commented to one of them upon the beauty of the moonlight on the Battery, his answer was, "You should have
seen it before the war." I laughed, as everybody else did; but since then I have more than once caught myself echoing the sentiment of that Charleston citizen to visitors
who exclaimed over the social delights of Norfolk. For really they know nothing about it - that is, about the real Norfolk.
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Nobody does who can not remember, as I do, when her harbor was covered with shipping which floated flags of all nations, and her society was the society of the
world. Milicent and I - there were only the two of us - were as familiar with foreign colors as with our own Red, White, and Blue, and happily grew up unconscious that
a title had any right of precedence superior to that of youth, good breeding, good looks, and agreeability. That all of these gave instant way to the claims of age was one
of the unalterable tenets handed down from generation to generation, and punctiliously observed in our manner and address to the older servants. The "uncle" and
"aunty" and "mammy" that fall so oddly upon the ears of the present generation were with Southern children and young people the "straight and narrow" path that
separated gentle birth and breeding from the vulgar and ignorant.
My girlhood was a happy one. My father was an officer of the Bank of Virginia, and, according to the custom that obtained, he lived over the bank. His young
assistant, Walter H. Taylor (afterward adjutant to
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General R. E. Lee), was like a brother to Milicent and me. Father's position and means, and the personal charm that left him and my mother cherished memories in
Norfolk till to-day, drew around us a cultivated and cosmopolitan society. Our lives were made up of dance and song and moonlit sails. There were the Atlantic Ocean,
the Roads, the bay, the James and Elizabeth rivers, meeting at our very door. And there were admirals, commodores, and captains whose good ships rode these waters,
and who served two sovereign - the nation whose flag they floated and a slim Virginia maiden. In all the gatherings, formal and informal, under our roof, naval and
military uniforms predominated. Many men who later distinguished themselves in the Federal and Confederate armies, sat around our board and danced in our parlors;
others holding high places in Eastern and European courts were numbered among our friends and acquaintances.
Some years after Commodore Perry through a skilful mixture of gunpowder and diplomacy had opened the ports of Japan to the commerce of all nations, Ito and
Inouye
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- not then counts - had brought into existence an organized Japanese navy which sailed out of these same ports to the harbors of the world on tours of inspection. One of
my most vivid memories is of the Japanese squadron which lay at anchor in our harbor, of the picturesque dress and manners of these Eastern strangers, and the
polished courtesy of the two men whose names are now a part of history.
But the handsomest sailors I ever saw were the Prussians. When the Prussian navy was in its infancy two Prussian vessels, the frigate Gaefion and a corvette,
dropped anchor in Norfolk harbor; they, too, were visiting the ports of different nations on tours of inspection. All the officers on these vessels, including the midshipmen,
were noblemen, and all of them were magnificent- looking men. Then, too, their brilliant uniforms and the state and ceremony with which they invested every-day life
made them altogether charming to a young, romantic girl. I shall never forget how they used to enter the room. They would appear in full regimentals, march in military
form, the frigate's captain in command,
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and salute Milicent before they permitted themselves to talk, dance, and sing. Upon leaving, the same ...
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