The Lost Cause

[After a cruise as venturesome and picturesque as that of any Elizabethan buccaneer, the little commerce-destroyer Georgia finally gave up her raiding of Federal shipping and landed her crew at Bordeaux. Midshipman Morgan and his fellow officers proceeded at once to England, took passage for America, and successfully ran the blockade of Charleston harbor. Young Morgan was shortly assigned to land duty at Battery Semmes, on the James River near Richmond, where he is stationed when he takes up his narrative again.]

I

AT the house of Mr. Trenholm I was always received as one of the family. The beautiful house, which had been built originally by an English gentleman of wealth and artistic tastes, was the centre of a certain amount of gayety, and was frequented, especially on Saturday evenings, by many distinguished people, among them of course many generals, and foreigners who visited Richmond for the excitement of the experience. Mr. Trenholm, as well as being Secretary of the Treasury, was a man of great wealth, and probably the largest owner of blockade-runners; consequently almost every luxury in the way of food was most hospitably placed before his guests.

Where two or three young Southerners were gathered together, there was sure to be singing and dancing. It is true that there were not many handsome toilets to be seen at these receptions, but the young girls were so pretty that no one took the trouble to look at their dresses of a style fashionable before the war. The foreigners of course appeared in the orthodox dress-coats and white ties; but we poor fellows who belonged at the front shamelessly joined the gay throng in our rags and tatters. My uniform, which had once been gray, had turned a green yellowish-brown, owing to its exposure to the elements and the mud in the trenches; besides, I had had the misfortune to have one of my coat-tails burned off while sleeping too close to a camp-fire. One of my trouser-legs had raveled out to halfway up the calf of my leg, and the lower part of the other trouser-leg was very ragged. I wore a boot on one foot and a shoe on the other — the boot on the bare leg. This Falstaffian costume was set off with a sword, and if there is anything that will make a ragged man look more ridiculous than another, it is the wearing of a sword. But the girls in their four-year-old dresses did not mind our appearance, and it would have been a cold day when a man in civilian togs — no matter how welldressed he was — could have persuaded one of those Southern girls to dance with him when a man from the front wanted a turn.

At Mr. Trenholm’s house I met General Robert E. Lee on several occasions. It always amused me to hear the fond mothers tell about the rapture and overflowing affection with which the general treated their little ones when they were brought before him. I happened to be present at one of these demonstrative occasions in the general s life, and afterwards heard the mother’s account of it. She said that as she entered the room with her little four-yearold daughter, the general opened his arms, into which the little girl rushed; and the great man fairly smothered the child with kisses. What I saw was that, when the little one saw the grave statuesque man with silver hair sitting on a sofa, she drew back in fright; her mother then seized her by the wrist and dragged the shrinking little tot up to that formal embodiment of dignity, and told him that she wanted her child to be able to say in future years that she had shaken hands with him. The general, looking very tired, without a word extended his forefinger. That was all the demonstrativeness I saw.

Mr. Trenholm, as I have said before, was most hospitably inclined, and he was the possessor of some of the finest and oldest madeira wine in the country; naturally his invitations to dinner were rarely declined. I used to meet at his table the most distinguished generals of our army and the members of the cabinet. These gentlemen for the most part were taciturn and serious; but Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Trenholm were both gifted conversationalists as well as being very witty, and they always enlivened the banquets with anecdotes. Mr. Pierre Soule of Louisiana was also a frequent guest, and he was a most interesting talker. It was Mr. Soule, who, when United States Minister to Spain, after the duel between his son and the Duke of Alva, the brother-inlaw of the French Emperor, shot and crippled for life the Marquis de Turgot, the French Ambassador to Spain.

Despite the sad state of affairs, both in the Capital and the country, there were balls and parties and ‘marrying and giving in marriage’ going on in Richmond. Mr. McFarland, a wealthy banker, was to give a ball, and social Richmond was all agog over the prospect. To attend this ball, it was necessary for me to have a new uniform. With any amount of Confederate money at my disposal, the modern man might ask why I did not go to a tailor and order one; but that was not the way we did things in those days. In the first place, there were no shops; and had there been, there would have been nothing in them for sale. I had to search the town before I found a man who possessed a few yards of gray cloth and was willing to part with it for several hundred dollars in Confederate money. I finally found such a man, and also bought from him a pair of boots made out of thick half-tanned cow-hide, for which I paid three hundred dollars. I looked so nice in my new togs that I was immediately asked by an army surgeon to be one of the groomsmen at his wedding; I also attended the wedding of the beautiful Miss Hetty Cary and General John Pegram which had so sad an ending a few days afterwards, when General Pegram was killed.

We had our gossip, of course, and society was very busy discussing the marked attention Mr. Soule was paying to Mrs. Stanard, a widow and an acknowledged social leader. Mr. Soule must have been an ardent wooer, for Mrs. Stanard told her intimates that, when Mr. Soule was with her, he was so eloquent that she could not say no to him; when he lef t her, however, she realized what a mistake she would make in marrying a man upwards of sixty, who had no future before him. At Mr. McFarland’s ball it was whispered round the room that Mrs. Stanard had taken the occasion publicly to announce her engagement at last, and that congratulations were in order.

Mr. Trenholm came up to me and, taking my arm, said that he wanted to find Mr. Soule. So we walked to where the latter was standing by the side of Mrs. Stanard. After congratulating the pair, Mr. Trenholm said, ‘Now, Mr. Soule, my old friend, I want you to tell me: is this something new, or is it an old love-affair?’

Mr. Soule, rolling his r’s, replied with his very pronounced French accent, ‘Well, Mr. Trenholm, I will tell you. It is not so very new, nor in fact is it so very old. The truth is, my dear sir, it is now some thirty years since I first had the honor of meeting Madame Stanard; but at that time there was Stanard, a splendid fellow, and Madame Soule, a magnificent woman, both in their prime; and to tell you the truth, my dear sir, we did not see our way clear!’

II

While the young people were laughing, dancing, and being killed, the black clouds of adversity were gathering over our beloved Confederacy. Bitter dissension had resulted from the removal of General Johnston from the command of the Western army — a step which President Davis took in response to popular clamor for a change. This demand did not come from Johnston’s soldiers, but from the populace, who cried out that if Johnston continued his strategy, the Western army would soon be in the Gulf of Mexico; they wanted an aggressive man put in command, and Mr. Davis gave them General Hood. He was aggressive enough, Heaven knows! After the bloody victory he won at Franklin, in which some seventeen Southern generals fell, Mr. Davis was heard to observe, ‘One more such victory and there would be no Western army left.’ After the disastrous defeat, at Nashville, the very men who had clamored to have General Johnston superseded clamored against Mr. Davis for having removed him.

The Confederate Congress was at open war with President Davis and missed no opportunity to thwart his policies. They refused point-blank to adopt any of his suggestions for the relief of the pitiable condition of the country, and, in rejecting the financial schemes submitted by Mr. Trenholm, the Senate Finance Committee frankly told that gentleman that under no circumstances could they adopt his suggestions, as it would imply their sanction of a measure emanating from Mr. Davis’s administration!

Mr. Trenholm told them that, when they had treated Mr. Memminger, his predecessor in the Treasury Department, in the same way, Mr. Memminger had consulted him as a friend as to the course he should pursue, and that he, Mr. Trenholm, had advised him to resign. Now that he himself was placed in a similar position it was necessary that he should do likewise.

The Senate Committee, however, protested that such a course would not do at all, as they had a financial proposition of their own that they wanted him to father on account of the popular belief in his ability as a financier.

Mr. Trenholm, no less frank than they were, informed them, after glancing over their bill, that he had a reputation among business men to maintain, and that if he put his name to and gave his approval to such a measure, business men would laugh at him. He went to Mr. Davis then and tendered his resignation. Mr. Davis told him that it was his duty to remain in the Cabinet; that he, Mr. Davis, recognized that with a Congress at open war with the administration, nothing could be done to relieve the Treasury. He declared that he needed Mr. Trenholm’s clear head and advice, and begged him to stand by him in his hour of need.

As an example of the demoralization of the Confederate government at this time, I remember going into the Senate chamber one day while that august body was in session. At the front, heavy firing was going on, which could not only be plainly heard inside the building, but the windows rattled and shook when particularly big guns were discharged. With this ominous obbligato, the lawmakers were earnestly debating the question how many daily newspapers should be placed on the desk of each senator every morning! While these petty quarrels were going on, the destiny of a whole nation was being ruthlessly decided in blood and suffering. We men in the trenches fought, shivered, and starved outside the city, and danced and made merry whenever we were allowed to come within its limits, little dreaming the end was so near.

The Southern soldier was a very determined fellow, and at the same time reckless and light-hearted; one moment he would be in deep distress over the loss of some dear comrade and the next he would be shouting with laughter over some senseless joke perpetrated by one of his companions. I went one day to a tobacco warehouse, then used as a hospital, to see my friend Captain F. W. Dawson, who was very seriously wounded. The ladies of Richmond were very kind to the wounded, and out of their scanty means they managed to make dainties which t hey would carry to the hospitals and distribute themselves. The day was hot; I found my friend lying on a cot near the open front door, so weak that he could not speak above a whisper; and after greeting him and speaking some words of cheer, I saw that he was anxious to tell me something. I leaned over him to hear what he had to say, and the poor fellow whispered in my ear, ‘Jimmie, for God’s sake make them move my cot to the back of the building.’

I assured him that he had been placed in the choicest spot in the hospital, where he could get any little air that might be stirring; but he still insisted that he wanted to be moved, giving as a reason that every lady who entered the place washed his face and fed him with meat-jelly. The result was that his face felt sore and he was stuffed so full of jelly that he was most uncomfortable. As he was so weak, he could not defend himself, and the women would not listen to his protests.

Shaking with laughter, I delivered his request to the head surgeon, who pinned a notice on Dawson’s sheet to this effect: ‘This man must be washed and fed only by the regular nurses.’ Dawson was a gallant soldier and served on the staffs of J. E. B. Stuart, Fitzhugh Lee, and General Longstreet. He recovered from his wounds and in 1873 married my sister Sarah.

III

The spring of 1865 was fast approaching and we expected soon to see great changes. One army or the other would surely attack; they could not stand still indefinitely. One morning things became very lively at Battery Semmcs. A rifled gun in my division exploded and an eight-inch smooth bore was dismounted by a well-directed shot from Signal Hill. About noon my commander sent for me and, to my amazement, ordered me to go up to Richmond and report in person to the Secretary of the Navy, adding that I had better take my belongings with me. I at once commenced to think of all my sins of commission and omission. What could a secretary of the navy want to see a passed midshipman for, unless it was to give him a reprimand?

Arriving in Richmond, I made my way to the Navy Department at once, and, to my surprise, I was shown into the Secretary’s sanctum without delay. Mr. Mallory was smiling, and if I had not been a midshipman, I should really have thought he was glad to see me. To my surprise, he told me that I was to accompany Mrs. Jefferson Davis South, and added, with a twinkle in his eyes, that the daughters of the Secretary of the Treasury were to be of the party.

I hurried to Mr. Trenholm’s house with the news, but no one there seemed at all surprised. I then went to the President’s mansion, only a block away, and had a few words with Mrs. Davis, who seemed to take it as a matter of course that I was to go South with her. There was not the slightest appearance of excitement or preparation.

I dined with Mr. Trenholm’s family, and we laughed and talked; but none of us spoke of the coming journey. In fact, we young people were in blissful ignorance concerning the momentous events about to take place. After all, there was nothing strange in Mrs. Davis’s going South, for the President had often expressed a desire to have his family go t.o Charlotte, North Carolina, where they would be out of the turmoil and excitement of their surroundings in Richmond.

It was then the Friday preceding the fall of Richmond, and about eight o’clock in the evening we received the expected word that it was time for us to start to the station. A few minutes after we arrived there, we were joined by Mrs. Davis, her sister, and the children, escorted by Colonel Burton N. Harrison, the President’s private secretary. The party arrived at the depot in an overloaded carriage, Mrs. Davis being the fortunate possessor of about the only pair of carriage horses in Richmond. These animals had made some lucky escapes from being requisitioned for the army, as, owing to the necessities of the family, they had once been sold and were bought by two or three gentlemen and presented again to Mrs. Davis, only to be seized shortly afterwards by a provost guard, on the street, while Mrs. Davis was seated in the vehicle. President Davis would not lift a finger to save them, saying that other people’s horses had been pressed into service for the army, and he saw no reason why his wife’s should not be taken in the same way. But again influential friends persuaded the quartermaster to send them back, and their last service to their mistress was to start her on that memorable and eventful journey.

There were no Pullman coaches in those days, and it was with great difficulty that an old creaky passenger car, long a stranger to paint and varnish, had been secured for the wife of the chief magistrate of a nation of some fifteen or twenty millions of people. We at once entered the car and seated ourselves on the lumpy seats, which were covered with dingy and threadbare brownish-red plush, very suggestive of the vermin with which they afterwards proved to be infested.

The sleepy little children were laid on the seats and made as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, but they had hardly closed their eyes before President Davis entered the car. He spoke to us all pleasantly and cheerfully, then took a seat beside his wife and entered into conversation with her. They talked earnestly until the signal for our departure was sounded; but in those days the trains were not run by schedule: you started when the train moved, and you arrived when you got to your destination; and that was all anybody knew about it. Mr. Davis rose from his seat at the sound of the bell, and went from one to the other of his children, kissing them good-bye; then he bade farewell to his sister-inlaw, Miss Maggie Howell, and affectionately embraced his wife. Passing the seats where sat the Misses Trenholm and myself, he gave us all a friendly handshake and wished us ‘bon voyage.’ He then stepped on to the platform, closely followed by Colonel Harrison. The signal to start was one of many false alarms, and the President and his secretary walked up and down on the platform outside, while engaged in what appeared to us onlookers very serious conversation.

It was ten o’clock before our wheezy and feeble locomotive gave a screech and a jerk which started us on our journey. Colonel Harrison precipitately left his chief and jumped on board the moving train, while the President waved a second farewell to his loved ones. We proceeded at a snail’s pace for about twelve miles, when suddenly we came to a standstill. Our ramshackle locomotive had balked; no amount of persuasion on the part of the engineer could induce it to haul us over a slight up-grade, and we remained where we were for the rest of the night. It was the afternoon of the next day when we arrived at Burkesville Junction, where Colonel Harrison received the news of the battle between Generals Pickett and Sheridan and telegraphed the information at once to President Davis.

We did not reach Charlotte until Tuesday; a journey which to-day requires only six or seven hours had taken us four days to accomplish! There was a delay of two or three hours at Charlotte, and, while waiting, Colonel Harrison used the time to go into the city in search of shelter for Mrs. Davis and her helpless family. The inhabitants, however, did not rush forward to offer hospitality to this lady in distress, as they might have done a year or two before misfortune had overtaken her. They seemed to take it for granted that the end of the Confederacy was at hand, although the news of the fall of Richmond did not reach them until two days after our arrival. Mrs. Davis would have been in a sad plight if it had not been for the courage and chivalric courtesy of a Jewish gentleman, a Mr. Weil, who hospitably invited her to stay at his home until she could make other arrangements. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless him whereever he is!

The news of Mrs. Davis’s arrival in Charlotte quickly spread through the city, which by that time was thronged with stragglers and deserters, conscripts and so forth — the very scum of the army; and a mob of these wretches gathered around the car in which she sat. The wretches reviled her in most shocking language. Colonel Harrison, who had returned from his quest for lodgings, closed the open windows of the car so that the ladies could not hear what was being said. We two men were helpless to protect them from the epithets of a crowd of some seventyfive or a hundred blackguards, but we stationed ourselves at the only door which was not locked, determined that they should not enter the car. Colonel Harrison was unarmed and I had only my sword and a regulation revolver in the holster hanging from my belt. Several of the most daring of the brutes climbed up the steps, but when Colonel Harrison firmly told them that he would not permit them to enter that car, the cowards slunk away. When the disturbance had quieted down, Mrs. Davis, her sister, and her children left the train, and with the daughters of Mr. Trenholm I continued on to Abbeville, South Carolina, where the Trenholms had previously engaged a pleasant house. It took us two more days to reach Abbeville, and it was not until our arrival there that we learned that the Confederacy had received the coup de grace: Richmond had fallen.

Mrs. Davis remained for a few days in Charlotte; then it was reported that General Sherman’s army was headed that way, and it was necessary for her to seek some haven of safety. She was indeed in a forlorn position, as nobody wished to shelter her for fear that the Union troops would destroy their homes if they did. Every road was infested by deserters who, if they had wanted anything she possessed, would have given her scant consideration.

The only human being she could look to for protection was Colonel Harrison, and he would have stood small chance of defending her against the bands of undisciplined shirkers who were traversing the country, and who never hesitated to take what they wanted from the weak and helpless. Just as things looked most hopeless to this unhappy lady, the midshipmen from the schoolship Patrick Henry, under the command of Lieutenant William H. Parker, arrived in Charlotte.

When Richmond was ordered to be evacuated, the authorities almost forgot the midshipmen, and it was only at the last moment that Lieutenant Parker received the order to blow up the ‘school’ and make the best, of his way to Charlotte. The midshipmen were landed on the river-bank, and as they trudged toward Richmond they were saluted by the explosions of the magazines, not only of their own ship, but also of the Confederate ironclads and wooden gunboats.

When they arrived at the railway station at Manchester, across the river from Richmond, they found, not only that the soldiers had left, but also that no arrangements had been made for their transportation. Here a piece of good luck came their way. The Treasury officials, with some five hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver coin (all that the Confederacy possessed) packed in kegs, were standing helplessly on the platform alongside a train on which they hoped to get away, while a drunken mob was fast gathering round them. Hundreds of barrels of whiskey had been stove in, their contents filling the gutters in Richmond; and this crowd of swine, after guzzling the fiery liquor out of the ditches, became very brave, and determined to divide the assets of the Confederacy among themselves. The Treasury officials rather doubtfully asked Lieutenant Parker if he could protect the treasure; and when the little midshipmen had formed, the mob commenced to jeer the children. But something happened! and before those ruffians realized it, they had been driven back to a respectful distance, and it began to dawn on them that the guns and bayonets in the hands of those youngsters were going to be used at the word of command. The scoundrels were not so drunk that they did not appreciate the fact that discretion was the better part of valor, and they fled.

The Treasury men were so impressed by the easy way in which the midshipmen had handled the situation that they begged Lieutenant Parker to accompany the specie with his command. The money was loaded on the train, the midshipmen piled in after it, and thus they arrived at Charlotte.

The little command had only a short breathing-spell at Charlotte; the enemy were fast approaching, and there was little time left for them to make good their escape. Lieutenant Parker finally persuaded Mrs. Davis to trust herself to the protection of the midshipmen; so they again started on their sad and painful journey. The railways by this time were completely disorganized and they could proceed in the cars only as far as Chester, South Carolina, where Lieutenant Parker commandeered some wagons in which he placed Mrs. Davis and her family and the kegs of gold. They then started over the rough country roads for Abbeville.

What a distressing spectacle this train of three or four wagons, hauled by broken-down and leg-weary mules, must have presented, and what must have been the apprehensions of that stately, serene woman, the wife of the President of a great nation, as she sat, surrounded by her helpless children, on one of these primitive vehicles while the half-starved animals slowly dragged her over the weary miles! A platoon of the middies marched in front of the singular procession, acting as an advance-guard; another detachment followed the wagons, serving as rearguard; and on either side of the train marched the rest of the youngsters. Not far away, on either flank and in their rear, hovered deserters, waiting either for an opportunity or for the necessary courage to pounce upon the untold wealth which they thought that those wagons contained.

When night fell on the first day of their march, they stopped at a country roadside church, which at least afforded shelter from the elements. Mrs. Davis, her sister, and the children slept on the bare floor, and Lieutenant Parker, as commanding officer, rested in the pulpit. The midshipmen who were not on guard-duty lay down under the trees outside, in company with the mules.

IV

While Mrs. Davis and her escort of ragged boys were slowly plodding on their way, things began to happen in the beautiful village of Abbeville, where every residence was surrounded by a garden, and which impressed one as a more fitting setting for a May-Day festival than for the scene of the disruption of a government. First, Senator Wigfall, the man who had received the surrender of Major Anderson’s sword at Fort Sumter, arrived. He was the most malignant and unrelenting of all President Davis’s political enemies. Before making Texas his home he had been a resident of Abbeville, and he at once went to the house of Mr. Armisted Burt, an old friend, to ask for hospitality. Now it so happened that Mr. Burt had found means to send a message to Mr. Davis, asking him, if he passed through Abbeville, to make his, Mr. Burt’s, house his home. In less than forty-eight hours after Mr. WigfalFs arrival, who should appear at the house but Mr. Davis! For a few moments Mr. Burt was in a most embarrassing position; but Mr. Wigfall relieved the tension of the situation by hastily taking his departure out of one door as Mr. Davis entered the other.

The next distinguished persons to arrive were President Davis’s Cabinet. These gentlemen drove up in an ambulance, with the exception of the Secretary of War, General Breckinridge, who preferred to ride on horseback. He made a great impression on me, with his superb figure mounted on a large and fat charger — a rare sight in those days. The Cabinet camped in and around their ambulance, which had stopped in the suburbs. I visited their camp, and was somewhat surprised to see among these serious and careworn-looking gentlemen the beaming smile on the round face of the rotund Secretary of State, Mr. Judah P. Benjamin. He was the picture of amiability and contentment. Mr. Trenholm, who had been taken seriously ill on the journey from Danville, had been left at a house on the road.

Mr. Trenholm afterwards told me that Mr. Benjamin, up to the time he had left them, had been the life of the party, with his wonderful fund of anecdote, which continuously rippled from his mouth during the daytime; and when the shades of evening fell, and a more serious mood came over him, he would hold his small but distinguished audience spellbound by repeating poetry from the apparently exhaustless storehouse of his memory. Mr. Trenholm also told me that he felt certain that Mr, Benjamin had at the time secreted in his valise (which was a sort of Aladdin’s lamp from which he could instantly produce anything that was needed) a complete disguise in which he intended to make his escape from his pursuers — and such indeed proved to be the fact. Throughout this whole trying journey Mr. Benjamin smoked fragrant Havana cigars, much to the astonishment of his companions, who wondered where he had obtained so unlimited a supply of so rare a luxury.

Then Mrs. Davis arrived with her ragged and mud-stained escort, most of whom by this time were walking on their ‘uppers,’ or the bare soles of their poor bruised feet. On arriving at Mr. Burt’s house, she expressed to her host a fear that his home would be destroyed by the Union troops when they learned that she had been sheltered there. The grand old Southern aristocrat. made her a profound bow and replied, ‘Madam, I know of no better use my house could be put to than to be burned for such a cause.’

The midshipmen pushed on to Augusta, Georgia, some eighty miles away, seeking a safe place to deposit the treasure; and on their arrival were told to leave the city as quickly as possible, as Sherman’s men were expected at any moment. So back they trudged to Abbeville, where the Secretary of the Navy ordered them to be disbanded. These boys, averaging between fourteen and eighteen years of age, were, some of them, nearly a thousand miles from their homes. The railroads had been destroyed, and the country was filled with lawless men; but they were turned loose to shift for themselves. The money was turned over to the care of the soldiers, who took such good care of it that unto this day never a dollar of it has been traced! Later, a lie circulated, involving Mr. Davis with its disappearance; but it was afterwards disproved by the poverty in which he and his wife lived and died.

While Mr. Davis was at Abbeville, a very unpleasant incident took place — an episode which has never been mentioned in other accounts of his flight from Richmond — doubtless because it was not to the credit of some of the Confederate soldiers. In the mountains of North and South Carolina, near the Tennessee line, there were bands of outlaws who called themselves ‘guerillas.’ A false report reached Mr. Davis to the effect that these brigands, learning that a large amount of gold was being taken through the country, protected only by a few little boys, had made a sudden descent from their mountain fastnesses and were rapidly approaching Abbeville.

On receiving this report, Mr. Davis mounted his horse and rode out to a camp where some of the soldiers were bivouacked. The troops were drawn up to receive him, and he made them a short address — very short. He informed them of the report about the guerillas, and also mentioned that both General Sherman and General Johnston attacked this band wherever they found them, on account of the many atrocities of which they had been guilty against both Union men and Confederates. He wound up his talk by asking the men if they would go out with him to attack these robbers and murderers. As he paused for a reply, a private pushed his horse to the front and said, ‘Our lives are just as precious to us as yours is to you. The war is over and we are going home!’

And without the slightest semblance of order, the gang — I can call them nothing else — dispersed, leaving only those few gallant and loyal men who accompanied Mr. Davis until he was captured.

(The End)