Neither of us closed our eyes that night. She walked the floor asking the same questions over and over again, and I got so I answered yes or no just as I saw she wanted yes or no and without regard to the truth.
Several months after this I saw Captain Jeter’s widow. She was surrounded by his little children – none of them old enough to realize their loss.
“Nell,” she said, “you remember the day in Petersburg when we stood together and watched the troops start off for Norfolk – and everybody was cheering?”
“Yes.”
“Well, war does not look to me now as it did then. God grant it may spare your husband to you, Nell!”
I shivered.
I called on another widowed friend. Her husband – a captain, too – had been sent home, his face mutilated past recognition by the shell that killed him. Her little ones were around her, and the captain’s sword was hanging on the wall. When I spoke to her of it as a proud possession, her eyes filled. His little boy said with flashing eyes:
“It’s my papa’s s’ode. I wants to be a man. An’ I’ll take it down and kill all the Yankees!”
“H-sh!” his mother put her hand over his mouth. “God grant there may be no war when you are a man!” she said fervently.
“Amen!” I responded.
“Oh, Nell,” she said, “when it’s all over, what good will it do? It will just show that one side could fight better than the other, or had more money and men than the other. It won’t show that anybody’s right. You can’t know how it is until it hits you, Nell. I’m proud of him, and proud of his sword; I wouldn’t have had him out of it all. I wouldn’t have had him a coward. But oh, Nell, I feel that war is wrong! I’m sorry for every Northern woman who has a circle like this around her, and a sword like that hanging on her wall.”
The little boy put his arm around her neck. “Mamma,” he said, “are you sorry for the Yankees?”
“My dear,” she said, “I am sorry for all little boys who haven’t got a papa, and I’m sorry for their mammas. And I don’t want you ever to kill anybody.”
CHAPTER VII
TRAVELING THROUGH DIXIE IN WAR TIMES
Our troops had to get out of winter quarters before they were well settled in them. I am not historian enough to explain how it was, but the old familiar trip “On to Richmond” had been started again, Burnside directing it. Every new Federal commander-in-chief started for Richmond as soon as he was in command. There was a popular song called “Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel.” They always found it so, though they got there eventually.
The cavalry, as usual, were on the wing first. General Rooney (W. H. F.) Lee’s division was sent to Fredericksburg in November, I think. My husband, of course, went with it. I was to go to Richmond and wait until I heard whether it would be safe for me to join him.
From Richmond I ran over to Petersburg, saw many old friends and ran back to Richmond again, fearful lest a message should come from Dan and I should miss it. I looked for a telegram every day, and kept my trunk packed. It was well that I did.
One morning my door was burst open unceremoniously and Dan rushed in.
“Ready to go, Nell?”
“Yes.”
“Come. Now.”
I put on my bonnet, caught up my satchel, stuffed brush, tooth-brush, and comb into it and was ready. Dan had stepped into the hall to call a porter to take the trunk down. We followed it, jumped into the omnibus, and it rolled off – all this in about five minutes from the time he burst my door open. On the omnibus, among other passengers, was a gentleman who had a brother in Dan’s command. This gentleman had so many questions to ask about the army, and so many messages to send his brother that Dan and I hardly exchanged a dozen sentences before we were at the depot. He established me in my seat, got my baggage checked, sat down, and then exclaiming:
“Good gracious! I forgot that bundle for General Lee. It’s on top of the omnibus, Nell. I’ll be back in a minute,” and darted off.
At the next station, when the conductor came for my ticket, I said:
“See my husband, please. He must be in the smoking-car.”
A gentleman across the aisle remarked:
“Excuse me, madam, but I think the gentleman who came in with you got left. I saw him get off the omnibus with a bundle in his hand and run after the car, but he missed it.”
“Then I don’t know what to do,” I said in despair to the conductor. “I haven’t a ticket, and I haven’t any money.”
“Where are you going?” he asked kindly.
“I don’t know!” I gasped.
The conductor looked blank. I explained the manner of my starting to him.
“Do you know where your husband’s command is stationed?”
“No, I don’t know that either. You see,” I explained, “as he belongs to the cavalry it is much harder to keep up with his whereabouts than if he were in the infantry.”
“What division is he in?”
“General Rooney Lee’s.”
“Do you know what brigade?”
“Chambliss’s.”
“All right. I know what to do with you, then. You stop at Milford. Your husband will come on the freight this afternoon – at least, that’s what I expect him to do. Your best plan is to wait at Milford for him.”
When we reached Milford the conductor took me out and introduced me to the landlord of the tavern, and I was shown into what I suppose might be called by grace the reception-room. It was literally on the ground floor, being built on native brown earth. The ceiling was low, the room was full of smoke, and rough-looking men sat about with pipes in their mouths. I asked for a private room, and was shown into one upstairs, but this was so cold that I went out into the porch which overhung the street and walked up and down in the sun to keep myself warm. Very soon the gong sounded for dinner. I went down, sat with a rough crowd around a long table, swallowed what I could, and went back to my promenade on the porch. After a time an ambulance drove up and stopped under the porch, and an orderly sang out:
“Adjutant of the Thirteenth here?”
I leaned over the railing.
“I am his wife,” I said.
He saluted. “Can you tell me where the adjutant is, ma’am?”
“He will be here on the next train.”
“That might be midnight, ma’am, or it might be to-morrow. My orders were to meet the adjutant here about this time.”
“The adjutant got left by the regular passenger. But a freight was to leave Richmond soon after the passenger, and the adjutant will come on that.”
“The freight?” the orderly looked doubtful. “Maybe so.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, ma’am, all trains are uncertain, and freight trains more so. And sometimes freight trains are mighty pertickular about what kind of freight they carry.”
I laughed, but the orderly did not see the point. Dan’s body-servant was to drive the ambulance back, so the orderly, turning it over to a man whom he picked up in the tavern, went back to camp according to instructions. As soon as he was out of sight I began to repent. If Dan shouldn’t come on that freight, what would I do with myself and that strange man and the ambulance and the mules? It was getting late when the welcome sound of a whistle broke upon my ear and the freight came creeping in. On the engine beside the engineer stood my husband, with that abominable