Augusta County: "My Childhood Recollections of the War," by A. F. Robertson, January 19, 1915
Summary: This is a sentimental account of late antebellum wartime white southern female childhood, written by the daughter of Augusta County figure A. H. H. Stuart, but epitomizing "Lost Cause" ideas of an antebellum plantation ideal of exotic (even "happy") slaves and bucolic peacefulness: part of a vision that was dominant in the first decades of the twentieth century. This account also contains romanticized and dramatic images of the Civil War and the Confederacy--a part of the larger "Lost Cause" ideology that also put forth the glorified plantation images. And there is a romanticized passage about Robert E. Lee.
The years go on - yet some one still tells the story which is never finished - the oft told tale of war and the Confederacy - cavalry and artillery veterans have told it from their point of view - now comes one from the infantry - a child's recollection of the war. If the I's and my's and We's and me's come too often to the front, remember how small is the horizon of childhood, and how entirely the world is bounded by his own little life and emotions.
Even at the early age of five years the terrible events of war were burnt into my memory with fire and blood. Noe account of these days would be correct without the relation of domestic life as it then existed, nor could the younger generation understand a child's life in Confederate times without a knowledge of his environments. I shall, therefore, tell the story as I first remember it - at the beginning of the war and again when nearing its close.
Born in the days of slavery and my childhood having been spent under the old regime, no picture of it would be complete without its background of black people among whom I was raised. My brother and I were the youngest of a large family of grown children, and arrived in this world greatly to the regret of the whole connection. Our white family was largely outnumbered by the colored. The servants connected with the town houses were Aunt Kitty, the cook, and her assistant, Uncle Davy, Uncle Peyton, the carriage driver, John, the butler, Millie, the housemaid, Aunt Rachel, Nancy Ballard, Sarah and Mat.
It was a great delight to us to steal off to the kitchen where Aunt Kitty reigned somewhat despotically, and as the evening closed and the tallow dip was lighted, to hear kind old Uncle Davy (who had trances) tell of his visits to heaven. We were dreadfully afraid of Uncle Peyton. Mama said we was "an imprudent rascal", but we must not tell on him, for if we did, Papa might sell him - and he had never sold a salve in his life. John the butler was a terrible character who cut onus on the legs with a tea towel if we dirted the dishes or walked over the waxed floors. When we used the plates between meals we licked them well and stealthily replaced them on the pantry shelf. The horrid aogre of my childhood was Nany Ballard, the washerwoman, to whose care I was sometimes committed. Many a weary hour have I sat by the ironing table in fear and trembling, looking into her ugly black face and sick with the smell of sour starch and scorched iron holders.
Our old black mammies had all died off, and I never remember to have been crooned to sleep on the ample bosom of a faithful slave. My earliest recollections are of being put to bed by two half grown negro girls, Sarah and Mat, by the light of a wood fire in the nursery. If we had been particularly good throughout the day - had helped to carry chips or tote wowood - we were rewarded by crharming stories of wild "critters and hants and sperrits" while we trembled in bed, and the little darkies lay full length in front of the crackling fire. Had we been mean and stingy - like po' whiete trash - refusing to share our taffy or horsecakes - woe betide us!
Didn't we hear the death watch in the wall, ticking for us - or the screech owl outside calling for us? Didn't we see the "hundred legs" on the wall just waiting till white chillun went to sleep to bore down in their "years"? Can I ever forget the bloody cat I met on the stairs, or the sighs through the garret key hole where old Miss's Spirit used to whisper every night? Shall I ever cease to remember the time my faithful nurse came after me on all fours, a bear skin over her back, a horrid mask on her face! Yet we loved the little darkies, and played happily with them. We had glorious days on top of the chicken coop, eating walnuts and rwaw turnips, and grand slides down the ice house, with occasoinal raids on my grandmother's damson trees and current bushes.
In happy summer days we went to our farm, "Rosebanks" where our bachelor uncle lived; the mill, the barn, the cooper's shop, the servant's quarters, were delightful haunts where the "white chillun" were always welcome. There we visited the old decrepit darkies in their homes - Aunt Sally, who used to spin at a great wheel and who gave us pomegranates and marigolds from her little garden. And there was Granny, a little toothless old woman who smoked a pipe by her fireside, and would hug us in her bony arms. It was in her cabin I heard for the first time a cricket on the hearth.
Uncle Jerome brought us partridge aggs from the harvest field, and at twilight Uncle Jeff - a silent little yellow man, played for us on the fiddle. Every Saturday "Monkey Jim" came from the farm with the cart. My sister called it her "Ship Africa". "Monkey" drove old Kit at the rate of three miles an hour. "Kit" was a fat, freckled, white mare; "Monkey" was a little black, bald-headed old man. His small flat head was covered with an old slouch hat which rested on a pair of enormous outstanding ears; small furtive eyes, a great wobby nose and scattered rows of teeth set in the kinky hairy face of the little old dwarf, made up an appearance singularly grotesque. Every week he came with what provisions could be gathered from the farm, each time he brought a little "poke" of something for us children. I never heard him speak except to say with a grin "Y' oncle sent you sumpin"! Aunt Mary Ann always knew where the best apples grew in the orchard, and she let me churn under the cool sycamore tree. She taught me to milk old "Crump" and showed us where Lola hid her litter of darling puppies.
But best of all I loved my daily ride on John the Baptist - "Bullgy Dingo" my uncle called him, but he said Aunt May was a "Hard Shell", so she raised the big red bull and named him "John the Baptist". The fun in riding him was that he always got up behind first, and it was so hard to keep from falling off.
How we loved Aunt Maty Ann! I can see her now - a big, bronze Indian-like woman standing with one hand on her hip and with the other holding a gbig sea shell to her lips; her face is toward the west for it is sundown, and on the shell she blows a mighty blast to call the laborers home. Then the evening falls, and the hands come in, and as I go to sleep I hear them singing, and the sweet sound of water falling over the mill wheel.
Such was our early life.
One night I lay on the hearth rug playing with my favorite cat, my father and mother were talking very earnestly, when suddenly a dog howled, the cat sprang up in terror, the door was burst open, and in rushed two masked men with drawn swords, uttering dreadful cries. My heart stood still with horror for they exclaimed "The Yankees are coming to cut off your Papa's head and burn down the house and eat uyou up". In obeyance to my fahther's stern commands, off came the masks and two gay young cousins stood disclosed in the bravery of new uniforms and brass buttons - all excitement for the coming fray. That was my first introduction to war!
The early days of the Confederacy were very gay and interesting to a child, for we lived on excitement and "little pitchers" heard and saw all that was going on. There was music in the streets and gay, young soldiers drilling in their handsome uniforms. The girls cheered them on, throwing flowers and kisses while the band played "Dixie" and the troops went marching by. Indoors they laughed and sang bright war songs, and made haversacks and tobacco bags. My pretty cousin sewed on a beautiful silk flag for "her captain" and my sister said she was making a petticoat for Billy Blank because he wouldn't go to war! Sometimes "Sears Hill" and "Dogwood" were full of tents, and we children used to watch the soldiers standing guard or dragging cannon from the arsenal opposite the Mary Baldwin Seminary. Often they said the Yankees were coming, and one night at home I heard most cruious noises under the floors and in the garret, something like spirits - only louder. When I went there, my mother and sisters were stooping down over a candle, and with hatchets were pulling up the floors; back in the crakcks and corners they were poking bacon and silver and all sorts of things. I crossed my heart I would not tell, then made all the children wretched by saying that I knew grown up people's secrets which even the Yankees could not find out! But they did come and search the house and steal e everything that was left in the smoke house and store room, and all the bacons except old Brutus, and he was hid in the cellar. Then they cut the spokes in Papa's fifteen-hundred dollar wood wagon! We children went out and cursed the Yankees, and seesawed on the back fence and sang loud as we could;
"Jeff Davis rides a white horse,
Abe Lincoln rides a mule.
Jeff Davis
is a gentleman,
Abe Lincoln is a fool".
At that time I was very proficient in songs and oaths, which seemed perfectly justifiable on such occasions.
We had very plain fare in those days, so whenever we had "Secsh" pudding or other dessert, some one raised a little Confederate flag on the dinner castors to celebrate the event. There was a scarcity of evertyhing, and the women went to work knitting socks, and making gloves, and dresses from the lindsey which was woven on the farm. I thought my sisters looked beauitful in their red flannel garabaldi waists and the hats which they made of plaited straw and trimmed with rooster tails. We gathered the balls from sycamore trees, from which my mother made ink, and we helped to make toilet soap and draw the tallow candles out of the deep tin moulds. A "Confederate candle" was a famous Christmas gift, for it lasted nearly winter, and was indeed a labor of love. It was made of yards and yards of cotton wick which we passed slowly through melted bees wax until it became thick and firm; then it was coiled and twisted in many fanciful patterns around a smooth upright sitck fastened firmly into a wooden block or pedastal. The top of it was lighted and candle unwound, a few inches at a time, as it was needed.
In the summer time we went barefooted, greatly to my joy, as my shoes, which were made by Uncle Monroe, creaked horribly and were full of sharp wooden pegs. I shall never forget a beautiful little slipper which one of my cousins captured, among other things, when on a cavalry raid. It just fit me, but we could never find the mate. I put it on and sat on my other foot, hoping the children would admire it, and that nothing would happen to make me get up.
We had few playthings in those days, but no doll ever gave greater delight than my cat "Minnie" dressed up in a baby frock and cap, and no mechanical toys were ever more entertaining than tumble bugs and June beetles we played with out of doors. Every Christmas Aunt Mary Ann sent us great hog bladders from the farm, and at daylight we jumped upon them with our feet, awakening the family with terrible explosions. Our home-made Confederate stockings were never found empty. In the toe there was a big red apple, at the heel, a yellow one, then ginger cakes and apple leather, walnuts, pop-corn, dried persimmons, and taffy made of sorghum molasses. Somehow it was always wrapped in newspaper and we had to lick a great deal of ink and war news before we detached it from the stocking. Sometimes there was nice roasted pig-tail sticking out of the top. Sometimes a switch or a bundle of ashes - that was for cursing - but it was always the Yankees!
As I grew older it seemed to me the house and the town were always full of soldiers coming and going; tents on the hills one day, the next day, done in great wagon trains. About that time two charming girls came to stay with us. My father called them "refugees", and said the Yankees had driven them out of Winchester because they did so much for our soldiers and were so brave and kind. They made our house very gay and lively with their music and all they had to tell about the war.
One day a boy told me that "Old Jube" was in town, and that General Lee was in our parlor to see my moother. All of us had heard of General Lee and I determined to see him for myself. Stealing into the front hall and hiding behind the partly open door, I peered into the room. And there, according to my childish fancy I saw a king, a grand and beautiful man with gray hair, gray uniform and wonderful dark eyes! There was no crown on his forehead or golden sceptre in his hand, yet he was the realization of all that I had read in story books, - it was His Majesty, the King! He saw me peeping through the door, and, rising from his chair, he took me by the hand and led me into the room. He placed his hand upon my curls and said they were pretty, then lifting me upon his lap he gently kissed me on the lips. I was but a child, yet I felt as I did in after years when the Bishop laid his hands upon me - that I had been blessed and consecrated by his touch.
War was now familiar talk. On Sundays when we went to Church our minister often read out news of battles and lists of the wounded. I recall one especilal day when he told of an impending battle andasked the congregation to go home and make lint for the soldiers, how children and grown people, without waiting for dinner, turned down their plates on the table and began to scrape and ravel on them old linen napkins for the wounded. I remember a dark, sad day when teh rain poured in torrents and a long line of gray went marching to the dull thud of a drum. A crowd had collected on the steps of the Baptist Church, and among them, unmindful of the people or the weather, stood a beautiful young woman. Her hands were clasped, her eyes were raised as if in supplication, while on her uncovered head and flowing black hair, the rain beat down unmercifully. Wedded that day to be widowed the next, some strange foreboding had told her. There she stands forever in my memory, more enduring than marble or bronze, a living monument of grief! Later the troops came straggling back, muddy, wounded, footsore, the women faltered not, but with white set faces they comforted and relieved. I stood by my mother's side with averted face, holding sponges and basin, while she dressed the bloody wounds of soldiers just in from the battle line. Five wounded men lay in our house at one time and even the children were kept busy waiting on them. As they convalesced, they amused themselves putting paper shoes on my cats, carving rings out of buttons, and baskets from peach seeds, or cutting watermelon rinds into intricate patterns for sweetmeats. Later on the Blind Institution was taken for a hospital, and in the present chapel were rows upon rows of wonded men on cots; among them moved brave daughters of the Confederacy, ever ready to minister to suffering and alleviate pain. The North basement served as a morgue, and I remember running by in terror of the dead men, longing yet fearing to look in.
Towards the close of the war when Yankees over ran the town, old men often asked for guards to protect their homes and families. On one such occasion a young soldier was sent to our house, but hardly had he arrived when he was taken suddenly ill. We had no tolerance for Union troops, yet when my mother looked upon the boy, so near the age of her own young son, she was moved with compassion, and sent us with a pillow for his head, White and suffering he lay beneath the trees, until my father brought him in and ministered to his needs, and my mother provided food suitable for him.
He proved to be refined and educated, and during the course of conversation he mentioned his father's name-a distinguished one of the North. Unknown to the boy, this gentleman had, before the war, been a warm friend and colleague of my father's. Naturally his story was not believed, but after the surrender my father received a grateful letter from this friend saying the boy owed his life to the kindness of my mother. This youth, for love of adventure, had run away from Harvard, enlisted as a private in the army, and was a son of the brilliant lawyer and statemsan, William M. Evarts of New York!
Hope grew dim but war went on. The V. M. I. cadets were ordered to the field and the battle of New Market was fought. A brave young cousin was brought back to us wounded, and my boy soldier brother limped back on blistering feet, only to have his mother wash them with her tears and bind them up for longer marches and watches in the dreadful trenches around Richmond. Our food was low, our servants had gone, some to heaven- some to freedom. We had one stray negro boy who was our cook. Now "Amos" was a lover of melody and a sitter in the sun, and while he played the Jew's harp on the back fence, a Yankee slipped into the kitchen put mud in the cymblins and hunks of chewing tobacco into the boiling cabbage! My fahter was furious and told them both to go - somewhere, I have forgotten where - and when they went we had no cook and no dinner.
Out on the famrm Aunt Mary Ann still blew the big sea shell, but there were none to answer to her call. An old man sat in the mill - his white head on this hand, while the miller looked out of the window and the sound of the grinding was low.
Then came the last terrible scenes of war. The skies were read with a great conflagration and soldiers galloped rapidly through the streets. Along the railroad tracks and in the flat below us the depots were on fire. Amidst the crackling, roaring flames, fell flying stones. We heard deep intonations and explosions, as great masses of the arched stone bridge were hurled into the air.
Standing against this lurid background of smoke and fire, I saw a majexstic old woman; her white hair was flying in the wind. With hands uplifted she pointed to the smoking ruins and like some prophetess of old, called down from heaven wrath and imprecations on the slayers of her sons. So dark, so dreadful is this picture, I will not dwell upon it!
One day in early spring I was skipping along the road from my grandmother's house when I saw a young man coming quickly towards me. He was greatly excited and out of breath, and as he drew near called out "General Lee has surrendered"! Hot indignation boiled within me and I exclaimed "That's a lie, and you know it". Then I ran rapidly homeward. The tears were streaming down my father's face, but the women sat stolidly gazing at each other and said "The war is over". Yes, the war was ended.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, The Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia
