A Confederate Girl's Diary Part 25

I can't repeat it. I was too horrified to hear all, when they told me.

What struck me as being most shocking was my distorted explanation about the letters. It now set forth that I was not allowed to write myself, but would be happy to have him write to me; then there was an earnest a.s.surance that my _feelings_ toward him had not changed in the least--

Here I sprang from my chair and rushed to the window for a breath of air, wringing my hands in speechless distress. How a word more or less, an idea omitted or added, a syllable misplaced, can transform a whole sentence, and make what was before harmless, really shocking!

And if it had not been for Ada and Marie--! Blessed angels! they entreated him not to deliver any of his messages, insisting that there must be a mistake, that if he knew me he would understand that it was impossible for me to have sent such a message by a stranger. And although at first he declared he felt obliged to discharge the task imposed on him, they finally succeeded in persuading him to relinquish the errand, promising to be responsible for the consequences.

"Ah me!" I gasped last night, making frantic grimaces in the dark, and pinching myself in disgust, "why can't they let me alone?... O women--women! I wish he could marry all of you, so you would let me alone! Take him, please; but _en grace_ don't disgrace me in the excitement of the race!"

Friday, 25th.

Write me down a witch, a prophetess, or what you will. I am certainly something! All has come to pa.s.s on that very disagreeable subject very much as I feared. Perhaps no one in my position would speak freely on the subject; for that very reason I shall not hesitate to discuss it.

Know, then, that this morning, He went North along with many other Confederate prisoners, to be exchanged. And he left--he who has written so incessantly and so imploringly for me to visit his prison--he left without seeing me. Bon! Wonder what happened?

Evening.

I have learned more. He has not yet left; part of the mystery is unraveled, only I have neither patience nor desire to seek for more.

These women--! Hus.h.!.+ to slander is too much like them; be yourself.

My sweet little lisper informed a select circle of friends the other night, when questioned, that the individual had not called on me, and, what was more, would not do so. "Pray, how do you happen to be so intimately acquainted with the affairs of two who are strangers to you?" asked a lady present. She declined saying how she had obtained her information, only a.s.serting that it was so. "In fact, you cannot expect _any_ Confederate _gentleman_ to call at the house of Judge Morgan, a professed Unionist," she continued. So that is the story she told to keep him from seeing me. She has told him that we had turned Yankees! All her arts would not grieve me as much as one word against Brother. My wrongs I can forget; but one word of contempt for Brother I _never_ forgive! White with pa.s.sion I said to my informant, "Will you inform the young lady that her visit will never be returned, that she is requested not to repeat hers, and that I decline knowing any one who dares cast the slightest reflection on the name of one who has been both father and brother to me!" This evening I was at a house where she was announced. Miriam and I bade our hostess good-evening and left without speaking to her. Anybody but Brother! No one shall utter his name before me save with respect and regard.

This young woman's father is a Captain in the Yankee navy, and her brother is a Captain in the Yankee army, while three other brothers are in the Confederate. Like herself, I have three brothers fighting for the South; unlike her, the only brother who avows himself a Unionist has too much regard for his family to take up arms against his own flesh and blood.

Tuesday, October 6th.

I hope this will be the last occasion on which I shall refer to the topic to which this unfortunate book seems to have been devoted. But it gives me a grim pleasure to add a link to the broken chain of the curious story, now and then. Maybe some day the missing links will be supplied me, and then I can read the little humdrum romance of What might have been, or What I'm glad never was, as easily as Marie tells her rosary.

Well! the prisoners have gone at last, to my unspeakable satisfaction.

Day before yesterday they left. Now I can go out as I please, without fear of meeting him face to face. How odd that I should feel like a culprit! But that is in accordance with my usual judgment and consistency. Friday, I had a severe fright. Coming up Camp Street with Ada, after a ramble on Ca.n.a.l, we met two Confederates. Everywhere that morning we had met gray coats, but none that I recognized. Still, without looking, I saw through my eyelids, as it were, two hands timidly touch two gray caps, as though the question "May I?" had not yet been answered. In vain I endeavored to meet their eyes, or give the faintest token of greeting. I was too frightened and embarra.s.sed to speak, and only by a desperate effort succeeded in bending my head in a doubtful bow, that would have disgraced a dairy maid, after we had pa.s.sed. Then, disgusted with myself, I endeavored to be comforted with the idea that they had perhaps mistaken me for some one else; that having known me at a time when I was unable to walk, they could have no idea of my height and figure, or walk. So I reasoned, turning down a side street. Lo! at a respectable distance they were following! We had occasion to go into a daguerreau salon. While standing in the light, two gray uniforms, watching us from the dark recess at the door, attracted my attention. Pointing them out to Ada, I hurried her past them downstairs to the street. Faster and faster we walked, until at the corner I turned to look. There they were again, sauntering leisurely along. We turned into another street, mingled in the crowd, and finally lost sight of them. That fright lasted me an hour or two.

Whose purse have I stolen, that I am afraid to look these men in the face?

But what has this to do with what I meant to tell? How loosely and disconnectedly my ideas run out with the ink from my pen! I meant to say how sorry I am for my dear little lisper that she failed in her efforts to conquer the "Hero"; and here I have drifted off in a page of trash that does not concern her in the least. Well! she did not succeed, and whatever she told him was told in vain, as far as _she_ was concerned. He was not to be caught! What an extraordinary man!

Dozens fighting for the preference, and he in real, or pretended ignorance.

I must do him the justice to say he is the most guileless, as well as the most honest of mortals. He told the mother of a rich and pretty daughter what he thought of me; that my superior did not exist on earth, and my equal he had never met. Ha! ha! this pathetic story makes me laugh in spite of myself. Is it excess of innocence, or just a role he adopted? Stop! His idle word is as good as an oath. He could not pretend to what he did not believe. He told her of his earnest and sincere admiration--words! words! hurry on! She asked how it was then--? Here he confessed, with a mixture of pride and penitence, that he had written me letters which absolutely required answers, and to which I had never deigned to reply by even a word. That, mortified beyond measure at my silent contempt, he had tried every means of ascertaining the cause of my coldness, but I had never vouchsafed an answer, but had left him to feel the full force of my harsh treatment without one word of explanation. That when he was paroled, he had hoped that I would see him to tell him wherein he had forfeited my esteem; but I had not invited him to call, and mortified and repulsed as he had been, it was impossible for him to call without my permission.... Did my little lisper change the message when the little mids.h.i.+pman told her it had been intercepted because too friendly? I know she met this martyred Lion frequently after that and had many opportunities of telling him the simple truth, but she evidently _did not_.

He has gone away with sorely wounded feelings, to say nothing more; for that I am sincerely sorry; but I trust to his newly acquired freedom, and his life of danger and excitement, to make him forget the wrongs he believes himself to have suffered at my hands. If it was all to be gone through again (which thank Heaven, I will never be called upon to endure again), I would follow Brother's advice as implicitly then as I did before. He is right, and without seeing, I believe. They tell me of his altered looks, and of his forced, reckless gaiety which, so strangely out of keeping with his natural character, but makes his a.s.sumed part more conspicuous. No matter! He will recover! Nothing like a sea voyage for disorders of all kinds. And we will never meet again; that is another consolation.

"Notice: The public are hereby informed through Mrs. ----, Chief Manager of the Theatre of High Tragedy, that Miss Sarah M., having been proved unworthy and incompetent to play the role of Ariadne, said part will hereafter be filled by Miss Blank, of Blank Street, who plays it with a fidelity so true to nature that she could hardly be surpa.s.sed by the original."

Monday, November 9th.

Another odd link of the old, stale story has come to me, all the way from New York. A friend of mine, who went on the same boat with the prisoners, wrote to her mother to tell her that she had formed the acquaintance of the most charming, fascinating gentleman among them, no other than my _once_ friend. Of course, she would have been less than a woman if she had not gossiped when she discovered who he was. So she sends me word that he told her he had been made to believe, as long as he was on parole in New Orleans, that we were all Unionists now, and that Brother would not allow a Confederate to enter the house. (O my little lisper, was I unjust to you?) He told her that I had been very kind to him when he was in prison, and he would have forgotten the rest and gladly have called to thank me in person for the kindness he so gratefully remembered, if I alone had been concerned; but he felt he could not force himself unasked into my brother's house....

She told him how false it was.

Sunday, November 22d.

A report has just reached us that my poor dear Gibbes has been taken prisoner along with the rest of Hayes's brigade.

November 26th.

Yes! It is so, if his own handwriting is any proof. Mr. Appleton has just sent Brother a letter he had received from Gibbes, asking him to let Brother know he was a prisoner, and we have heard, through some one else, that he had been sent to Sandusky. Brother has applied to have him paroled and sent here, or even imprisoned here, if he cannot be paroled.

Monday, November 30th.

Our distress about Gibbes has been somewhat relieved by good news from Jimmy. The jolliest sailor letter from him came this morning, dated only the 4th instant from Cherbourg, detailing his cruise on the Georgia from leaving England, to Bahia, Trinidad, Cape of Good Hope, to France again. Such a bright, das.h.i.+ng letter! We laughed extravagantly over it when he told how they readily evaded the Vanderbilt, knowing she would knock them into "pie"; how he and the French Captain quarreled when he ordered him to show his papers, and how he did not know French abuse enough to enter into compet.i.tion with him, so went back a first and second time to Maury when the man would not let him come aboard, whereupon Maury brought the s.h.i.+p to with two or three shots and Jimmy made a third attempt, and forced the Frenchman to show his papers. He tells it in such a matter-of-fact way! No extravagance, no idea of having been in a dangerous situation, he a boy of eighteen, on a French s.h.i.+p in spite of the Captain's rage. What a jolly life it must be! Now das.h.i.+ng in storms and danger, now floating in suns.h.i.+ne and fun! Wish I was a mids.h.i.+pman! Then how he changes, in describing the prize with an a.s.sorted cargo that they took, which contained all things from a needle to pianos, from the reckless spurt in which he speaks of the plundering, to where he tells of how the Captain, having died several days before, was brought on the Georgia while Maury read the service over the body and consigned it to the deep by the flames of the dead man's own vessel. What n.o.ble, tender, manly hearts it shows, those rough seamen stopping in their work of destruction to perform the last rites over their dead enemy. One can fancy their bare heads and sunburned faces standing in solemn silence around the poor dead man when he dropped into his immense grave. G.o.d bless the "pirates"!

Thursday night, December 31st, 1863.

The last of eighteen sixty-three is pa.s.sing away as I write.... Every New Year since I was in my teens, I have sought a quiet spot where I could whisper to myself Tennyson's "Death of the Old Year," and even this bitter cold night I steal into my freezing, fireless little room, _en robe de nuit_, to keep up my old habit while the others sleep....

"Old year, you shall not die; We did so laugh and cry with you, I've half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die."

No! Go and welcome! Bring Peace and brighter days, O dawning New Year.

Die, faster and faster, Old One; I count your remaining moments with almost savage glee.

Wednesday, February 3d.

Last night we were thrown into the most violent state of commotion by the unexpected entrance of Captain Bradford. He has been brought here a prisoner, from Asphodel, where he has been ever since the surrender of Port Hudson, and taking advantage of his tri-weekly parole, his first visit was naturally here, as he has no other friends.

Poor creature, how he must have suffered! The first glance at his altered face where suffering and pa.s.sion have both left their traces unmistakably since we last met, and the mere sight of his poor lame leg, filled my heart with compa.s.sion.

How he hates Mr. Halsey! I could not forego the pleasure of provoking him into a discussion about him, knowing how they hated each other. He would not say anything against him; understand, that as a gentleman and a companion, Mr. Halsey was his warmest and best friend; there was no one he admired more; but he must say that as a soldier, he was the worst he had ever seen--not that he was not as brave and gallant a man as ever lived, but he neglected his duties most shamefully while visiting Linwood so constantly, eluding the sentinels daily as he asked for neither pa.s.s nor permission, and consulting only his inclinations instead of his superior officers or his business. And that last night at Linwood, when he absented himself without leave, why could he not have signified to him, his Captain, that he wished to say good-bye, instead of quietly doing as he pleased? When the Colonel sent for a report of the number of men, quant.i.ty of forage and ammunition, etc., and it was discovered that John Halsey was absent without leave, with the books locked up and the keys in his pocket--even after this lapse of time, the fire flashed through the ice as the Captain spoke.

Sergeant Halsey, I am sorry for you when you reported yourself next day! All the fun that could have been crowded into an evening at Linwood could not have repaid you for the morning's scene. And after all, what was it beyond very empty pleasure, with a great deal of laughter? He could have dispensed with it just as well. Looking back, I congratulate myself on being the only one who did not ask him to stay.

5th.

Not dead! not dead! O my G.o.d! Gibbes is _not_ dead! Where--O dear G.o.d!

Another?

Only a few days ago came a letter so cheerful and hopeful--we have waited and prayed so patiently--at my feet lies one from Colonel Steadman saying he is dead. Dead! Suddenly and without a moment's warning summoned to G.o.d! No! it cannot be! I am mad! O G.o.d, have mercy on us! My poor mother! And Lydia! Lydia! G.o.d comfort you! My brain seems afire. Am I mad? Not yet! G.o.d would not take him yet! He will come again! Hush, G.o.d is good! Not dead! not dead!

O Gibbes, come back to us!