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CHAPTER VIII
THE BRILLIANT BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION

THE adventof Lord and Lady Napier was practically coincident with the installation of Miss Harriet Lane at the White House, and, in each instance, the entrée of Miss Lane and Lady Napier had its share in quickening the pace at which society was so merrily going, and in accentuating its allurements. Miss Lane's reign at the White House was one of completest charm. Nature, education and experience were combined in the President's niece in such manner as eminently to qualify her to meet the responsibilities that for four years were to be hers. Miss Lane possessed great tact, and a perfect knowledge of Mr. Buchanan's wishes. Her education had been largely directed and her mind formed under his careful guardianship; she had presided for several years over her uncle's household while Mr. Buchanan served as Minister to England. The charms of young womanhood still lingered about her, but to these was added an aplomb rare in a woman of fifty, so that, during her residence in it, White House functions rose to their highest degree of elegance; to a standard, indeed, that has not since been approached save during the occupancy of the beautiful bride of President Cleveland.

Miss Lane's entrance into life at the American capital, at a trying time, served to keep the surface of society in Washington serene and smiling, though the fires of a volcano raged in the under-political world, and the vibrations of Congressional strife spread to the furthermost ends of the country the knowledge that the Government

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was tottering. The young Lady of the White House came to her new honours with the prestige of Queen Victoria's favour. In her conquest of statesmen, and, it was added, even in feature, she was said to resemble the Queen in her younger days. Miss Lane was a little above the medium height, and both in colour and physique was of an English rather than an American type - a characteristic which was also marked in the President. The latter's complexion was of the rosiest and freshest, and his presence exceedingly fine, notwithstanding a slight infirmity which caused him to hold his head to one side, and gave him a quizzical expression that was, however, pleasing rather than the contrary.

In figure, Miss Lane was full; her complexion was clear and brilliant. In her cheeks there was always a rich, pretty colour, and her hair, a bright chestnut, had a glow approaching gold upon it. She had a columnar, full neck, upon which her head was set superbly. I thought her not beautiful so much as handsome and healthful and good to look upon. I told her once she was like a poet's ideal of an English dairymaid, who fed upon blush roses and the milk of her charges; but a lifting of the head and a heightening of the pretty colour in her cheeks told me my bucolic simile had not pleased her.

Of the Napiers it may be said that no ministerial representatives from a foreign power ever more completely won the hearts of Washingtonians than did that delightful Scotch couple. In appearance, Lady Napier was fair and distinctly a patrician. She was perhaps thirty years of age when she began her two-years' residence in the American capital. Her manner was unaffected and simple; her retinue small. During the Napiers' occupancy, the British Embassy was conspicuous for its complete absence of ostentation and its generous hospitality. Their equipages were of the handsomest,

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but in no instance showy, and this at a period when Washington streets thronged with the conspicuous vehicles affected by the foreign Legations. Indeed, at that time the foreigner was as distinguished for his elaborate carriages as was the Southerner for his blooded horses.(*)

(* A notable vehicle of this sort was purchased in Philadelphia by Mrs. Clay, at a cost of $1,600, and was carried to Alabama, where, among the foliaged avenues of beautiful Huntsville, it attracted universal attention. It was a capacious and splendid equipage, lined with amber satin, and was drawn by the high-bred horses, "Polk" and "Dallas." From Mrs. Clay's possession this gorgeous landau passed into that of Governor Reuben Chapman, and, in the course of years, by various transfers, into the hands of a station hackman, of colour! A.S.)

Lady Napier's avoidance of display extended to her gowning, which was of the quietest, except when some great public function demanded more elaborate preparation. On such occasions her laces - heirlooms for centuries - were called into requisition, and coiffure and corsage blazed with diamonds and emeralds. Her cozy at-homes were remarkable for their informality and the ease which seemed to emanate from the hostess and communicate itself to her guests. A quartette of handsome boys comprised the Napier family, and often these princely little fellows, clad in velvet costumes, assisted their mother at her afternoons, competing with each other for the privilegeof passing refreshments. At such times it was no infrequent thing to hear Lady Napier compared with "Cornelia and her Jewels."

Lord Napier was especially fond of music, and I recall an evening dinner given at this embassy to Miss Emily Schaumberg, of Philadelphia, in which that lady's singing roused the host to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Miss Schaumberg was a great beauty, as well as a finished singer, and was most admired in the capital, though she stayed but a very short time there.

A ball or formal dinner at the British Embassy (and

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these were not infrequent) was always a memorable event. One met there the talented and distinguished; heard good music; listened to the flow of wholesome wit; and enjoyed delectable repasts. Early in 1859 the Napiers gave a large ball to the young Lords Cavendish and Ashley, to which all the resident and visiting belles were invited; and, I doubt not, both lords and ladies were mutually delighted. Miss Corinne Acklin, who was under my wing that season (she was a true beauty and thoroughly enjoyed her belleship), was escorted to supper by Lord Cavendish, and, indeed, had the lion's share of the attentions of both of the visiting noblemen, until our dear, ubiquitous Mrs. Crittenden appeared. That good lady was arrayed, as usual, with remarkable splendour and frankly décolleté gown. She approached Miss Acklin as the latter, glowing with her triumphs, stoodchattingvivaciously with her lordly admirers. "Lady" Crittenden smilingly interrupted the trio by whispering in the young lady's ear, though by no means sotto voce: "Present me to Lord Ashley, my dear. Ashley was my second husband's name, you know, and maybe they were kin!"

"I thought her so silly," said the pouting beauty afterward. "She must be almost sixty!" But Mrs. Crittenden's kindly inquiry was not an unnatural one, for, as the rich widow Ashley, whose husband's family connections in some branches were known to be foreign, she had been renowned from Florida to Maine for years before she became Mrs. Crittenden.

At the home of the Napiers one frequently met Mr. Bayard, between whom and the English Ambassador there existed a close intimacy. Mr. Bayard was the most unobtrusive of men, modesty being his dominant social characteristic. When I visited England in 1885, I had a signal testimony to Lord Napier's long-continued regard for the great Delaware statesman. During my

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stay in London, the former Minister constituted himself cicerone to our party, and, upon one memorable afternoon, he insisted upon drinking a toast with us.

"Oh, no!" I demurred. "Toasts are obsolete!"

"Very well, then," Lord Napier declared. "If you won't, I will. Here's to your President, Mr. Cleveland! But," he continued with a suddenly added depth, "Were it your Chevalier Bayard, I would drink it on my knee!"

Upon my return to America I had the pleasure of shouting to Mr. Bayard, then Secretary of State, a recital of this great tribute. He had now grown very deaf, but my words reached him at last, and he smiled in a most happy way as he asked, almost shyly, but with a warm glance in the eye, despite his effort to remain composed, "Did Napier really say that?"

A feeling of universal regret spread over the capital when it became known that the Napiers were to return to England; and the admiration of the citizens for the popular diplomat expressed itself in the getting-up of a farewell ball, which, in point of size, was one of the most prodigious entertainments ever given in Washington. One group of that great assemblage is vividly before me. In it the young James Gordon Bennett, whom I had seen in earlier days at a fashionable water-cure (and whose general naughtiness as a little boy defies description by my feeble pen), danced vis-à-vis, a handsome, courtly youth, with his mother and Daniel E. Sickles.

During the Piercea dministration the old-fashioned quadrilles and cotillions, with an occasional waltz number, were danced to the exclusion of all other Terpsichorean forms; but in the term of his successor, the German was introduced, when Miss Josephine Ward, of New York, afterward Mrs. John R. Thomson, of New Jersey, became prominent as a leader.

When I review those brilliant scenes in which passed and smiled, and danced and chatted, the vast multitude

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of those who called me "friend," the army of those now numbered with the dead - I am lost in wonder! My memory seems a Herculaneum, in which, let but a spade of thought be sunk, and some long-hidden treasure is unearthed. I have referred to the citizens of Washington. The term unrolls a scroll in which are listed men and women renowned in those days as hostesses and entertainers. They were a rich and exclusive, and, at the same time, a numerous class, that gave body to the social life of the Federal City. Conspicuous among these were Mrs. A. S. Parker and Mrs. Ogle Tayloe. The home of the former was especially the rendezvous of the young. In the late fifties and sixties it was a palatial residence, famous for its fine conservatories,its spacious parlours, and glistening dancing floors. To-day, so greatly has the city changed, that what is left of that once luxurious home has been converted into small tenements which are rented out for a trifle to the very poor. At the marriage of Mrs. Parker's daughter, Mary E., in 1860, to Congressman J. E. Bouligny, of Louisiana, crowds thronged in these now forgotten parlours. The President himself was present to give the pretty bride away,and half of Congress came to wish Godspeed to their fellow-member.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Ogle Tayloe was a museum of things rare and beautiful, vying in this respect with the Corcoran Mansion and the homes of the several members of the Riggs family. One of its treasured mementos was a cane that had been used by Napoleon Bonaparte. Mrs. Tayloe belonged to a New York family; the Tayloes to Virginia. She was a woman of fine taste and broad views, a very gracious hostess, who shrank from the coarse or vulgar wherever she detected it. When Washington became metamorphosed by the strangers who poured into its precincts following the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in 1861, the Tayloe Mansion was shrouded,

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its pictures were covered, and its chandeliers wound with protective wrappings. Entertaining there ceased for years. "Nor have I," said Mrs. Tayloe to me in 1866, "crossed the threshold of the White House since Harriet Lane went out."

At the Tayloe home I often exchanged a smile and a greeting with Lilly Price, my hostess's niece, who, when she reached womanhood, was distinguished first as Mrs. Hamersley, and afterward as Lillian, Duchess of Marlborough. At that time she was a fairy-like little slip of a schoolgirl, who, in the intervals between Fridays and Mondays, was permitted to have a peep at the gay gatherings in her aunt's home. Many years afterward, being a passenger on an outgoing steamer, I learned that Mrs. Hamersley, too, was on board; but before I could make my presence known to her, as had been my intention, she had discovered me and came seeking her "old friend, Mrs. Clay," and I found that there lingered in the manner of the brilliant society leader, Mrs. Hamersley, much of the same bright charm that had distinguished the little Lilly Price as she smiled down at me from her coign of vantage at the top of the stairway of the Tayloe residence.

But the prince of entertainers, whether citizen or official, whowas also a prince among men, the father of unnumbered benefactions and patron of the arts, was dear Mr. Corcoran. When my thoughts turn back to him they invariably resolve themselves into

"And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest."

Throughout our long acquaintance Mr. Corcoran proved himself to be what he wrote himself down, "one of the dearest friends of my dear husband." He was already a widower when, shortly after our arrival in Washington, I met him; and, though many a well-known beauty would have been willing to assume his distinguished name, my own conviction is that Mr. Corcoran never

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thought of marriage with any woman after he committed to the grave the body of his well-beloved wife, Louise Morris, daughter of the brave Commodore.

Mr. Corcoran was a tall and handsome man, even in his old age. In his younger days his expression was the most benignant I have ever seen, though in repose it was tinged with a peculiar mournfulness. The banker's weekly dinners were an institution in Washington life. During each session he dined half of Congress, to say nothing of the foreign representatives and the families of his fellow-citizens.

Evening dances were also of frequent occurrence at the Corcoran Mansion, the giving of which always seemed to me proof of the host's large and great nature; for Louise Corcoran, his daughter, afterward Mrs. Eustis, was a delicate girl, who, owing to some weakness of the heart, was debarred from taking part in the pleasures of the dance. Nevertheless, Mr. Corcoran opened his home to the young daughters of other men, and took pleasure in the happiness he thus gave them. The "Greek Slave," now a principal object of interest in the Corcoran Art Gallery, was then an ornament to the banker's home, and stood in an alcove allotted to it, protected by a gilded chain.

The hospitality of Mr. Corcoran's home, which Senator Clay and I often enjoyed, was a synonym for "good cheer" of the most generous and epicurean sort. I remember an amusing meeting which my husband and I had one evening with Secretary Cobb. It took place on the Treasury pavement. Recognising us as we approached, the bland good humour which was habitual to the Secretary deepened into a broad smile.

"Ah, Clay!" he said to my husband, pulling down his vest with a look of completest satisfaction, "Been to Corcoran's. Johannisberg and tarrepin, sir! I wish," and he gave his waistcoat another pull, glancing up

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significantly at the tall stone pile before us, "I wish the Treasury were as full as I!"

Mr. Corcoran was famous for his Johannisberg, and I recall a dinner at his home when, being escorted to the table by the Danish Minister, who had somewhat the reputation of a connoisseur, our host and my companion immediately began a discussion on the merits of this favourite wine, which the Minister declared was of prime quality, and which, if I remember rightly, Mr. Corcoran said was all made on the estate of the Prince de Metternich. When the Minister announced his approval, our host turned quietly to me and said, sotto voce, "I hoped it was pure. I paid fifteen dollars for it!"

I wish it might be said that all the lavish hospitality of that incomparable gentleman had been appreciated with never a record to the contrary to mar the pleasure he gave; but it must be confessed that the host at the capital whose reputation for liberality extends so widely as did Mr. Corcoran's runs the risk of entertaining some others than angels unaware. The receptions at the Corcoran residence, as at the White House and other famous homes, were occasionally, necessarily, somewhat promiscuous. During the sessions of Congress the city thronged with visitors, many of them constituents of Senators and Congressmen, who came to Washington expecting to receive, as they usually did receive, social courtesies at the hands of their Representatives. Many kindly hosts, aware of these continually arising emergencies, gave latitude to Congressional folk in their invitations sufficient to meet them.

At the Corcoran receptions, a feature of the decorations was the elaborate festooning and grouping of growing plants, which were distributed in profusion about the banker's great parlours. Upon one occasion, in addition to these natural flowers, there was displayed a handsome épergne, in which was placed a most realistic bunch of

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artificial blooms. These proved irresistibly tempting to an unidentified woman visitor; for, in the course of the afternoon, Mr. Corcoran, moving quietly among his guests, saw the stranger take hold of a bunch of these curious ornaments and twist it violently in an effort to detach it from the rest. At this surprising sight Mr. Corcoran stepped to the lady's side, and said with a gentle dignity: "I would not do that, Madam. Please desist. The blossoms are not real. They are rare, however, and have been brought from Europe only by the exercise of the greatest care!"

"Well! If they have? What's that to you?" snapped the lady defiantly.

"Nothing, Madam!" he responded, quietly. "Except that I am Mr. Corcoran!"

Fortunately, not all strangers who were so entertained were of this unpleasant sort. Sometimes the amusement the more provincial afforded quite out-balanced the trouble their entertainment cost our resident representatives. I remember an occasion on which I, acting for my husband, was called upon to show a young woman the sights of the capital. She was the daughter of an important constituent. One morning, as I was about to step into the calash of a friend who had called to take me for a drive, a note was handed to me. It read: "My dear Mrs. Clay: I hope you will recall my name and, in your generosity of heart, will do me a favour. My daughter, is passing through Washington and will be at the - Hotel for one day," naming that very day! "She is very unsophisticated and will be most grateful for anything you can do toward showing her the sights of the capital," etc., etc.

As I knew I might command the services of my escort for the morning (he was a Mr. Parrish, recently from the mines of Africa, and in Washington for the purpose of securing our Government's aid in pressing certain of his

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claims against a foreign power), I proposed that we proceed at once to the - Hotel and take the young woman with us on our drive. To this a kind consent was given, and in a short time I had sent my card to the young stranger. I found her a typical, somewhat callow schoolgirl, over-dressed and self-conscious, who answered every question in the most agitated manner, and who volunteered nothing in the way of a remark upon any subject whatsoever, though she assented gaspingly to all my questions, and went with a nervous alacrity to put on her hat when I invited her to accompany us upon our drive.

We began our tour by taking her directly to the Capitol. We mounted to the dome to view the wonderful plan of the Government City; thence to the House and the Senate Chamber, and into such rooms of state as we might enter; and on to the Government greenhouses, with their horticultural wonders. We paused from time to time in our walk to give the young lady an opportunity to admire and to consider the rare things before her - to remark upon them, if she would; but all our inviting enthusiasm was received in dull silence.

Failing to arouse her interest in the gardens, we next directed our steps to the Smithsonian Institution, where corridor after corridor was explored, in which were specimens from the obscurest corners of the earth, monsters of the deep, and tiny denizens of the air, purchased at fabulous sums of money, but now spread freely before the gaze of whomsoever might desire to look upon them. The Smithsonian Institution, at that time still a novelty even to Washingtonians, has ever been to me a marvellous example of man's humanity to man. I hoped it would so reveal itself to my whilom protégée.

Alas for my hopes! Her apathy seemed to increase. We arrived presently at the Ornithological Department. A multitude of specimens of the feathered tribes were

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here, together with their nests and eggs; still nothing appeared to interest my guest or lessen what I was rapidly beginning to regard as a case of hebetude, pure and simple. I was perplexed; Mr. Parrish, it was plain, was bored when, arriving almost at the end of the cases, to my relief the girl's attention seemed arrested. More, she stood literally transfixed before the nest of the great Auk, and uttered her first comment of the day:

"Lor'!" she said, in a tone of awestruck amazement, "What a big egg!"

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CHAPTER IX
A CELEBRATED SOCIAL EVENT

EARLY in the season of 1857-'58 our friend Mrs. Senator Gwin announced her intention of giving a ball which should eclipse every gathering of the kind that had ever been seen in Washington. Just what its character was to be was not yet decided; but, after numerous conferences with her friends in which many and various suggestions were weighed, the advocates for the fancy ball prevailed over those in favour of a masquerade, to which, indeed, Senator Gwin himself was averse, and these carried the day.

Surely no hostess ever more happily realised her ambitions! When the function was formally announced, all Washington was agog. For the ensuing weeks men as well as women were busy consulting costumers, ransacking the private collections in the capital, and conning precious volumes of coloured engravings in a zealous search for original and accurate costuming. Only the Senators who were to be present were exempt from this anticipatory excitement, for Senator Gwin, declaring that nothing was more dignified for members of this body than their usual garb, refused to appear in an assumed one, and so set the example for his colleagues.

As the time approached, expectation ran high. Those who were to attend were busy rehearsing their characters and urging the dressmakers and costumers to the perfect completion of their tasks, while those who were debarred deplored their misfortune. I recall a pathetic lament from my friend Lieutenant Henry Myers, who was

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obliged to leave on the United States ship Marion on the fourth of April (the ball was to occur on the ninth), in which he bemoaned the deprivations of a naval officer's life, and especially his inability to attend the coming entertainment.

When the evening of the ball arrived there was a flutter in every boudoir in Washington, in which preparation for the great event was accelerated by the pleasurable nervousness of maid and mistress.Mrs.Gwin'scostume, and those of other leading Washingtonians, it was known, had been selected in New York, and rumours were rife on the elegant surprises that were to be sprung upon the eventful occasion.

With Senator Clay and me that winter were three charming cousins, the Misses Comer, Hilliard and Withers. They impersonated, respectively, a gypsy fortune-teller, a Constantinople girl, and "Titania"; and, to begin at the last (as a woman may do if she will), a wonderful "Titania" the tiny Miss Withers was, robed in innumerable spangled tulle petticoats that floated as she danced, her gauze wings quivering like those of a butterfly, and her unusually small feet glistening no less brilliantly with spangles.

"Miss Withers, yon tiny fairy," wrote Major de Havilland, who in his "Metrical Glance at the Fancy Ball" immortalised the evening, "as 'Titania' caused many a Midsummer Night's Dream." Miss Hilliard, whose beauty was well set off in a costly and picturesque costume of the East, owed her triumph of the evening to the kindness of Mrs. Joseph Holt, who had bought the costume (which she generously placed at my cousin's disposal) during a tour of the Orient. So attractive was my cousin's charming array, and so correct in all its details, that as she entered Mrs. Gwin's ballroom, a party of Turkish onlookers, seeing the familiar garb, broke into applause.

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Miss Comer in a brilliant gown that was plentifully covered with playing-cards, carried also a convenient pack of the same, with which she told fortunes in a mystifying manner, for I had coached her carefully in all the secrets of the day. I must admit she proved a clever pupil, for she used her knowledge well whenever an opportunity presented, to the confusion of many whose private weaknesses she most tormentingly exposed.

My chosen character was an unusual one, being none other than that remarkable figure created by Mr. Shillaber, Aunt Ruthy Partington. It was the one character assumed during that memorable evening, by one of my sex, in which age and personal attractions were sacrificed ruthlessly for its more complete delineation.

I was not the only one anxious to impersonate the quaint lady from Beanville, over whose grammatical faux pas all America was amusing itself. Ben Perley Poore no sooner heard of my selection of this character than he begged me to yield to him, but I was not to bedeterred,havingcommitted to heart the whole of Mrs. Partington's homely wit. Moreover, I had already, the previous summer, experimented with the character while at Red Sweet Springs, where a fancy ball had been given with much success, and I was resolved to repeat the amusing experience at Mrs. Gwin's ball.

Finding me inexorable, Mr. Poore at last desisted and chose another character, that of Major Jack Downing. He made a dashing figure, too, and we an amusing pair, as, at the "heel of the morning," we galoped wildly over Mrs. Gwin's wonderfully waxed floors. The galop, I may add in passing, was but just introduced in Washington, and its popularity was wonderful.

If I dwell on that evening with particular satisfaction, the onus of such egotism must be laid at the door of my flattering friends; for even now, when nearly twoscore years and ten have passed, those who remain of that

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merry assemblage of long ago recall it with a smile and a tender recollection. "I can see you now, in my mind's eye," wrote General George Wallace Jones, in 1894; "how you vexed and tortured dear old President Buchanan at Doctor and Mrs. Gwin's famous fancy party! You were that night the observed of all observers!" And still more recently another, recalling the scene, said, "The orchestra stopped, for the dancers lagged, laughing convulsively at dear Aunt Ruthy!"

Nor would I seem to undervalue by omitting the tribute in verse paid me by the musical Major de Havilland:

"Mark how the grace that gilds an honoured name,
Gives a strange zest to that loquacious dame
Whose ready tongue and easy blundering wit
Provoke fresh uproar at each happy hit!
Note how her humour into strange grimace
Tempts the smooth meekness of yon Quaker's ace.(*)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But-densergrowsthe crowd round Partington;
'T'were vain to try to name them one by one."(**)

(* A reference to Mrs. Emory, a notably attractive member of Washington society.)
(** Nevertheless, the chronicler named in rapid succession as among Mrs. Clay's attendants, Lord Napier, sir William Gore Ouseley, K.C.B., and many prominent figures in the capital. "Mrs. Senator Clay," he added in prose, "with knitting in hand, snuff-box in pocket, and 'Ike the Inevitable' by her side, acted out her difficult character so as to win the unanimous verdict that her personation of the loquacious malapropos dame was the leading feature of the evening's entertainment. Go where she would through the spacious halls, a crowd of eager listeners followed her footsteps, drinking in her instant repartees, which were really superior in wit and appositeness, and, indeed, in the vein of the famous dame's cacoethes, even to the original contribution of Shillaber to the nonsensical literature of the day." A.S.)

It was not without some trepidation of spirit that I surrendered myself into the hands of a professional maker-up of theatrical folk and saw him lay in the shadows and wrinkles necessary to the character, and adjust my front-piece of grey hair into position; and, as my conception of the quaint Mrs. Partington was that

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of a kindly soul, I counselled the attendant - a Hungarian attache of the local theatre - to make good-natured vertical wrinkles over my brow, and not horizontal ones, which indicate the cynical and harsh character.

My disguise was soon so perfect that my friend Mrs. L. Q. C. Lamar, who came in shortly after the ordeal of making-up was over, utterly failed to recognise me in, the country woman before her. She looked about the room with a slight reserve aroused by finding herself thus in the presence of a stranger, and asked of Emily, "Where is Mrs. Clay?" At this my cousins burst into merry laughter, in which Mrs. Lamar joined when assured of my identity.

Thus convinced of the success of my costume, I was glad to comply with a request that came by messenger from Miss Lane, for our party to go to the White House on our way to Mrs. Gwin's, to show her our "pretty dresses," a point of etiquette intervening to prevent the Lady of the White House from attending the great ball of a private citizen. Forthwith we drove to the Executive Mansion, where we were carried sans cérémonie to Miss Lane's apartments. Here Mrs. Partington found herself in the presence of her first audience. Miss Lane and the President apparently were much amused at her verdancy, and, after a few initiative malapropisms, some pirouettes by "Titania" and our maid from the Orient, done to the shuffling of our little fortune-teller's cards, we departed, our zest stimulated, for the Gwin residence.

My very first conquest as Mrs. Partington, as I recall it now, was of Mrs. Representative Pendleton, whom I met on the stairs. Shewasradiantlybeautiful as the "Star-Spangled Banner," symbolising the poem by which her father, Francis Scott Key, immortalised himself. As we met, her face broke into a smile of delicious surprise.

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"How inimitable!" she cried. "Who is it? No! you shan't pass till you tell me!" And when I laughingly informed her in Aunt Ruthy's own vernacular, she exclaimed: "What! Mrs. Clay? Why! there isn't a vestige of my friend left!"

My costume was ingeniously devised. It consisted of a plain black alpaca dress and black satin apron; stockings as blue as a certain pair of indigos I have previously described, and large, loose-fitting buskin shoes. Over my soft grey front piece I wore a high-crowned cap, which, finished with a prim ruff, set closely around the face. On the top was a diminutive bow of narrowest ribbon, while ties of similarly economical width secured it under thechin.My disguise was further completed by a pair of stone-cutter's glasses with nickel rims, which entirely concealed my eyes. A white kerchief was drawn primly over my shoulders, and was secured by a huge medallion pin, in which was encased the likeness, as large as the palm of my hand, of "my poor Paul."

On my arm I carried a reticule in which were various herbs, elecampane and catnip, and other homely remedies, and a handkerchief in brilliant colours on which was printed with fearless and emphatic type the Declaration of Independence. This bit of "stage property" was used ostentatiously betimes, especially when Aunt Ruthy's tears were called forth by some sad allusion to her lost "Paul." In my apron pocket was an antique snuff-box which had been presented to me, as I afterward told Senator Seward, by the Governor of Rhode Island, "a lover of the Kawnstitution, Sir."

But, that nothing might be lacking, behind me trotted my boy "Ike," dear little "Jimmy" Sandidge (son of the member from Louisiana), aged ten, who for days, in the secrecy of my parlour, I had drilled in the aid he was to lend me. He was a wonderful little second, and the

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fidelity to truth in his make-up was so amusing that I came near to losing him at the very outset. His ostentatiously darned stockings and patched breeches, long since outgrown, were a surprising sight in the great parlours of our host, and Senator Gwin, seeing the little urchin who, he thought, had strayed in from the street, took him by the shoulder and was about to lead him out when some one called to him, "Look out, Senator! You'll be getting yourself into trouble! That's Aunt Ruthy's boy, Ike!"

Mrs. Partington was not the only Yankee character among that throng of princes and queens, and dames of high degree, for Mr. Eugene Baylor, of Louisiana, impersonated a figure as amusing - that of "Hezekiah Swipes," of Vermont. He entered into his part with a zest as great as my own, and kept "a-whittlin' and a-whittlin' jes' as if he was ter hum!" For myself, I enjoyed a peculiar exhilaration in the thought that, despite my amusing dress, the belles of the capital (and many were radiant beauties, too) gave way before Aunt Ruthy and her nonsense. As I observed this my zeal increased, and not even Senator Clay, who feared my gay spirits would react and cause me to become exhausted, could prevail upon me to yield a serious word or one out of my character throughout the festal night. If I paid for it, as I did, by several days' retirement, I did not regret it, since the evening itself went off so happily.

Mrs. Gwin, as the Queen of Louis Quatorze, a regal lady, stood receiving her guests with President Buchanan beside her as Aunt Ruthy entered, knitting industriously, but stopping ever and anon to pick up a stitch which the glory of her surroundings caused her to drop. Approaching my hostess and her companion, I first made my greetings to Mrs. Gwin, with comments on her "invite," and wondered, looking up at the windows, if she "had

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enough venerators to take off the execrations of that large assemblage"; but, when she presented Mrs. Partington to the President, "Lor!" exclaimed that lady, "Air you ralely 'Old Buck'? I've often heern tell o' Old Buck up in Beanville, but I don't see no horns!"

"No, Madam," gravely responded the President, assuming for the nonce the cynic, "I'm not a married man!"

It was at this memorable function that Lord Napier (who appeared in the character of Mr. Hammond, the first British Minister to the United States) paid his great tribute to Mrs. Pendleton. Her appearance on that occasion was lovely. She was robed in a white satin gown made dancing length, over which were rare lace flounces. A golden eagle with wings outstretched covered her corsage, and from her left shoulder floated a long tricolour sash on which, in silver letters, were the words "E Pluribus Unum." A crown of thirteen flashing stars was set upon her well-poised head, and a more charming interpretation in dress of the national emblem could scarcely have been devised.

Ah! but that was a remarkable throng! My memory, as I recall that night, seems like a long chain, of which, if I strike but a single link, the entire length rattles! Beautiful Thérèse Chalfant Pugh as "Night" - what a vision she was, and what a companion picture Mrs. Douglas, who, as "Aurora," was radiant in the pale tints of the morning! There were mimic Marchionesses, and Kings of England and France and Prussia; White Ladies of Avenel and Dukes of Buckingham, Maids of Athens and Saragossa, gypsies and fairies, milkmaids, and even a buxom barmaid; Antipholus himself and the Priestess Norma, Pierrots and Follies, peasants and Highland chiefs moving in heterogeneous fashion in the great ballrooms.

Barton Key, as an English hunter, clad in white satin

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breeks, cherry-velvet jacket, and jaunty cap, with lemon- coloured high-top boots, and a silver bugle (upon which he blew from time to time) hung across his breast, was a conspicuous figure in that splendid happy assemblage, and Mlle. de Montillon was a picture in the Polish character costume in which her mother had appeared when she danced in a Polonaise before the Empress at the Tuilleries.

Sir William Gore Ouseley, the "Knight of the Mysterious Mission," attracted general attention in his character of Knight Commander of the Bath. The Baroness de Staeckl and Miss Cass were models of elegance as French Court beauties, and Mrs. Jefferson Davis as Mme. de Staël dealt in caustic repartee as became her part, delivered now in French and again in broken English, to the annihilation of all who had the temerity to cross swords with her.

Among the guests "our furrin relations" were numerously represented, and I remember well the burst of laughter which greeted Mrs. Partington when she asked Lady Napier, with a confidential and sympathetic air, "whether the Queen had got safely over her last encroachment." Incidentally she added some good advice on the bringing up of children, illustrating its efficacy by pointing to Ike, whom she "was teaching religiously both the lethargy and the cataplasm!"

My memories of Mrs. Gwin's ball would be incomplete did I not mention two or more of Aunt Ruthy's escapades during the evening. The rumour of my intended impersonation had aroused in the breast of a certain Balimorean youth the determination to disturb, "to break up Mrs. Clay's composure." I heard of the young man's intention through some friend early in the evening, and my mother-wit, keyed as it was to a pitch of alertness, promptly aided me to the overthrow of the venturesome hero. He came garbed as a newsboy, and, nature having provided him with lusty lungs, he made amusing announcements

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as to the attractions of his wares, at the most unexpected moments. Under his arm he carried a bundle of papers which he hawked about in a most professional manner. At an unfortunate moment he walked hurriedly by as if on his rounds, and stopping beside me he called out confidently, "Baltimore Sun! Have a 'Sun,' Madam?"

"Tut, tut! Man!" said Mrs. Partington, horrified. "How dare you ask such a question of a virtuous female widow woman?" Then bursting into sobs and covering her eyes with the broad text of the "Declaration of Independence," she cried, "What would my poor Paul think of that?" To the hilarious laughter of those who had gathered about us, the routed hero retreated hastily, and, for the remainder of the evening, restrained by a wholesome caution, he gave Aunt Ruthy a wide berth.

Such kind greetings as came to this unsophisticated visitor to the ball! "You're the sweetest-looking old thing!" exclaimed "Lushe" Lamar before he had penetrated my disguise. "I'd just like to buss you!"

I had an amusing recontre with Senator Seward that evening. That this pronounced Northerner had made numerous efforts in the past to meet me I was well aware; but my Southern sentiments were wholly disapproving of him, and I had resisted even my kinder-hearted husband's plea, and had steadily refused to permit him to be introduced to me. "Not even to save the Nation could I be induced to eat his bread, to drink his wine, to enter his domicile, to speak to him!" I once impetuously declared, when the question came up in private of attending some function which the Northern Senator was projecting.

At Mrs. Gwin's ball, however, I noticed Mr. Seward hovering in my neighbourhood, and I was not surprised when he, "who could scrape any angle to attain an end," as my cousin Miss Comer said so aptly, finding none

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brave enough to present him, took advantage of my temporary merging into Mr. Shillaber's character, and presented himself to "Mrs. Partington." He was very courteous, if a little uncertain of his welcome, as he approached me, and said, "Aunt Ruthy, can't I, too, have the pleasure of welcoming you to the Federal City? May I have a pinch of snuff with you?" It was here that Mrs. Partington reminded him that the donor of her snuff-box "loved the Kawnstitewtion." I gave him the snuff and with it a number of Partingtonian shots about his opinions concerning "Slave Oligawky," which were fearless even if "funny," as the Senator seemed to find them, and I passed on. This was my first and only meeting with Mr. Seward.(*)

(* While this playful exchange of ideas was going on, Senator Clay stood near his Northern confrere, with whom his relations were always courteous and kindly. At Mrs. Clay's parting sally, Senator Seward turned to the lady's husband and remarked, "Clay, she's superb!" "Yes." replied Senator Clay, "when she married me America lost its Siddons!" A.S.)

I was so exhilarated at the success of my rôle that I had scarce seen our cousins during the evening (I am sure they thought me an ideal chaperone), though I caught an occasional glimpse of the gauzy-winged "Titania," and once I saw the equally tiny Miss Comer go whirling down the room in a wild galop with the tall Lieutenant Scarlett, of Her Majesty's Guards, who was conspicuous in a uniform as rubescent as his patronymic. And I recall seeing an amusing little bit of human nature in connection with our hostess, which showed how even the giving of this superb entertainment could not disturb Mrs. Gwin's perfect oversight of her household.

The "wee sma' hours" had come, and I had just finished complimenting my hostess on her "cold hash and cider," when the butler stepped up to her and, in discreet pantomime, announced that the wine had given out.

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Then she, Queen for the nonce of the most magnificent of the Bourbons, did step aside and, lifting her stiff moiré skirt and its costly train of cherry satin (quilled with white, it was), did extract from some secret pocket the key to the wine cellar, and pass it right royally to her menial. This functionary shortly afterward returned and rendered it again to her, when, by the same deft manipulation of her rich petticoats, the implement was replaced in its repository, and the Queen once more emerged to look upon her merrymakers.

For years Mrs. Gwin's fancy ball has remained one of the most brilliant episodes in the annals of ante-bellum days in the capital. For weeks after its occurrence the local photograph and daguerreotype galleries were thronged with patrons who wished to be portrayed in the costumes they had worn upon the great occasion; and a few days after the ball, supposing I would be among that number, Mr. Shillaber sent me a request for my likeness, adding that he "would immortalise me." But, flushed with my own success, and grown daring by reason of it, I replied that, being hors de combat, I could not respond as he wished. I thanked him for his proffer, however, and reminded him that the public had anticipated him, and that by their verdict I had already immortalised myself!

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CHAPTER X
EXODUS OF SOUTHERN SOCIETY FROM THE FEDERAL CITY

IN the winter of '59 and '60 it became obvious to everyone that gaiety at the capital was waning. Aside from public receptions, now become palpably perfunctory, only an occasional wedding served to give social zest to the rapidly sobering Congressional circles. Ordinary "at-homes" were slighted. Women went daily to the Senate gallery to listen to the angry debates on the floor below. When belles met they no longer discussed furbelows and flounces, but talked of forts and fusillades. The weddings of my cousin, Miss Hilliard, in 1859, and of Miss Parker, in 1860, already described, were the most notable, matrimonial events of those closing days of Washington's splendour.

To Miss Hilliard's marriage to Mr. Hamilton Glentworth, of New York, which occurred at mid-day at old St. John's, and to the reception that followed, came many of the Senatorial body and dignitaries of the capital. A procession of carriages drawn by white horses accompanied the bridal party to the church, where the celebrated Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, performed the ceremony. The bride's gown and that of one of the bridesmaids were "gophered," this being the first appearance of the new French style of trimming in the capital. One of the bridesmaids, I remember, was gowned in pinkcrêpe, which was looped back with coral, then a most fashionable garniture; the costume of another was of embroidered tulle caught up with bunches of grapes; and each of the

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accompanying ushers - such were the fashions of the day - wore inner vests of satin, embroidered in colour to match the gown of the bridesmaid alloted to his charge.

Notable artists appeared in the capital, among them Charlotte Cushman, and there were stately, not to say stiff and formal, dinners at the British Embassy, now presided over by Lord Lyons. This Minister's arrival was looked upon as a great event. Much gossip had preceded it, and all the world was agog to know if it were true that feminine-kind was debarred from his menage. It was said that his personally chartered vessel had conveyed to our shores not only the personages comprising his household, but also his domestics and skilful gardeners, and even the growing plants for his conservatory. It was whispered that when his Lordship entertained ladies his dinner-service was to be of solid gold; that when gentlemen were his guests they were to dine from the costliest of silver plate. Moreover, the gossips at once set about predicting that the newcomer would capitulate to the charms of some American woman, and speculation was already rife as to who would be the probable bride.

Lord Lyons began his American career by entertaining at dinner the Diplomatic Corps, and afterward the officials of our country, in the established order of precedence, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, and Senate circles leading, according to custom. His Lordship's invitations being sent out alphabetically, Senator Clay and I received a foreign and formidable card to the first Senatorial dinner given by the newly arrived diplomat. My husband's appearance at this function, I remember, was particularly distinguished. He was clad in conventional black, and wore with it a cream-coloured vest of brocaded velvet; yet, notwithstanding my wifely pride in him, we had what almost amounted to a disagreement

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on our way to the famous feast. We drove to Lord Lyons's domicile with Senator and Mrs. Crittenden, and my perturbation furnished them with much amusement. For some reason or for lack of one I was obsessed by a suspicion that the new Minister, probably being unaware of the state of feeling which continually manifested itself between Northern and Southern people in the capital, might assign to me, as my escort to table, some pronounced Republican.

"What would you do in that event?" asked Senator Clay.

"Do?" I asked, hotly and promptly. "I would refuse to accept him!"

My husband's voice was grave as he said, "I hope there will be no need!"

Arriving at the Embassy, I soon discovered that, as had been rumoured, the maid ordinarily at hand to assist women guests had been replaced by a fair young English serving-man, who took charge of my wraps, and knelt to remove my overshoes with all the deftness of a practiced femme de chambre. These preliminaries over, I rejoined my husband in the corridor, and together we proceeded to our host, and, having greeted him, turned aside to speak to other friends.

Presently Senator Brown, Mr. Davis's confrère from Mississippi, made his way to me. Senator Brown was one of the brightest men in Congress. As he approached, my misgivings vanished and I smiled as I said, "Ah! you are to be my gallant this evening!"

"Not so," replied he. "I'm to go in with Mme. - and shall be compelled to smell 'camphired' cleaned gloves for hours!"

He left my side. Presently he was replaced by Mr. Eames, ex-Minister to Venezuela. Again I conjectured him to be the man who was destined to escort me; but, after the exchange of a few words, he, too, excused

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himself, and I saw him take his place at the side of his rightful partner. In this way several others came and went, and still I stood alone. I wondered what it all meant, and gave a despairing look at my husband, who, I knew, was rapidly becoming as perturbed as was I. Presently the massive doors slid apart, and a voice proclaimed, "Dinner, my Lord!" Now my consternation gave way to overwhelming surprise and confusion, for our host, glancing inquiringly around the circle, stepped to my side, and, bowing profoundly, offered his arm with, "I have the honour, Madam!" Once at the table, I quickly regained my composure, assisted, perhaps, to this desirable state, by a feeling of triumph as I caught from across the table the amused glance of my erstwhile companion, Mrs. Crittenden.

Lord Lyons's manner was so unconstrained and easy that I soon became emboldened to the point of suggesting to him the possibility of some lovely American consenting to become "Lyonised." His Lordship's prompt rejoinder and quizzical look quite abashed me, and brought me swiftly to the conclusion that I would best let this old lion alone; for he said, "Ah, Madam! do you remember what Uncle Toby said to his nephew when he informed him of his intended marriage?" Then, without waiting for my assent, he added, "Alas! alas! quoth my Uncle Toby, you will never sleep slantindicularly in your bed more!"

I had an adventure at a ball in 1859, which, though unimportant in itself, turns a pleasing side-light upon one of the more courteous of our political opponents. A dance had been announced, the music had begun, and the dancers had already taken their places, when my partner was called aside suddenly. Something occurred to detain him longer than he had expected, and the time for us to lead having arrived, there was a call for the missing gallant, who was nowhere to be seen. I looked about helplessly,

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wondering what I was to do, when Anson Burlingame, who was standing near, seeing my dilemma, stepped promptly forward, and, taking my hand in most courtly manner, he said, "Pardon me, Madam!" and led me, bewildered, through the first steps of the dance!

Lost in amazement at his courtesy, I had no time to demur, and, when we returned to my place, the delinquent had reappeared. Bowing politely, Mr. Burlingame withdrew. The circumstance caused quite a ripple among those who witnessed it. Those who knew me best were amused at my docility in allowing myself thus to be led through the dance by a rank Abolitionist; but many were the comments made upon "Mr. Burlingame's audacity in daring to speak to Mrs. Clement Clay!"

Such were the scenes, both grave and gay, that preceded what was surely the saddest day of my life - January 21, 1861 - when, after years of augmenting dissension between the Sections, I saw my husband take his portfolio under his arm and leave the United States Senate Chamber in company with other no less earnest Southern Senators. For weeks the pretense of amity between parties had ceased, and social formalities no longer concealed the gaping chasm that divided them. When the members of each met, save for a glare of defiance or contempt, each ignored the other, or, if they spoke, it was by way of a taunt or a challenge. Every sentence uttered in Senate or House was full of hot feeling born of many wrongs and long-sustained struggle. For weeks, men would not leave their seats by day or by night, lest they might lose their votes on the vital questions of the times. At the elbows of Senators, drowsy with long vigils, pages stood, ready to waken them at the calling of the roll.

Not a Southern woman but felt, with her husband, the stress of that session, the sting of the wrongs the Southern faction of that great body was struggling to right. For

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forty years the North and the South had striven for the balance of power, and the admission of each new State was become the subject of bitter contention. There was, on the part of the North, a palpable envy of the hold the South had retained so long upon the Federal City, whether in politics or society, and the resolution to quell us, by physical force, was everywhere obvious. The face of the city was lowering, and some of the North agreed with us of the South that a nation's suicide was about to be precipitated.

Senator Clay, than whom the South has borne no more self- sacrificing son, nor the Nation a truer patriot, was an ill man as that "winter of national agony and shame" (vide the Northern witness, Judge Hoar) progressed. The incertitude of President Buchanan was alarming; but the courage of our people to enter upon what they knew must be a defense of everything they held dear in State and family institution rose higher and higher to meet each advancing danger. The seizure by South Carolina of United States forts that lay, a menace, within her very doorway, acted like a spur upon the courage of the South.

"We have been hard at work all day," wrote a defender of our cause from Morris Island, January 17, 1861 "helping to make, with our own hands, a battery, and moving into place some of the biggest guns you ever saw, and all immediately under the guns of old Anderson.(*) He fired a shell down the Bay this afternoon to let us know what he could do. But he had a little idea what we can do from his observation of our firing the other morning,(**) at the 'Star of the West,' all of which he saw, and he thought we had ruined the ship, as Lieutenant Hall represented in the city that morning. . . .We learn to-day that in Washington they are trying to

(* Major Anderson, in command at Fort Sumter.)
(** January 9, 1861.)

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procrastinate. That does not stop our most earnest preparation, for we are going to work all night to receive from the steamboat three more enormous guns and place them ready to batter down Fort Sumter, and we can do it. We hope the other points are as forward in their preparations as we are. If so, we can smoke him out in a week. We are nearest to him, and he may fire on us to-night, but if he were to kill everybody in the State, and only one woman was left, and she should bear a child, that child would be a secessionist. Our women are even more spirited than we are, though, bless the dear creatures, I have not seen one in a long time."

Yet, despite these buoyant preparations for defense, there was a lingering sentiment among us that caused us to deplore the necessity that urged our men to arms. My husband was exceedingly depressed at the futility of the Peace Commission, for he foresaw that the impending conflict would be bloody and ruinous. One incident that followed the dissolution of that body impressed itself ineradicably upon my mind. Just after its close ex-President Tyler came to our home. He was now an old man and very attenuated. He was completely undone at the failure of the Peace men, and tears trickled down his cheeks as he said to Senator Clay, indescribable sadness, "Clay, the end has come!"

In those days men eyed each other warily and spoke guardedly, save to the most tried and proved friend. One evening early in 1861, Commander Semmes, U. S. N., called upon us, and happened to arrive just as another naval officer, whose name I have now forgotten, was announced. The surprise that spread over the faces of our visitors when they beheld each other was great, but Senator Clay's and my own was greater, as hour after hour was consumed in obvious constraint. Neither of the officers appeared to be at ease, yet for hours neither seemed to desire to relieve the situation by taking his

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departure. Midnight had arrived ere our now forgotten guest rose and bade us "good night." Then Commander Semmes hastened to unbosom himself. He had resolved to out-sit the other gentleman if it took all night.

"As my Senator, Mr. Clay," he said, "I want to report to you my decision on an important matter. I have resolved to hand in my resignation to the United States Government, and tender my services to that of the Confederate States. I don't know what the intention of my brother officer is, but I could take no risk with him," he added. Many a scene as secret, as grave, and as "treasonable," took place in those last lowering weeks.

I have often mused upon the impression held by the younger generation of those who were adverse to the South, viz.: that she "was prepared for the war" into which we were precipitated practically by the admission of Kansas; that our men, with treasonable foresight,had armed themselves individually and collectively for resistance to our guileless and unsuspicious oppressors. Had this been true, the result of that terrible civil strife would surely have been two nations where now we have one. To the last, alas! too few of our people realised that war was inevitable. Even our provisional Secretary of War for the Confederate States,(*) early in '61 publicly prophesied that, should fighting actually begin, it would be over in three months! It must be apparent to thinkers that such gay dreamers do not form deep or "deadly plots."

(* General L. Pope Walker.)

Personally I knew of but one man whose ferocity led him to collect and secrete weapons of warfare. He was Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, with whom I entered into collusion. For months my parlour was made an arsenal for the storing of a dozen lengthy spears. They were handsome weapons, made, I suspect, for some decorative purpose, but I never knew their origin nor learned of

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their destination. On them were engraved these revolutionary words:

"Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck the flower of safety."

As Senator Clay's unequivocal position as a Southern man was everywhere understood, our parlours were frequently the gathering-place of statesmen from our own section and such others as were friendly to our people and believed in our right to defend the principles we had maintained since the administration of the first President of the United States. Among the last mentioned were Senators Pendleton and Pugh, and the ardent member of Congress from Ohio, Mr. Vallandigham. Often the "dread arms" deposited by Mr. Ruffin proved a subject of conjecture and mirth, with which closed some weightier conversation. As the day drew near, however, for the agreed upon withdrawal of our Senators the tension under which all laboured made jests impossible, and keyed every heart to the utmost solemnity. Monday, January 21st, was the day privately agreed upon by a number of Senators for their public declaration of secession; but, as an example of the uncertainty which hobbled our men, until within a day or two of the appointed time several still awaited the instructions from their States by which their final act must be governed. Early on Sunday morning, January 20th, my husband received from a distinguished colleague the following letter:

"WASHINGTON, Saturday night, January 19, 1861.

"My Dear Clay: By telegraph I am informed that the copy of the ordinance of secession of my State was sent by mail to-day, one to each of two branches of representation, and that my immediate presence at - is required. It thus appears that - was expected to present the paper in the Senate and some one of the members to do so in the House. All have gone save me, I, alone, and I am called away. We have piped and they would not dance, and now the devil may care.

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"I am grieved to hear that you are sick, the more so that I cannot go to you. God grant your attack may be slight."

And now the morning dawned of what all knew would be a day of awful import. I accompanied my husband to the Senate, and everywhere the greeting or gaze of absorbed, unrecognising men and women was serious and full of trouble. The galleries of the Senate, which hold, it is estimated, one thousand people, were packed densely, principally with women, who, trembling with excitement, awaited the denouement of the day. As, one by one, Senators David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory, Clement C. Clay, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, and Jefferson Davis rose, the emotion of their brother Senators and of us in the galleries increased; and, when I heard the voice of my husband, steady and clear, notwithstanding his illness, declare in that Council Chamber:

"Mr. President, I rise to announce that the people of Alabama have adopted an ordinance whereby they withdraw from the Union, formed under a compact styled the United States, resume the powers delegated to it, and assume their separate station as a sovereign and independent people," it seemed as if the blood within me congealed.

As each Senator, speaking for his State, concluded his solemn renunciation of allegiance to the United States, women grew hysterical and waved their handkerchiefs, encouraging them with cries of sympathy and admiration. Men wept and embraced each other mournfully. At times the murmurs among the onlookers grew so deep that the Sergeant-at-Arms was ordered to clear the galleries; and, as each speaker took up his portfolio and gravely left the Senate Chamber, sympathetic shouts rang from the assemblage above. Scarcely a member of that Senatorial body but was pale with the terrible significance of the hour. There was everywhere a feeling of suspense, as if, visibly, the pillars of the temple were

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being withdrawn and the great Government structure was tottering; nor was there a patriot on either side who did not deplore and whiten before the evil that brooded so low over the nation.

When Senator Clay concluded his speech, many of his colleagues, among them several from Republican ranks, came forward to shake hands with him. For months his illness had been a theme of public regret and apprehension among our friends. "A painful rumour reached me this morning," wrote Joseph Holt to me late in 1860, "in relation to the health of your excellent husband. . . .While I hope sincerely this is an exaggeration, yet the apprehensions awakened are so distressing, that I cannot resist the impulse of my heart to write you in the trust that your reply will relieve me from all anxiety. It is my earnest prayer that a life adorned by so many graces may be long spared to yourself, so worthy of its devotion, andto our country, whose councils so need its genius and patriotism. . . .Believe me most sincerely your friend, Joseph Holt."

In fact, the news of Senator Clay's physical sufferings had been telegraphed far and near, and, merged with the fear for our country, there was, in my own heart, great anxiety and sadness for him. Our mail was full of inquiries as to his welfare, many from kindly strangers and even from States that were bitterly inimical to our cause. One of these came from the far North, from one who signed himself, "A plain New Hampshire minister, Henry E. Parker." Nor can I refrain from quoting a portion of his letter, which bears the never-to-be-forgotten date of January 21st, 1861. He wrote as follows:

"I am utterly appalled at this projected dissolution of our Government. To lose, to throw away our place and name among the nations of the earth, seems not merely like the madness of suicide, but the very blackness of annihilation. If this thing shall be accomplished, it will be, to

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my view, the crime of the nineteenth century; the partition of Poland will be nothing in comparison. . . .

"Born and educated as we are at the North, sensible men at the South cannot wonder at the views we entertain, nor do sensible men at the North think it strange that, born and educated as the Southerner is, he should feel very differently from the Northerner in some things; but why should not all these difficulties sink before our common love for our common country?"

Why, indeed! Yet the cry of "disunion" had been heard for forty years(*) and still our Southern men had forborne, until the party belligerents, whose encroachments had now, at last, become unbearable, had begun to look upon our protests as it were a mere cry of "wolf." Of those crucial times, and of that dramatic scene in the United States Senate, no Southern pen has written in permanent words; and such Northern historians as Messrs. Nicolay and Hay elide, as if their purpose were to obscure, the deliberate and public withdrawal of those representatives, our martyrs to their convictions, their institutions and their children's heritages; and would so bury them under the sweeping charges of "conspiracy" and "treason" that the casual reader of the future is not likely to realise with what candour to their opponents, with what dignity to themselves, out of what loyalty to their States, and yet again with what grief for the nation and sacrifice of life-time associations, the various seceding Senators went out at last from that august body!

(* "Talk of disunion, threats of disunion, accusations of intentions of disunion lie scattered plentifully through the political literature of the country from the very formation of the Government," say Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. See vol. II, page 296, of "Abraham Lincoln." Also, "Benson's Thirty Years' View." Vol. II, page 786.)

Formonths the struggle of decades had been swiftly approximating to its bloody culmination. Our physical prosperity, no less than the social security we enjoyed, had caused us to become objects of envy to the rough elements

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in the new settlements, especially of the Northwest.(*) So inimical was the North to us that though the South was the treasury of the nation; though she had contributed from her territory the very land upon which the Federal City was built; though her sons ranked among the most brilliant of whom the young Republic could boast - it was impossible for the South to get an appropriation of even a few hundred thousand dollars, to provide for the building of a lighthouse on that most dangerous portion of the Atlantic coast, the shore of North Carolina!

(* This fact is emphasised by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. See vol. I, page 142, "Abraham Lincoln.")

An era of discovery and expansion preceded the outbreak of the war. By means of costly embassies to the Eastern countries, new avenues of commerce had been opened. The acquisition of Cuba and of the Mexican States became an ambition on the part of Mr. Buchanan, who was anxious to repeat during his Administration the successes of his predecessors, Presidents Fillmore and Pierce. So long ago as '55, the question of the purchase of the island of St. Thomas from the Danish Government was a subject that called for earnest diplomacy on the part of Mr. Raasloff, the Danish Minister; and the gold fever which made Northern adventurers mad carried many to rifle the distant Pacific coast of its treasures. By this time the cotton gin had demonstrated its great worth, and the greed of acquisition saw in our cotton fields a new source of envy, for we had no need to dig or to delve - we shook our cotton plants and golden dollars dropped from them. Had the gathering of riches been our object in life, men of the South had it in their power to have rivalled the wealth of the fabled Midas; but, as was early observed by a statesman who never was partisan, the "Southern statesmen went for the honours and the Northern for the benefits." In consequence, wrote Mr. Benton (1839),

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"the North has become rich upon the benefits of the Government; the South has grown lean upon its honours."

From the hour of this exodus of Senators from the official body, all Washington seemed to change. Imagination can scarcely conjure up an atmosphere at once so ominous and so sad. Each step preparatory to our departure was a pang. Carriages and messengers dashed through the streets excitedly. Farewells were to be spoken, and many, we knew, would be final. Vehicles lumbered on their way to wharf or station filled with the baggage of departing Senators and Members. The brows of hotel-keepers darkened with misgivings, for the disappearance from the Federal City of the families of Congressional representatives from the fifteen slave- holding States made a terrible thinning out of its population; and, in the strange persons of the politicians, already beginning to press into the capital, there was little indication that these might prove satisfactory substitutes for us who were withdrawing.

"How shall I commence my letter to you?" wrote the wife of Colonel Philip Phillips to me a month or two after we had left Washington. "What can I tell you, but of despair, of broken hearts, of ruined fortunes, the sobs of women, and sighs of men! . . . I am still in this horrible city . . . but, distracted as I am at the idea of being forced to remain, we feel the hard necessity of keeping quiet. . . For days I saw nothing but despairing women leaving [Washington] suddenly, their husbands having resigned and sacrificed their all for their beloved States. You would not know this God-forsaken city, our beautiful capital, with all its artistic wealth, desecrated, disgraced with Lincoln's low soldiery. The respectable part [of the soldiers] view it also in the same spirit, for one of the Seventh Regiment told me that never in his life had he seen such ruin going on as is now enacted in the halls of our once honoured Capitol! I cannot but

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think that the presentiment that the South would wish to keep Washington must have induced this desecration of all that should have been respected by the mob in power. . . . The Gwins are the only ones left of our intimates, and Mrs. G- is packed up ready to leave. Poor thing! her eyes are never without tears. . . . There are 30,000 troops here. Think of it! They go about the avenue insulting women and taking property without paying for it. . . .Such are the men waged to subjugate us of the South. We hear constantly from Montgomery. Everything betokens a deep, abiding faith in the cause.

"I was told that those giant intellects, the Blairs, who are acting under the idea of being second Jacksons, wishing to get a good officer to do some of their dirty work (destroying public property), wished Colonel Lee sent for. 'Why, he has resigned!' 'Then tell Magruder!' 'He has resigned, too.' 'General Joe Johnston, then!' - 'He, too, has gone out!' 'Smith Lee?' Ditto!

"'Good God!' said Blair. 'Have all our good officers left us?'

"I hear these Blairs are at the bottom of all this war policy. Old Blair's country place was threatened, and his family, including the fanatical Mrs. Lee, had to fly into the city. This lady was the one who said to me that 'she wished the North to be deluged with the blood of the South ere Lincoln should yield one iota!'

"Do not believe all you hear about the Northern sympathy for Lincoln. The Democrats still feel for the South. If Congress does not denounce Lincoln for his unlawful and unconstitutional proceedings, I shall begin to think we have no country!"

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CHAPTER XI
WAR IS PROCLAIMED

UPON leaving the Federal capital we proceeded to the home of Senator Clay's cousin, Doctor Thomas Withers, at Petersburg, Va. My husband's health, already feeble, had suffered greatly from the months of strife which culminated in the scenes through which we had just passed, and we had scarcely arrived in Petersburg when a serious collapse occurred. Mr. Clay now became so weakened that fears were reiterated by all who saw him that he could not survive. I was urged to take him at once to Minnesota, the attending physicians all agreeing that this was the one experiment in which lay a chance for prolonging his life. In those days the air of that far western State was supposed to have a phenomenally curative effect upon the victims of asthma, from which for years Mr. Clay had suffered an almost "daily death." In the present acute attack, his body sick and his heart sore from our late ordeals, fearful of the danger of delay, I at once put into execution plans for the northward trip in which lay even a slender hope for his recovery. No one who had witnessed my husband's dignified withdrawal from the Senate, who had heard his firm utterance of what was at once a challenge to arms and a warning that Alabama would defend her decision to stand alone, would have recognised the invalid now struggling for his life against the dread disease. He was extremely emaciated.

"When I last saw you," wrote John T. Morgan(*) from

(* Now United States Senator from Alabama.)

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camp, some months later, "your health scarcely justified the hope that you would become one of the first Senators in a new Confederacy. I was grieved that when we came to meet the great struggle in Alabama you were not permitted to aid us further than by your counsels and recorded opinions. I rejoice that you are again our representative in a Senate where the South is not to be defended against foes within her own bosom, but to reap the advantage of the wisdom and experience of her own statesmen."

My brother-in-law, Hugh Lawson Clay, afterward Colonel on the staff of our friend, General E. Kirby Smith, hurried, therefore, from Alabama to accompany us upon the slow journey made necessary by Mr. Clay's extreme weakness.

In due time we arrived at the International Hotel, St. Paul. Here, though our stay was short, we had an unpleasant experience, a single one, due to sectional feeling. Having safely bestowed Mr. Clay in his room, our brother made his way to the drug-store, which, as we entered, we had observed was below the hotel, to purchase a necessary restorative for my husband. While waiting there for the wrapping of the medicine, two young men entering met, and one exclaimed to the other:

"Here's a good chance! Clay, the fire-eating Senator from Alabama, is in this house. Let's mob him!"

My brother, both indignant and surprised, was also fearful lest they should carry out their threat and thereby work incalculable evil to our invalid. He turned promptly and addressed them:

"Mr. Clay, of whom you speak," he said, "is my brother, and, it may be, a hopeless invalid. He is here seeking health. You can molest him only through me!"

But now a second surprise met him, for the two youths began a very duet of apology, declaring they "had only been joking." They meant no offense, they said, and,

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in fact, themselves were democrats. Feeling, they continued, was at high tide, and it was the fashion of the times to denounce the South. Upon this frank acknowledgment the trio shook hands and parted, nor did Senator Clay and I hear of the altercation until the next day, when it was repeated to us by a kind friend, Mr. George Culver, at whose home, in St. Paul, we lingered for several weeks. Here the wonderful climate appreciably restored the invalid, and Mr. Clay was soon able to move about, and added to his weight almost visibly.

In the meantime, the news of the gathering together of armies, both North and South, came more and more frequently. Everywhere around us preparations were making for conflict. The news from the seceding States was inspiring. My husband's impatience to return to Alabama increased daily, stimulated, as it was, by the ardour of our many correspondents from Montgomery and Huntsville, civil and military.

"I was improving continuously and rapidly," he wrote to our friend E. D. Tracy, "when Lincoln's proclamation and that of the Governor of Minnesota reached me, and I think I should have been entirely restored to health in a month or two had I remained there with an easy conscience and a quiet mind. But after those bulletins, the demonstrations against the "Rebels" were so offensive as to become intolerable. So we left on the 22d [April], much to the regret of the few real friends we found or made. Many, with exceeding frankness, expressed their deep sorrow at our departure, since I was improving so rapidly; but, while appreciating their solicitude for me, I told them I preferred dying in my own country to living among her enemies."

Shortly after the breaking up of the ice in Lake Minnetonka, we bade farewell to the good Samaritans at St. Paul and took passage on the Grey Eagle. She was a celebrated boat of that day, and annually took the prize

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for being the first to cut through the frozen waters. I have never forgotten the wonders and beauties of that trip, beginning in the still partially ice-locked lake, and progressing gradually until the emerald glories of late April met us in the South! It was on this journey that we caught the first real echoes of the booming guns of Fort Sumter. The passengers on board the Grey Eagle discussed the outlook with gravity. To a friendly lady, whose sympathies were aroused on behalf of my husband, still pale and obviously an invalid, I remember expressing my sorrows and fears. I think I wept, for it was a time to start the tears; but her reply checked my complainings.

"Ah, Mrs. Clay!" she said, "think how my heart is riven! I was born in New Orleans and live in New York. One of my sons is in the Seventh New York Regiment, and another in the New Orleans Zouaves!"

At Cairo, already a great centre of military activity for the Federals, we caught a first gleam of the muskets of United States soldiery. A company was drawn up in line on the river bank, for what purpose we did not know, but we heard a rumour that it had to do with the presence on the boat of the Southern Senator Clay, and I remember I was requested by an officer of the Grey Eagle to place in my trunk my husband's fine Maynard rifle, which had been much admired by our fellow passengers, and which once had been shot off during the trip, to show its wonderful carrying tower. Needless to say, the possibly offending firearm was promptly put away. After a short colloquy between the captain of the vessel and the military officer, who appeared to catechise him, the Grey Eagle again swung out on the broad, muddy river, and turned her nose toward Memphis. Now, as we proceeded down the important water-course, at many a point were multiplying evidences that the fratricidal war had begun.

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Memphis, at which we soon arrived, and which was destined within a year to be taken and held by our enemy, was now beautiful with blossoms. Spirea and bridal wreaths whitened the bushes, and roses everywhere shaking their fragrance to the breezes made the world appear to smile. My heart was filled with gratitude and joy to find myself once more among the witchery and wonders of my "ain countree"; where again I might hear the delightful mockery of that "Yorick of the Glade," whose bubbling melody is only to be heard in the South land! It was a wonderful home-coming for our invalid, too eager by much to assume his share of the responsibilities that now rested upon the shoulders of our men of the South. A period of complete physical weakness followed our arrival in Mr. Clay's native city, a busy political and military centre in those early days.

We spent our summer in "Cosy Cot," our mountain home, set upon the crest of Monte Sano, which overlooks the town of Huntsville below, distant about three miles; nor, save in the making of comparatively short trips, did we again leave this vicinity until Mr. Clay, his health improved, was called to take his seat in the Senate of the new Confederate Government, at Richmond, late in the following autumn. In the meantime Senator Clay had declined the office of Secretary of War in Mr. Davis's Cabinet, privately proffered, believing his physical condition to be such as to render his assumption of the duties of that department an impossibility. In his stead he had urged the appointment of Leroy Pope Walker, our fellow-townsman and long-time friend, though often a legal and political opponent of my husband.

Now, at the time of our return, Secretary Walker was at the side of our Executive head, deep in the problems of the military controlof our forces. Communications between Huntsville and Montgomery,wherethe provisional Government temporarily was established, were

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frequent. A special session of Congress was sitting, and every one identified with our newly formed Legislature at the little capital was alert and eager in perfecting our plans for defense. We were given a side glimpse of our President's personal activity in the following letter received a few days after our return to Alabama:

MONTGOMERY, Alabama, May 10, 1861.

". . . Mr. Davis seems just now only conscious of things left undone, and to ignore the much which has been achieved. Consequently, his time seems all taken up with the Cabinet, planning (I presume) future operations. . . . Sometimes the Cabinet depart surreptitiously, one at a time, and Mr. Davis, while making things as plain as did the preacher the virtues of the baptismal, finds his demonstrations made to one weak, weary man who has no vim to contend. To make a long story short he overworks himself and all the rest of mankind, but is so far quite well, though not fleshily inclined.

"There is a good deal of talk here of his going to Richmond as commander of the forces. I hope it may be done, for to him military command is a perfect system of hygiene. . . . . There have been some here who thought, with a view to the sanitary condition, that the Government had better be moved to Richmond, and also that it would strengthen the weak-fleshed but willing-spirited border States. . . . This is a very pretty place, and, were not the climate as warm as is the temperament of the people, it would be pleasant; but nearly all my patriotism oozes out, not unlike Bob Acres' courage, at the pores, and I have come to the conclusion that Roman matrons performed their patriotism and such like duties in the winter. I wish your health would suffice for you to come and see the Congress. They are the finest-looking set of men I have ever seen collected together - grave, quiet and thoughtful-looking men, with an air of refinement which makes my mind's picture gallery a gratifying pendant to Hamlin, Durkee Doolittle, Chandler, etc. . . .

"The market is forlorn, but then we give our best and a warm welcome. If you are able to come and make us a visit, we will have the concordances of Washington and Montgomery. . . . Mrs. Mallory is in town on a short visit, Mrs. Fitzpatrick and the Governor, Mrs. Memminger, Constitution

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Brown and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Toombs (the latter is the only person who has a house). I could gossip on ad infinitum. . . ."

In Huntsville a feeling of diligence in preparation was everywhere evident. Our historic little town was not only in the direct line of travel between larger cities, and therefore a natural stopping place for travellers; but, by reason of the many legal and political lights residing there, and because of its being the county seat of one of the most affluent counties in northern Alabama, was, and is, a town of general interest throughout the State. Almost in an unbroken line, the United States Senators of northern Alabama have been citizens of my husband's native town.

Situate among the low hills that separate the higher points of the Cumberland range, Huntsville smiles up at the sky from a rare amphitheatre, hollowed in the cedar-covered mountains. It is in the heart of one of the most fertile portions of the Tennessee Valley. Within an hour's swift ride, the Tennessee flood rolls on its romantic way, and as near in another direction is the forked Flint River, every bend along its leafy edges a place of beauty. Up hill and down dale, ride wherever one will, may be seen the hazy tops of mountains, disappearing in the blue ether, and intervening valleys yellow with corn or white with cotton, or green with the just risen grain. In the summer the sweetness of magnolia and jasmine, of honeysuckle and mimosa, scents the shady avenues along which are seen, beyond gardens and magnolia trees, the commodious town houses of the prosperous planters. Among these affluent surroundings a high public spirit had been nourished. Here the first State Legislature of Alabama was convened and that body met which formed the State Constitution. The simple structure in which those early statesmen gathered (being, in general, representatives from the families of

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Virginia and the Carolinas) stood yet intact in the early part of 1903. The first newspaper printed in Alabama, yclept the Madison Gazette, was published in Huntsville, and Green Academy (taking its name from the rich sward that surrounded it), a renowned institution of learning, was long a famous feature of Twickenham Town, by which name Huntsville was once known.

In the early days of the township's existence, a hot contest continued for years to wage between the followers of two of its richest settlers as to the future appellation of the pretty place. The friends of Colonel Pope, who had contributed from the very centre of his plantation the square upon which was built the County Court House, for a time overbore the opposing parties and named the town in honour of the birthplace of the immortal poet; but, though this choice was ratified by legislative act, the adherents of the pioneer, John Hunt, refused to yield their wishes. Mr. Hunt had discovered the site of the town while still the valley was part of the Territory of Mississippi. Lured by the deer he was stalking, he had come upon the big spring, gushing with limpid waters. Here he pitched his tent, and, gathering others about him, he fostered the building of the town which, until the contest that arose with the aristocratic Colonel Pope, was known as Huntsville. For two years, until the original name was restored by a second act of Legislature, the little city was known as "Twickingham Town," and to many of its old families this name remains so dear that among themselves it still continues to be affectionately applied.

Half the youth of Alabama in that early day delved in the classics under the guidance of the studious professors of Green Academy. It was situated in a large plot of ground which commanded a view of the mountain. Its site was given to the town by Judge William Smith (the warm friend of Andrew Jackson) on the condition that it should be used only for a building for educational

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purposes forever. This distinguished judge was, I think, the only man until Roscoe Conkling to refuse a seat on the Supreme Court Bench of the United States.(*)

(* Judge Smith was the grandfather of Mrs. Meredith Calhoun, who, with her husband, played a brilliant part in Paris society when Eugenie's triumphs were at their height. A. S.)

The charms and fascinations and general winsomeness of the girls of the lovely vale, even in that early period, in a measure may be imagined from the references to them in the following letter, written to Clement C. Clay, Jr., by this time entered at the State University at Tuscaloosa:

FEBRUARY 2, 1833.

"My Dear Clement: Richard Peete, Jere Clemens, Richard Perkins, Withers Clay, John E. Moore(**) and myself are in a class reading Horace and Graeca Majora. Clio is nearly broken up, and I fear it will never be revived, as the members do nothing but walk with the girls, nor do they appear to think of anything else. The girls in this town are the most jealous little vixens that ever breathed. I would advise you as a friend (for I have gone through the fiery ordeal, and should know something of the character of woman) to keep a respectful distance from the fair ones; for, if you mingle with them at all, you will be persuaded to mingle with them more and more. How much I would give if they would never harass me more!"

(** John E. Moore became celebrated on the bench. He declined the office of territorial judge, offered him by President Pierce, but was serving as judge in a military court when he died, in 1864. He was a brother of Colonel Sydenham Moore, who fell at the battle of Seven Pines. A.S.)

The roll of Huntsville's prominent men includes a peculiarly large number of names that have been potent in State and National capitals, in civil and in military life. Scarcely a stone in its picturesque "God's Acre" but bears a name familiar to the Southern ear. From under the low hill on which the columned Court House and historic National Bank building stand, the Big Spring gushes, which has had its part in swelling the city's

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fame. Where its source lies none can say, though myths are plenty that tell of subterranean caves through which it passes, and which gleam with stalactite glories. Trickling freely from the sides of the mountain beyond are numerous medicinal springs, and silver streams thread their way among the valleys; but nowhere within the Tennessee region exists a flow that at all may be compared with Huntsville's "Big Spring." If Hygeia still exercises her functions, her modern home is surely here. The flow of clear limestone water as it issues from the rocks is wonderfully full and seemingly boundless. Since the founding of the town the spring has supplied all the needs of the residents, and that of armies camped about it. So late as 1898 its splendid daily yield of twenty-four million gallons influenced the present Government to locate in and about the pretty city, while awaiting the development of the Cuban War, an army of twenty thousand men.

In the sixties the spring was already famous. From time immemorial the pool below it had served the same purpose for the negroes about as did the River Jordan for the earlier Christians, and a baptism at the Big Spring, both impressive and ludicrous, was a sight never to be forgotten. The negroes came down the hill, marching with solemn steps to weird strains of their own composing, until they reached the edge of the stream that forms below the spring. Here the eager candidates for immersion were led into the water, when, doused for a moment, they would come up again shrieking shrilly a fervent Hallelujah! As a rule, two companions were stationed near to seize the person of the baptised one as it rose, lest in a paroxysm of religious fervour he should harm himself or others. As the baptisms, always numerous, continued, the ardour of the crowd of participants and onlookers was sure to augment, until a maniacal mingling of voices followed, that verged toward

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pandemonium. The ceremony was as strange and blood-curdling as any rite that might be imagined in the interior of the Dark Continent.

Once, upon the occasion of a visit of two New York friends, one candidate for baptism, a black man, a veritable Goliath, broke loose from those who tried to hold him and ran up the hill in his ecstasy, bellowing like a wounded buffalo. The sounds were enough to excite unmixed horror in the unaccustomed listener, but the appearance of the enthusiast to me was more comical than terrifying; for, being in his stockings, and these conspicuous by reason of their enormous holes, his heels, revealed at every step, appeared as they flashed up the acclivity like the spots on a bull-bat's wings. When this sable son of Anak took the field, the spectators scattering right and left, my friends turned toward me as if panic-stricken. They paused but a brief moment, then, "standing not upon the order of their going," they, too, fled from the possible charge of the half-crazed enthusiast. It was no uncommon thing at such baptisms for the candidates to suffer from an attack of "Jerks," a kind of spasm which resulted from their excited imaginations. I have seen the strength of four stout men tested to its utmost to hold down one seemingly delicate negress, who, fired by the "glory in her soul," was now become its victim, jerking and screaming in a manner altogether horrible to witness.

Above the spring and about the picturesque Square and Court House, in the spring and early summer of '61 the gay-hearted youth of Madison County, thronging to the county seat, met in companies to drill and prepare themselves for service in the war now upon us. Already, by the early part of June, Alabama had "contributed to the Confederacy about 20,000 muskets and rifles," though she retained of these, "for her own immediate protection and defense, only four thousand! I hope,"

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wrote Governor A. B. Moore, in sending this information to Mr. Clay, "that volunteer companies throughout the State will put the rifles and double-barrelled shot-guns in order, and drill them until called into actual service."

The youths and men of Madison County needed small urging. They were heart and soul for the conflict that at last must be waged to preserve the homes of their fathers, the heritages that were to be theirs, and their right to independent government. These were the incentives of our soldiers, allied to each other, regiment by regiment, by blood and long association. There was no need for alien hirelings to swell our ranks. The questions at issue were vital, and every Southern man who could bear arms sprang eagerly to assume them.

Upon our arrival in Huntsville we found the city alive with preparations for defense, our mail heavy with reports from every quarter of the South, of friends and kinsmen who had entered the army, and many exhilarated by the battles already won. An idea may be gathered of the confluent interests that bound together our Southern army, by a mention, as an example, by no means unique, of the ramifications of the two families represented by Senator Clay and myself. My husband's uncle, General Withers, was already in command at Mobile; his brother, Hugh Lawson Clay, was in Lynchburg, recruiting; his cousin, Eli S. Shorter, was enrolled as Colonel in the C. S. A., besides whom there were enlisted numerous cousins of the Withers, Comer, and Clayton families. Thirty-nine cousins of my own, bearing the name of Williams, were in the field at one time, and innumerable Arlingtons, Drakes and Boddies, Hilliards, Tunstalls and Battles served the beloved cause in various capacities in civil and military life.

These conditions knit neighbourhoods as well as regiments very closely together, and largely go to furnish an explanation of our long struggle against the numerically

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superior armies of our invaders. Our victories in those early days were great, though the blood spilled to gain them was precious; but the sound of mourning was stilled before the greater need for encouragement to the living. "Beauregard and Johnston have given the fanatics something to meditate upon," wrote a cousin in July of '61. "A despatch says that our loss was three thousand, theirs seven thousand. Steady Beauregard and brave Johnston! We owe them our gratitude!"

Yes! we owed them gratitude and we gave it to them and to every man in the ranks. The women at home knitted and sewed, sacrificed and prayed, and wept, too, especially the aged, as they packed away the socks and underwear and such comforts for the young men in the field as might be pressed into a soldier's knapsack. "I met Mr. Lamar's mother," wrote my sister from Macon, late in May, "and spoke to her of her son's having gone to Montgomery. She had not heard of it before and burst into tears! This is her fourth and last son gone to the war!"

From Huntsville had gone out the gallant E. D. Tracy, who, now at Harper's Ferry, wrote back most thrilling accounts of military proceedings in that important section of our Confederate States:

"I continue entirely well," began a letter dated from Camp, near Harper's Ferry, June 8, 1861: "And, while I perfectly agree with, since conversing with, General Smith, in regard to our situation, am in good spirits. I trust I am ready to die when my hour comes, as becomes a Christian soldier and gentleman; until that hour, I am proof against shell and shot. If the enemy attacks us 'we'll memorise another Golgotha' and achieve a victory, or martyrdom. Our men believe the post to be impregnable and are anxious for fight; if they were better informed, I have no idea that their courage would be in the least abated.

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"From the arrival of troops during the last few days, I conclude that it is the purpose of Government to hold Harper's Ferry. At one time I think that point was undecided, and am glad to believe that it is now settled as stated. The moral effect of an evacuation of a place believed to be a Gibraltar would be terribly disastrous to our cause; it would encourage our enemies, depress our troops, and disappoint the expectation of the world. Better that we perish in making a gallant defense than that such consequences should be risked."

My sister, Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, who had joined her husband in Lynchburg, wrote buoyantly, yet gravely, from that troubled centre: "I wrote you a long, long letter last Saturday," begins one epistle from her, "but Mr. Clay would not let me send it, because, he said, I told too much. He was afraid it might be read by other eyes than yours. . . . I look hourly to hear the result of an awful battle. I cannot but fear, for we cannot hope to gain such victories often as the one at Bethel Church. . . . Here we hear everything, for there are persons passing all the time to and from Winchester and Manassas Junction. So many men from this place are stationed there that mothers and sisters manage to hear every day. Mr. Tracy wrote in his last that he fully expected to be in a big battle. His men were eager for the fight, and he would be sure to write as to the result, if it did not result in a termination of his life's candle!"

As the time drew near for the opening of Congress in Richmond, Mr. Clay's health, spurred to a better state by an eager patriotism, eager to express itself in the forum if debarred from the field, became appreciably restored, and preparations were begun for an absence of a few months from Huntsville. Anxious as everyone was throughout the South, and feeling the strain even of victory, now flowing toward us and again ebbing to our

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enemies, my husband and I had few misgivings concerning the safety of the home we were leaving. A hundred greater dangers surrounded Richmond (as it was thought), that lay so near to the Federal lines and was the prize above all others which we looked to see grappled for. Yet our field lay there, and, in anticipation, it seemed a pleasant and an active one, for already it was peopled with throngs of our former friends.

"I almost imagined myself in Washington," wrote Mrs. Philip Phillips, now returning from the Federal capital, where for months she had been a prisoner. "There ate so many dear, old friends [in Richmond] - Mrs. Mallory, Mrs. Joe Johnston, and others - awaited us at the Spottswood Hotel. I spent an evening with Mrs. Davis, who received me with great feeling. . . . We have a terrible struggle before us. The resources of Lincoln's army are great, and a defensive war will prove our greatest safeguard, but, it is presumption in speaking thus; only, having come so recently from the seat of war, my ideas, founded upon practical knowledge of what is going on at the North, may derive some value. I brought on from Washington, sewed in my corsets, a programme of the war sent to me by a Federal officer, many of whom are disaffected. The capitalists of the North demand a decisive blow, else they will not back the Government."

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CHAPTER XII
RICHMOND AS A NATIONAL CAPITAL

RICHMOND, as seen from the hill, with the James River flowing by, its broad, level streets, full foliaged trees, and spacious homes, is a beautiful city. Rich in historic association, never did it appear more attractive to Southern eyes than when, arriving in the late autumn of '61, we found our Confederate Government established there, and the air full of activity. To accommodate the influx of Congressional and military folk, the houses of the patriotic residents were thrown open, until the capacity of every residence, hotel and lodging-house was tested to the fullest. By the time Senator Clay and I arrived, there was scarcely an extra bed to be had in the city, and though everywhere it was apparent that an unsettled feeling existed, there was nothing either indeterminate or volatile in the zeal with which the dense community was fired. As the new-comers, for the greater part, represented families which a season before had been conspicuous in Washington, society was in the most buoyant of spirits. Our courage was high, for our army had won glorious battles against remarkable odds, and, though gallant men had fallen, as occasion demanded them, new heroes sprang to meet it.

For a fewm onths we revelled in canvas-backs and green-backs, undisturbed by forewarnings of coming draw-backs. To furnish the tables of Richmond nearly all the ducks in Chesapeake Bay fell victims. We feasted on oysters and terrapin of the finest, and unmeasured hospitality was the order of the day on every

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side. Never had I looked upon so great an activity, whether military, political, or social. I had demurred when, as we were about to start for the capital, my maid packed an evening dress or two.

"We are going to war, Emily," I said; "we shall have no need for velvet or jewels. We are going to nurse the sick; not to dress and dance." But Emily's ardour on my behalf led her to rebel.

"There's bound to be somethin' goin' on, Miss 'Ginie,'" she declared, "an' I ain't goin' to let my Mistis be outshined by Mis'- an' dem other ladies!" And, despite my protests, the gowns were duly packed. There were many occasions afterward when I blessed the thoughtfulness of my little gingerbread-tinted maid; for there were heroes to dine and to cheer in Richmond, both civil and military, and sombre garments are a sorry garb in which to greet or brighten the thoughts of men tired with the strain of building or fighting for a government.

A sororal spirit actuated our women, and while our greatest entertainment missed some of the mere display which had marked the social events in the Federal City, they were happier gatherings, for we were a people united in interest and in heart. Some of the brightest memories I carry of that first session are of informal evenings where neighbours gathered sans cérémonie. I recall one such spent at the home of the Mallorys, the occasion being a dinner given to Brigadier General John H. Morgan, who did the Confederacy such gallant service, and was rewarded while in Richmond by the hand of one of its prettiest daughters, Miss Reedy, who had been a favourite in Washington society. A daughter of Mr. Reedy, M.C., from Tennessee, she was the first girl of her day in Washington to wear a curl upon her forehead, which coquettish item of coiffure was soon imitated by a hundred others.

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The family of Mr. Mallory was a model one, every member seeming to have his or her share in rounding out the general attractiveness. An informal meal taken with that family was an experience long to be remembered, for the little children took each his turn in asking the blessing, which was never omitted, and which was especially impressive in those days, in which the shadows of growing privations soon grew to be recognised if not openly discussed or admitted. Our Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory, was the merriest of hosts, with a wit as sudden and as brilliant as sheet- lightning, and a power of summing up, when he chose to exert it, both events and people, in the most amusing manner. A picture remains clearly in my mind of the evening devoted to General Morgan. Ruby Mallory, then about thirteen years of age, recited for us Holmes's "The Punch-bowl," while our host, in hearty enjoyment of the verses,

"Stirred the posses with his ladle,"

to the rhythm of his little daughter's speech.

During our first winter in Richmond my husband and I made ourhome with Mrs. Du Val, near to the Exchange Hotel, a terrifically over-crowded hostelry at all Confederate times, and within a short walk of the Seddon home, now the Executive Mansion. It was a commodious and stately structure, in which our President, now domiciled, lived with an admirable disdain of display. Statesmen passing through the halls on their way to the discussion of weighty things were likely to hear the ringing laughter of the care-free and happy Davis children issuing from somewhere above stairs or the gardens. The circle at Mrs. Du Val's, our headquarters, as it came and went for three eventful years, comprised some of our former Washington mess-mates, and others newly called into public service. Among the favourites was General J. E. B. Stuart, a rollicking fellow, who loved music, and

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himself could sing a most pleasing ballad. He was wont to dash up to the gate on his horse, his plumes waving, and he appearing to our hopeful eyes a veritable Murat. He was a gallant soldier, what might be termed delightful company, and one of the most daring cavalry officers our service boasted. Twice, with comparatively but a handful of men, he circled McClellan's big, unwieldly force as it lay massed, for months at a time, contemplating the possibility of closing in upon our capital. It may be said that upon his return to Richmond after his first brilliant feat, General Stuart was the idol of the hour. When the exigencies of the service brought him again and again to the capital, he entered heartily into its social relaxations. Two years passed. He was conspicuous one night in charades, and the next they brought him in, dying from a ghastly wound received upon the battle-field.

I have said we were in gay spirits during that first session of the Confederate Congress; but this condition was resolved upon rather than the spontaneous expression of our real mood, though hope was strong and we were armed with a conviction of right upon our side, and with the assurance of the courage of our soldiers, which filled us with a fine feminine scorn of the mere might of our assailants. Our editors, filled with patriotism and alert, kept us informed of the stirring events of the field and of the great victories which, until the loss of Fort Donelson and the fall of Nashville, so often stood to our credit. Scarcely a triumph, nevertheless, in which was not borne down some friend who was dear to us, so that all news of victory gained might be matched with the story of fearful loss. However, such was our loyalty to the cause, that the stimulus of our victories overbore the sorrow for our losses, sustaining our courage on every side. Before that first session of Congress adjourned, we had buried an army of brave men, among them Generals

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Zollicoffer and Albert Sidney Johnston. Our coast was closed by the blockading fleets of the Federal Government. We had lost New Orleans, and the Tennessee Valley was slipping from us. Huntsville, which lay directly in the path of the invading army, itself threatened, was now become a hospital for the wounded from abandoned Nashville. By the early spring the news from our family was ominous of deeper disaster to our beloved town.

"The public stores have been sent on from Nashville," wrote mother, early in March of '62 from Huntsville, "and from four to ten thousand men are said to be here or expected. . . . Yesterday the excitement was greater than I have known. Men were seen walking or riding quickly, and martial music told the tale of danger. . . . There are said to be a thousand sick and wounded here. They have no bedding but a blanket, and are placed in houses through which the wind blows. Rain spurts over the sick men's couches, cooling their fever and making their blood congeal, so that death interposes for their relief! It is rumoured that the President will be here to-night. People were up (last night) till two o'clock, waiting to see him. . . .

General Pillow is at the hotel, but told Dr. Slaughter he would not bring Mrs. Pillow here, as General Buell intends to make this place his headquarters!. . . I have no time to speculate on the future, but try to encourage others to have courage and faith, and not to discourage our soldiers by permitting their fears to be known; but to stimulate them by letting them see the firmness and calm trustfulness with which we commit more than our lives to their keeping!"

The news of Huntsville's danger was our private anxiety in Richmond, where each Senator and Congressman carried the burden of apprehension for his own kin

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and family possessions well concealed; for at the capital the nation's losses and gains loomed large and obscured the lesser ones of individuals. Moreover, always before us was the stimulus of the presence of fearless men and the unceasing energy of our President.

I remember on one occasion seeing President Davis passing down the street, beside him, on the left, General Buckner; on the right, General Breckenridge - three stalwart and gallant men as ever walked abreast; and as I watched them the thought came involuntarily, "Can a cause fail with such men at the head?"

Throughout the life of Richmond as a capital, the streets were peopled with soldiers on their way to or from the several headquarters. There was an unintermitting beating of drums, too often muffled, and the singing of merry bugles. With the knowledge that we were in the city which, more than any other, invited and defied the attacks of the enemy, a sense of danger spurred our spirits. Though the boom of guns was often not a distant sound, and the solemn carrying in of our wounded became increasingly frequent, few gave way to apprehensions or doubts; for, as I have said, there were heroes in Richmond to cheer, and our women, putting away from their minds the remembrance of the wounds they had dressed in the morning visit to the hospitals, smiled and devised entertainments well calculated to lift the burden of responsibility, at least for thetime being, from the minds and hearts of our leaders, legislative and military. Among the most active hostesses were Mrs. Randolph, wife of one of the members of President Davis's Cabinet, and Mrs. Ives, who put on some charming private theatricals in their parlours; there were the Lees and Harrimans; the Ritchies and Pegrams and Welfords; the Masons and Warwicks, MacFarlanes, Seldens, Leighs (near relatives, these, of Patrick Henry); besides the

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Branders, West Robinsons, Walkers, Scotts, Coxes, Cabells, Semmes, Ives, and other hostesses of renown and long pedigree, whose homes dispensed the friendliest hospitality.

"Do you not remember?" wrote Mrs. Semmes, of New Orleans, to whom I put some queries concerning an episode of that life in Richmond, "do you not remember Mrs. Stannard, who had such a charming house and gave such delicious teas, alluring such men as Soulé, Commodore Barrow, Henry Marshall, of Louisiana, Butler King, and last, though not least, our dear old Vice-President Stephens? She boasted that she never read a book, and yet all these distinguished gentlemen gathered around her board and ate those hot muffins and broiled chicken with gusto!"

These, and unnumbered other faces, rise before me as I recall the great amateur performance of "The Rivals," which made that first winter in Richmond memorable and our hostess, Mrs. Ives, famous. In that performance Constance Cary, a beauty of the Fairfax family, captured all hearts as the languishing Lydia, among them that of our President's Secretary, Colonel Burton Harrison, whose wife she afterward became.

Recalling that interesting evening, Mrs. Harrison wrote very recently, "It seems an aeon since that time, but I have a very vivid recollection of the fun we had and of how prettily Mrs. Ives did everything, spite of grim-visaged war! How I wish I could do anything now with the same zest and rapture with which I put on Lydia's paduasoy and patches! Brother Clarence, then a very youthful midshipman, was the Fag, and my hero, Captain Absolute, was Mr. Lee Tucker, who has vanished, for me, into the mists of time! I have not heard his name in years!"

The fame of that entertainment, the excitement which the preparation for it caused, spread far beyond the picket

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lines, and we heard afterward that a daring officer of McClellan's army had planned to don the Confederate uniform and cross the lines to take a peep at the much-talked-of performance. "There was a galaxy of talent and beauty in that fairest city of the South," writes my friend, Mrs. Ives, recalling, in 1903, those scenes of the early sixties, "from which I was able to select a strong cast which pre-assured us a brilliant performance. Miss Cary was bewitching, her fair beauty accentuated by the rich costumes she donned for the occasion and which had been worn by her distinguished ancestors in the days of the Old Dominion's glory! Your sister-in-law, Mrs. H. L. Clay, was so fascinating as Lucy that she captivated her husband anew, as he afterward told me; and then, besides, there was pretty Miss Herndon, who tortured her Falkland into jealousy."(*)

(* Of Mrs. Clay herself, renowned for her histrionic talent, Mrs. Ives wrote: "It was the hope of having you take the part of Mrs. Malaprop that encouraged me to undertake the amateur production of Sheridan's play. I felt sure that if all others failed, your acting would redeem all deficiencies. You carried the audience by storm. . . . I can see you yet, in imagination, in your rich brocaded gown, antique laces and jewels, high puffed and curled hair, with nodding plumes which seemed to add expression to your amusing utterances!" A.S.)

As that historic evening's pleasures crown all other recollections of social life in the Confederate capital, so soon to be in the eclipse of sorrow and undreamed-of privations, I cannot refrain from recording some incidents of it. Those who took part in the performance (or their descendants) are now scattered in every State of the Union, and it is only by the coöperation of some who remember, among them Mrs. Cora Semmes Ives, of Alexandria, Va., Mrs. Myra Knox Semmes, of New Orleans, and Mrs. Burton Harrison, of New York, that I am enabled to gather together again the names of the cast which charmed Richmond's three hundred during the first session of the C. S. A. Congress. They were:

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Sir Anthony Absolute . . . Mr. Randolph, of Richmond
Captain Absolute . . . Mr. Lee Tucker
Sir Lucius O'Trigger (and he had an unapproachable brogue) Robert W. Brown, N. Carolina
Fag . . . Midshipman Clarence Cary
David . . . Mr. Robinson, of Richmond
Lydia Languish . . . Miss Constance Cary, Virginia
Julia . . . Miss Herndon, Virginia
Lucy, maid to Lydia . . . Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, Alabama
Mrs. Malaprop . . . Mrs. Clement C. Clay, Alabama
Harpist, Mrs. Semmes Fitzgerald
Pianist, Miss Robinson.

For this great occasion no efforts were spared in the rehearsing of our cast, nor in the preparation of our wardrobe. Mrs. Drew, being at that time engaged in playing a precarious engagement at the local theatre (the price of seats not exceeding seventy- five cents, as befitted the times), was invited to a private consultation and criticism of the parts, and it gives me some pleasure, even at this day, to remember her approval of my interpretation of the difficult rôle I had had the hardihood to assume. Our Sir Lucius acquired for the occasion a brogue so rich that almost as much time (and trouble) were necessary to eradicate it from his speech in the weeks that followed as had been spent in attaining it.

The defection of one of the cast for the after-piece (Bombastes Furioso) caused our hostess to display a genuine ability for stage management. Unacquainted with the part she was herself compelled to assume, Mrs. Ives resolved to bring her audience to a state of leniency for any possible shortcomings by dazzling them with the beauty of her apparel. A picture hat from Paris had just run the blockade and arrived safely to the hands of little Miss Ruby Mallory, for whom it had been destined. It was a Leghorn, trimmed with azure velvet and plumes of the same shade. It was an especially appropriate headgear for a character given to dreaming "that all the pots

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and pans had turned to gold," and an appeal made to the owner brought it swiftly into the possession of Mrs. Ives. Her success was instantaneous. "I declare," she said when the play was over, "nothing but that Paris hat saved me from an attack of stage fright!"

The home of Lieutenant Ives on this occasion was crowded to its utmost capacity, the guests comprising President and Mrs. Davis, the Cabinet and Congressional members, together with prominent generals, numbering in all three hundred. The stage, erected under the supervision of our host, an expert engineer, was a wonderful demonstration of his ingenuity. Placed at one end of the long Colonial parlours, it commanded the eye of every visitor. The performance gave the utmost delight to our audience, and Secretary Mallory, who had seen "The Rivals" (so he told me) in every large city of the United States, and on the boards at Drury Lane, declared it had never been given by a cast at once so brilliant and so able! Be that as it may, the remembrance of that performance for forty years has remained as the most ambitious social event in the Confederate States' capital.