A BELLE OF THE FIFTIES [Illustration: MRS. CLAY of Alabama ] A Belle of the Fifties Memoirs of Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853–66 Put into narrative form by Ada Sterling _Illustrated from contemporary portraits_ [Illustration] New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1905 Copyright, 1904, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published, September, 1904 To THE DEAR MEMORY OF THE HUSBAND OF MY YOUTH CLEMENT CLAIBORNE CLAY VIRGINIA CLAY-CLOPTON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE The memoirs of “Mrs. Clay, of Alabama,” by which title Mrs. Clement C. Clay, Jr. (now Mrs. Clay-Clopton), was known during the period comprised by 1850–87, begin in the middle of the second decade of the nineteenth century, the scenes being laid among the affluent plantations of North Carolina and Alabama, and, continuing through two brilliant administrations at the national capital, close, as she emerges from the distresses which overtook her and her husband after the never-to-be-forgotten tragedy that plunged a nation into mourning—the death of Mr. Lincoln.