FACING PAGE MRS. BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK, of Alabama 26 ADELINA PATTI, aged sixteen 38 MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR, of Virginia 44 MRS. GEORGE E. PUGH (THÉRÈSE CHALFANT), of Ohio. “The most beautiful woman in Washington” 46 FRANKLIN PIERCE, President of the United States, 1853–’57 60 MRS. WILLIAM L. MARCY, of New York 62 MRS. J. J. CRITTENDEN, of Kentucky 84 MRS. CHESTNUT, of South Carolina 94 JENNY LIND 102 JAMES BUCHANAN, President of the United States, 1857–’61 108 MISS HARRIET LANE, mistress of the White House, 1857–’61 114 LADY NAPIER AND HER SONS 116 MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS, of Mississippi 134 LORD LYONS, British Ambassador to the United States 140 CLEMENT C. CLAY, JR., United States Senator, 1853–’61 148 L. Q. C. LAMAR, 1862 164 MRS. PHILIP PHILLIPS, of Washington, D. C. 166 SENATOR JAMES H. HAMMOND, of South Carolina 212 GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER, of Alabama 232 DR. HENRY C. VOGELL, Fortress Monroe, 1866 334 DR. GEORGE COOPER, Fortress Monroe, 1866 350 MRS. A. S. PARKER, of Washington, D. C. 368 JEFFERSON DAVIS and CLEMENT C. CLAY, JR. (after release from Fortress Monroe) 374 A BELLE OF THE FIFTIES CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD, GIRLHOOD, MARRIAGE My infant days were spent in North Carolina among the kinsmen of my mother. I do not remember her, save that she was young and fair, being but twenty when she died. She was the twenty-fifth child of the family united under her father’s roof, which remarkable circumstance may be explained as follows: