Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of RichmondAvary, Myrta Lockett
Philosophy
Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of Richmond
Avary, Myrta Lockett
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Southern States -- Social conditions
"Mary, when I die, bury me in my Confederate uniform. I want to rise a
Confederate." So said to his wife Dr. Hunter Maguire, the great
Stonewall's Surgeon-in-Chief, a short time before his death. He was no
less true to the living Union because he was faithful to the dead
Confederacy. Visitors used to love to see General Lee at the Finals of
Washington College in his full suit of Confederate gray; it became him to
wear it in the midst of the draped flags and stacked arms, for while he
was teaching our young men to love our united country and to reverence the
Stars and Stripes, he did not want them to fail in reverence to the past.
None can want us so to fail. Mrs. Lizzie George Henderson, President of
the U. D. C., says in the "Confederate Veteran": "Wherever there is a
chapter North or West, our Northern friends are so kind and help so much
that it brings us closer together as one people."
The thought of her who was "Daughter of the Confederacy" is inseparable
from my text. One afternoon Matoaca and I called on Miss Mason at her
quaint old house in Georgetown, D. C., a place of pilgrimage for patriotic
Southerners. We sat on the little back porch which is on a level with Miss
Emily's flower-garden, and she gave us tea in little old-fashioned cups,
pouring it out of a little old-fashioned silver tea-pot that sat on a
little old-fashioned table. She and Matoaca fell to talking about Mr.
Davis.
"I shall never forget him as I saw him first," said Miss Emily, "a young
lieutenant in the United States Army, straight as an arrow, handsome and
elegant. It was at the Governor's Mansion in Detroit; my young brother was
Governor of Michigan, the State's first Executive; Lieutenant Davis was
our guest; the Black Hawk War, in which he had greatly distinguished
himself, was just ended, and he was bringing Black Hawk through the
country. I was much impressed with the young Lieutenant. I watched his
career with interest. I met him again when he was a member of President
Pierce's Cabinet. He made a very able Secretary of War.
"Strange how events turn, that it should have been Mr. Davis who sent
General McClellan (then Colonel) and General Lee (then Colonel) to the
Crimea to study the art of war as practised by the Russians. General
McClellan's son, now Mayor of New York, has said that his father had ample
opportunity to form unbiassed opinion of the Secretary, as he spent much
time in Washington before and after his mission to Russia and was in close
touch with Mr. Davis. He quoted his father as saying: 'Colonel Davis was a
man of extraordinary ability. As an executive officer, he was remarkable.
He was the best Secretary of War--and I use _best_ in its widest sense--I
ever had anything to do with.'"
"I like 'Little Mac' for saying that and his son for repeating it. 'Little
Mac' fought us like a gentleman. When his son runs for the Presidency
perhaps I shall urge everybody to vote for him," said Matoaca.
"Unless a Southerner runs," I suggested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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