A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865: being a record of the actual experiences of the wife of a Confederate officer — John Locke — John Shaqi
A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865: being a record of the actual experiences of the wife of a Confederate officer
John Locke · en
I shall never forget the day my Prussian friends sailed away. From
the roof of our residence over the bank, there was a good view of
the harbor and river: Milicent, Emily Conway, and a number of girls
who wanted to see the last of the gallant, handsome Prussians went
up on the roof, and I was permitted to go with them. We turned our
spy-glasses on their ships as they sailed toward Hampton Roads, and
there were our friends on deck, their glasses turned upon the housetop
where we stood in the full glare of the midday sun. Even I was visible
to them. Milicent placed me in front of our spy-glass, and I looked
through and singled out Baron von Golz, to whom I waved my handkerchief
vigorously. A little snow-storm fluttered on the deck, and the baron
not only waved, but saluted. According to the fashion of the time,
young ladies wore low-necked dresses in the middle of the day--never,
however, at any hour, so low as ladies at the opera wear them now.
Milicent and her friends who went to the housetop were bare-necked, and
the sun blistered their throats and shoulders; and mother had to bathe
Milicent with buttermilk all the afternoon to make her presentable for
the dance that night, which, by special permission, Count von Monts
attended, coming up from Fortress Monroe to escort Milicent. They made
a pretty picture when they danced their last dance together. The Count
would not permit their friendship to cease with that last dance, and
a correspondence was long kept up between them. At parting, she gave
him her little Catholic prayer-book with her name on the fly-leaf, and
years after, when revisiting Norfolk, he had that prayer-book and tried
to find her; but times were changed, and Norfolk no more our home. Many
a titled sailor sought my sister’s favor, but in our day Virginia’s
daughters, undazzled by coronets, were content to wed Virginia’s sons.