Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of Richmond — John Locke — John Shaqi
Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of Richmond
John Locke · en
The entire South seems to have been very rich then in buds of beauty and
women of distinction. Or, was it that the fires of adversity brought their
charms and virtues into high relief? Names flitting through my mind are
legion. Richmond's roll has been given often. Junior members of the
Petersburg set were Tabb Bolling, General Rooney Lee's sweetheart (now his
widow); Molly Bannister, General Lee's pet, who was allowed to ride
Traveller; Anne Bannister, Alice Gregory, Betty and Jeannie Osborne, Betty
Cabaniss, Betty and Lucy Page, Sally Hardy, Nannie Cocke, Patty Cowles,
Julia, Mary and Marion Meade, and others who queened it over General Lee's
army and wrought their pretty fingers to the bone for our lads in the
trenches. To go farther afield, Georgia had her youthful "Maid of Athens,"
Jule King, afterwards Mrs. Henry Grady; in Atlanta were the Clayton
sisters, and Maggie Poole, Augusta Hill, Ella Ezzard, Eugenia Goode,
besides a brilliant married circle. In South Carolina were Mrs. James
Chesnut, her sister, Mrs. David R. Williams, and all the fair troop that
figure in her "Diary From Dixie." Louisiana's endless roster might begin
with the Slocomb family, to which General Butler paid official tribute,
recording that "Mrs. Slocomb equipped the crack military company of New
Orleans, the Washington Artillery, in which her son-in-law, Captain David
Urquhart, is an officer." Mrs. Urquhart's daughter, Cora (afterwards Mrs.
James Brown Potter), was, I think, a tiny maiden then. Beloved for her
social charm and her charities, Mrs. Ida B. Richardson, Mrs. Urquhart's
sister, still lives in the Crescent City. There were the Leacock sisters,
Mrs. Andrew Gray and Mrs. Will Howell, the "madonna of New Orleans." There
was the King family, which produced Grace King, author and historian. A
Louisiana beauty was Addie Prescott, whose face and presence gave warrant
of the royal blood of Spain flowing in her veins. In Mississippi was
"Pearl Rivers," afterwards Mrs. Nicholson, good genius of the "Picayune";
and Mary E. Bryan, later the genius of the "Sunny South." Georgia and
Alabama claim Mme. Le Vert, to whose intellect Lamartine paid tribute, and
Augusta Evans, whose "Macaria" ran the blockade in manuscript and came out
up North during the war; that delightful "Belle of the Fifties," Mrs.
Clement C. Clay, is Alabama's own. Besides the "Rose of Texas" (Louise
Wigfall), the Lone Star State has many a winsome "Southern Girl" and woman
to her credit. Mrs. Roger A. Pryor is Virginia's own. Among Florida's fair
was the "Madonna of the Wickliffe sisters," Mrs. Yulee, Senator Yulee's
wife and, presently, Florida's Vice-Regent for the Ladies' Association
of Mt. Vernon. Mrs. Sallie Ward Hunt and Mrs. Sallie Ewing Pope lead a
long list in Kentucky, where Mary Anderson, the actress, was in her tender
teens, and Bertha Honoré (afterwards Mrs. Potter Palmer) was in pinafores.
To Mississippi and Missouri belongs Theodosia Worthington Valliant; and to