JUDAH P. BENJAMIN.

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        ON August 6, 1811, in an isle of the Danish West Indies called St. Thomas, Judah P. Benjamin was born of well educated Hebrew-English parentage. This beautiful isle, as in sunshine and greenery it rests in the arms of old ocean, might well be called a Darling of the Deep. Cyclone and hurricane sometimes come to play rough games among its lofty hills; but usually no sky is softer than the blue dome above; no sunlight more bounteous in its floods of gold; no breezes more odorous than those which come from the salt sea perfumed by the richness of tropic bloom. And the cradlesong of the young Israelite born in the midst of this natural loveliness was the rustle of mighty groves of palms, mingled with the unceasing surge of the wild Caribbean Sea.

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        With such an environment of storm and grace, was it strange that our nursling of the tropics should, through all the years of life, have felt their quickening influence in heart and brain?

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        It is a coincidence that out of the West Indies should have come, from the twin-sister islets of St. Croix and St. Thomas, two of her greatest sons to unite their names and fortunes with the mighty Republic of the West. Alexander Hamilton came in an epoch of seething storm and revolution to be the trusted friend of Washington and to sit in her councils of State. Later, came Judah P. Benjamin to make himself ready for the services of a younger nation that the prophetic soul of Hamilton already saw dimly shaped in the future.

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        In 1818, the green hills of St. Thomas sloped below the horizon and the Southern Cross faded from view as - his fortunes at a low ebb - Benjamin pere, with wife and children, left forever behind the sunny little island to seek a home of larger possibilities in the United States. Landing in Charleston, South Carolina, he resolved to secure for his young tribe that liberal, lasting wealth of which adversity could not rob them. The children of Benjamin were at once sent to a popular academy. Here Judah proved so diligent and aspiring a student that at the age of fourteen he entered Yale.

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      The soul of the ambitious boy must have grown dark when, for lack of funds at the end of his second year he was compelled to discontinue his collegiate course without gaining his coveted degree. Early realizing that he was no petted favorite of fortune, but that the glittering baubles of success and reputation were to be forced by his own unaided strength from her closed, unwilling hand, with the resolute patience of his race he at once faced the struggle.

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        In 1828, destiny drew the friendless boy to New Orleans. Here we find him in the office of a notary delving as clerk, but, meanwhile, scant as was his leisure, studying law and, the better to understand the complicated jurisprudence of Louisiana, mastering the French and Spanish languages.

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        At twenty-one, on December 16, 1832, he was admitted to the bar, and so encouraging was his future that, in the spring of the following year, with the confidence of youth in himself and in his own bright star, he led to the altar Miss Natalie St. Martin - a beautiful Creole girl of New Orleans. Upon her and the daughter Ninette, who came to bless their union, he lavished without stint all the wealth of his affections and purse. As he was now a man of family, he also became one of affairs. He spent much time on his plantation of Bellechasse, deeply interested in the chemistry of sugar, and gave his leisure to writing articles both practical and entertaining for magazines. Such work was delightful recreation for one who loved the humanities and was accomplished without neglect of Chitty and Blackstone. But while engaged in work so congenial the failure of a friend, for whom he had endorsed notes for a large amount, so crippled his fortune that he resolutely closed his ears to the enticements of literature, and turned with renewed ardor to the practice of his profession. Henceforth, though interested like a good citizen in all that made for the public welfare, the world knew him best as the silvery-tongued, eloquent orator, and famous, astute lawyer.

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        Elected in 1842, to the legislature of Louisiana, ten years later he was sent to the Senate of the United States. In that great body of statesmen he was peer of the highest. A disciple of Calhoun, he held to state sovereignty in his brilliant speeches upon noted questions involving the two great issues of the day - Centralization of Government and State Rights.

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        Upon the secession of his adopted State, with warm enthusiasm of feeling and in far-reaching musical tones, he expressed his conviction that the "State of Louisiana had judged and acted wisely in this crisis of her destiny." His farewell address to his colleagues of the Senate, in its high-hearted, impassioned patriotism was declared by Sir Geo. C. Lewis - a cool-headed, discriminating Englishman present at its delivery - to "be better than what D'Israeli could have done."

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        At Montgomery, in the formation of a provisional Government for the young Confederacy, he was placed in the Cabinet as Attorney General - an office for which his great legal abilities supremely fitted him. In Richmond, upon re-organization of Government on a constitutional basis, he was made Secretary of War. With its stern, dry complexity of duties he was not familiar, as several disastrous events soon proved. Not relishing the caustic criticisms of the public upon his administration of the War Department, he resigned his portfolio; but in February, 1862, President Davis who delighted in honoring him, invited him to take a seat in the Cabinet as Secretary of State - which he retained to the end of the Confederate Government. To him, both by training and temperament, diplomacy was congenial. True, he failed in his unwearied efforts to secure recognition for our young nation by the great European Powers; but we may safely assume it was because the Star of Empire shone not upon the cradle of the Southern Confederacy. When the swords of great Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Stuart could not achieve our independence, surely Benjamin may be pardoned that he did not gain our admission into the family of nations.

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        When Richmond fell, Benjamin, true to his personal friend the President, with the other Cabinet officers, accompanied him to Danville. All the long, dreary way he was the life of the party. When the President went southwards he was still at his side; but, on arriving at Washington, Ga., finding that further resistance was reduced to "save himself who can," he assumed a disguise and made his way to the Florida coast.

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Again, after many hardships, a  "Forlorn and shipwrecked mariner."  life threw him upon St. Thomas - the isle of his birth. Thence, once more he set out to fight the battle of life in a foreign land - this time, he was middle-aged, a man of fifty-five. Landing in Liverpool, he hastened to London and took up the study of English law. In June, 1866, a year after planting foot on the soil of Great Britain, he was admitted to the English courts as barrister at law. Six years passed, and in 1872, he became Queen's Counselor and presently was so famous as to appear solely before the House of Lords and Privy Council.

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        A portrait of him in his Counselor's wig - his dark, intellectual Semitic face framed in stiff rows of white woolen curls - clearly shows in its triumphant smile the indomitable heart and persevering genius of his great race. In his Hebrew lexicon there was no such word as fail. Overthrown on one plane, he never lost heart, but was ready cheerily to challenge Fate to another wrestle - ever another, and again so long as life lasted!

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        In the early spring of 1883, failing health admonished him to lead a less strenuous life, and he resolved to give up his magnificent practice which now ensured him a fortune of 18,000 pounds in English money - the third he had made. Before his final retirement to Paris, leading members of the English bar bestowed upon him a most unusual honor. Desiring to take a collective farewell and to testify their high sense of the honor and integrity of his professional career, and of their desire for a continuance of their relations of personal friendship they tendered him a grand complimentary banquet June, 1883, in the Hall of the Inner Temple. Sir Henry James on this occasion, in allusion to his forensic ability, voiced the recognition of all present when he asked: "Who is the man, save this one, of whom it can be said that he held conspicuous leadership at the bar of two countries?"

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        He did not live long to enjoy his honors, for the seeds of death were already planted in his frame. With the well-merited plaudits of all England ringing in his ears, he crossed the Channel for the last time. A Hebrew, he never obtruded, nor endeavored to conceal the birth of which he was proud. He might well say that "the world was his home."

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         A man of two nationalities - British and Confederate - he passed the short remainder of his days chiefly in Paris, in the beautiful home he had built for his wife and daughter in the Avenue d'Jena. Here, he died May 6, 1884. He now sleeps in the famed Cemetery of Pere la Chaise.

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        * * * *

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        And now by way of epilogue, let us take up a most interesting question.

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        Is it not singular to find that this great man - who in a momentous epoch of the national history cast his fortune with the South, when doubtless he could have secured preferment at the North - should be so misjudged and accused by men of the present day? If, as has been alleged, he carried with him the great seal, he but took his own property; for unless surrendered to the victor, such it became with the collapse of the government. He thus saved it from desecration; and if he retained it during life there was then no organization which could receive this, no doubt the most sacred of his treasures; and even if there had been, he was under no obligation to part with it until he chose. If, as has been asserted, he donated it to British keeping, he but put it into the care of the world's most powerful and most reverent custodian. And after all, is it not fitting that the longest-lived of the English nations should guard this relic of the shortest-lived? - that the symbol of our glorious quadrennium should abide among the symbols of a millenium, and that the mighty mother of nations should possess this memorial of the noblest of her daughters?

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        If Benjamin left the South in the day of her overthrow, he did no more than a score of her generals did, and no more than Davis was trying to do. Glance at the prospect before him as he surveyed the future with the President at Washington. The Confederacy was dead. The Chief Executive and his official family were fugitives. If captured, they could look for nothing less than imprisonment - a merciless vengeance, possibly the hangman's cord from the hands of a party at the North, drunken and crazed with power and flushed with conquest over their sister-section. In addition to this sinister prospect, he knew that all the resources and power of the Confederacy had perished in its death struggle.

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       What was there for him in Louisiana, what could he do to aid or comfort her in her vast humiliation? Nothing! With the vision of a seer, he must have seen the destiny that was to be hers - the judiciary of which she was once so proud subjected to the rule of the sword, even judges holding their place by sufferance. The dearest part of a man's country is ever said to be his own family and fireside. Benjamin's household gods yet remained and his allegiance as husband and father was due to them.

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        Look at the long list shining with the names of other eminent Confederates who, after the surrender, in that first dark hour of collapse and a noble despair sought other lands in which to hide the agony of their hearts, in which to live. or, at least, to breathe until health and strength came back to their sick souls.

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        Let us single out a few.

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        See Robert Toombs - than whom never breathed a more rampant, defiant, devoted Southerner - yet he, chafing at defeat like an entrapped lion, remained abroad until 1867.

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        John Taylor Wood - the brother-in-law of the President and his aide-de-camp - when all was over, escaped to Cuba and subsequently lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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        General Early, after riding like a paladin long and hard to attach himself to a Confederate force and continue the war. gave up the fruitless chase and became an exile for a time in Mexico and Canada.

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        General John B. Magruder - called "Prince John" on account of his lordly air - sought relief for his exasperation by enlisting in the army of Maximilian and remained with him until his downfall.

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        Our own loved Henry Watkins Allen, Governor of Louisiana and gallant officer in the Southern army - unable to stand the changed conditions brought on by the war - took himself with his broken heart to die in Mexico.

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        But why add to the list? Against not one of these heroic souls of the Confederacy has envy or detraction ever raised slanderous voice impugning their patriotism. Why then against Judah P. Benjamin? Would it not be ungenerous to ascribe this petty resentment of which he is the victim to the fact that he was a Jew and, therefore, heir to all the obloquy that Christian tongues have too often meted out to his race.

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        But, rather does it not remind one of the antique Cato's criticism upon the breach between Caesar and Pompey? "The great misery has not come from their being enemies, but from their having been friends." The South, resentful that another should claim the service and prestige of one whom she considered her own son, questions his purity of motive. A weakness of humanity! When a bond of union has once existed, we are apt to take ill even the appearance of a transfer of affection.

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        Instead of looking coldly upon one who was ever true to his brethren of the Confederacy, rather should we hold in highest esteem this official of our short-lived Government who in a strange land won honor and dignities so notable. Those honors, by reflection, are ours. Though the Atlantic rolled between the country of his early and that of his later life, yet will the name and fame of Judah P. Benjamin - three times chosen to a seat in her Cabinet - ever be proudly and indissolubly associated with that of the Southern Confederacy.

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THE LOUISIANA.

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        IN April, 1862, when the bruit of a naval attack upon New Orleans by way of the Gulf, first began to fill the air, it created little more apprehension than an incredulous shrug of the shoulders, or a laugh that one could be so silly as to believe the canard. Did not Secretary Mallory believe that the invasion would come from above the city, not below the forts? Surely, he must know better than these idle rumor-makers! Serenely, therefore, in the afternoon after closing his store, the merchant would stroll to the foot of Canal street to enjoy the fresh breeze, and while watching the swollen river - its muddy waters creeping stealthily but steadily, night and day, to the top of the levee - would speculate with his friends upon the probable height of the June rise, when the Missouri would empty upon its current vast floods of thawed snow and ice. Crevasses that endangered the orange orchards and fields of growing sweet cane troubled his thrifty mind far more than D. G. Farragut, "Flag-officer western blockading squadron."

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        Though the times were full of war, the Crescent harbor presented a scene of prosperity well-pleasing to the eye of planter and factor. A number of foreign steamers stood in the harbor laden with heavy cargoes of cotton for their return trip across the Atlantic. Around others at the wharves was the cheery hum of contented labor. The red-shirted stevedores, with their iron hooks were toiling and tugging, to the measured rhythm of an old minstrel melody, at the hundreds of bales that crowded the levee to get them aboard before night-fall. Up and down the sheds and over the wharves - as though a flock of sheep had passed through and paid toll with their wool - were great bunches and shreds of the fleecy staple, and everywhere the white lint floated in the pleasant April air.

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        Out in the harbor, too, was a staunch little fleet of thirteen vessels, bearing among others such martial names as the Warrior, Defiance, Resolute and the Stonewall Jackson.

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        Some of these were "converted vessels" - that is, river steamers made shot-proof with cotton bulkheads and provided with iron prows to act as rams, and among these were a few tug-boats for pushing fire-rafts on the enemy, should an engagement ever take place. Yet on her "ways" at the ship-yard in the Jefferson suburb was the naval monster, Mississippi - since said by two navies to have been the most formidable war vessel ever built. Although unfinished, she was fast nearing completion and it was expected that she would rival, or out-do, the dashing exploits of the Virginia in Hampton Roads. The Manassas, glorious name but ill of prophecy, was lying above Fort Jackson eager to try conclusions with Farragut's fleet, should the Admiral be so daring as to extend a challenge. But above all, the heart of the proud city placed its trust in the LOUISIANA. Surely, that was a name to be relied upon as a sponsor for the protection of New Orleans! This formidable ironclad was not much of a trim, nautical craft to please the eye, but it was thought to be a fearful menace to the insolent ship that might brave its guns.

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        Far down the river - thirty miles from its mouth on the western bank - was Fort Jackson, guardian of the Passes and the first outpost of defense. Named in honor of the Hero of New Orleans, it bristled with guns and was garrisoned by a goodly complement of soldiers. A few hundred yards above on the eastern bank, the older fort, St. Philip, well gunned and manned, stood sentinel, and more securely to obstruct the river against possible invasion of New Orleans, was a barrier of schooners lashed amidships and anchored across the stream between the forts.

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        So, upon this fatal 24th of April, 1862, New Orleans, cradled in war, was not to be scared. Trusting in the strength and loyalty of her forts and in the might of her steam rams - two bearing as talismans against shot and shell the names of Gulf States, and one with the name of a Northern rout - she believed herself invincible. Off in the Gulf, an invasion that threatened might seem alarming, but in the city no one was alarmed. The laugh, the song and the dance went merrily on with the gilded youth on General Lovell's staff and the dark-eyed girls of Creoledom. In the gardens, the red roses and scarlet lilies bloomed in the spring sunlight with ominous significance of color, but the Queen City of the South - trusting in her defenses on river and land - serenely pursued the even tenor of her way.

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        The Louisiana was simply a huge vessel built upon a dry dock. In appearance, to one not versed in naval architecture - as its unwieldy bulk lay heavily upon the water - it was not unlike the sloping roof of a house with ridge cut off by a broad open inclosure that, in turn, was surrounded by a parapet. Through this inclosure, like a curious swarthy giant looking out upon the world, loomed its smoke-stack. It was propelled by four engines and was to have been mounted by sixteen guns and carry a crew of two hundred men.

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        General Duncan, commander of the two forts, harassed by the fire of Commodore Porter's mortar-boats, called upon Commodore Mitchell of the naval forces at New Orleans for the services of the Louisiana. Yet incomplete, unwillingly, she was ordered down. With machinists and mechanics at work on her propellers, on the 20th of April, under command of Captain Charles F. McIntosh, she was towed down the river - as brave men believed - to be the guardian angel of the river defence. Half a mile above St. Philip she was moored to the left bank. On the 22nd, as the bombardment increased in severity, General Duncan requested Commodore Mitchell to move the Louisiana farther down the river so that she might drive the mortar-schooners off. The Commodore declined, for the reason that the Louisiana's machinery was not yet in working order; that the engineers hoped to have it in a day or two; that its top was unprotected, and if a shell dropped on it, it would pass through the bottom and inevitably sink the ship, etc., etc. It was the same old story so often told of our gun-boats - a state of unpreparedness when occasion demanded their services. General Duncan, naturally believing that the Louisiana was built for use and should take some risks, felt aggrieved at the Commodore's decision - although in its propriety he was supported by all his officers - and unfortunately, from this time, all cordiality between the forts and fleet ceased to exist.

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        At 3:30 a. m., on April 24th, suddenly, in the midst of the wild uproar on river and land, in the darkness of the night, fell the silence of the desert.

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        The mortars were mute; the forts stopped their fire, and the only sound that broke the stillness was the rush of the Mississippi, as the mighty current of its yellow flood went swirling in the pitchy darkness to its watery bourne in the Gulf. Inside Fort Jackson, just as longingly as the besieged Antwerpers in 1585 watched for Gianbelli's "hell-burners," or fireships, that were to destroy the bridge of Farnese across the Scheldt, so did Duncan and the brave St. Mary's Cannoneers watch throughout that woeful, memorable night, counting the hours in hopeless despair of aid from the fire-barges at New Orleans. Through some one's blunder, the fire-ships, that would have carried dismay and destruction into the enemy's fleet, were not sent down on the one night when they might have turned the dark fortunes of the hour.

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        The sinister quiet did not last long.

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        In one awful instant a wild glare lit up the scene. Then like the deafening detonation of a volcano with its myriad quakings, throbbings and blazings came a crash and a horrible din. Porter's mortar-boats reopened their bombardment, with a shriek and roar of bursting shells, grape, canister and shrapnel. Forts Jackson and St. Philip responded with fury, but little effect. "Oh for the fire-barges whose light would give us aim and accuracy!" groaned Duncan, in his desperation peering into the darkness with a wild hope that he might catch a gleam of their flaming torches. But his appeal was heard only by the night winds struggling with the dense smoke that, belching from the mortars, added to the gloom of the night.

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        Under cover of darkness and the fierce hail of the mortar-boats, Farragut's fleet like ill- omened ghosts - each vessel grimed with river-mud to make it more a part of the night - under a full pressure of steam made the historic passage of the forts. Each one in rushing past poured broadside after broadside of shot and shell in swift succession into the forts. Once past, safe and victorious from the perilous transit, they steamed slowly up the river to their appointed rendezvous at Quarantine Station, six miles above. The passage of the fleet was brief in point of time - less than two hours - but long in tension as human hearts beat.

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        There were presages enough of coming disaster; but still above the forts floated the Confederate flag inspiring valor. Unhappily, however, the colors while inspiring courage could not confirm loyalty. Mutiny broke out in the two forts and signals were exchanged between the mutineers. Perhaps here best may be emphasized a consolation for state pride. No native Louisianian was among the mutineers.

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        In the meantime, the iron-clad Louisiana, pulling and tugging at her moorings and longing like a fierce mastiff held in leash to get at the enemy, had fired only a few scattering shots from her guns. Owing to the position in which she had been made fast to the bank and to the incompleted condition of her interior, her guns could not be trained so effectively upon the enemy's advancing fleet as had been hoped. After the gallant work of the "Manassas" in her bold rush upon the "Hartford" and her subsequent disablement, the "Louisiana" received her officers and men aboard.

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        On the 27th negotiations for the surrender of the forts were initiated by Commodore Porter, of the mortar-flotilla. On the 28th, disheartened by the mutiny of garrisons in the forts and the reported capture of New Orleans, the conditions were accepted by General Duncan. Soon after, the Harriet Lane with Commodore Porter and officers - a white flag at the fore - came opposite the forts to receive and sign the terms of capitulation. Negotiations were proceeding amicably on the Harriet Lane, when on the Mississippi - of late so rich in stately spectacles - appeared a portent as awful as it was mysterious, floating by to interrupt the proceedings on board.

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        It was the "Louisiana," once a powerful iron-clad, but at this moment a helpless wreck, drifting and discharging her guns at random. How worse than useless! The fleet which she had been specially armed to resist and terrify, was lying at victorious peace in the river in front of New Orleans. The mortar-schooners which she might, if properly handled, have gripped hard and sunk with her powerful battery, were near the head of the Passes, warily watching her and the forts. Hopeless to save her from the superior power bearing down on her from every side, her officers set her on fire, and sent her with all her guns protruding, down the river. 

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        Although in her death throes drifting aimlessly as the current bore her, she was more fortunate than her sister-craft - the great steam-ram "Mississippi" - which was taken above the city, riddled and burned before she had fired a gun! Abandoned to her own terrible self, the luckless "Louisiana" floated down in the presence of the guns of the mortar-fleet. The clumsy mortars, as she drifted past, struggled to escape the blazing wreck, even in its ruin a menace. When near her old moorings close to St. Philip, suddenly, from the great iron-clad came the deafening explosion of her powder magazine, scattering fragments of her wood-work everywhere within and around the fortifications; then a mighty plunge like some wallowing monster of the deep and the "Louisiana" sank into the abyss of waters! The blowing-up, as if in angry protest against surrender, shook the signers of the capitulation from their seats and careened the "Harriet Lane" on her side. Once righted, her officers rushed on deck, but saw only the river flowing sullenly to the Gulf, while not a ripple upon the surface showed where the "Louisiana" had committed her awful suicide.

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        It looked like the grimmest irony or a hostile fate, that the only casualties from the Louisiana's formidable battery should have comprised one of our own men killed in the fort, and three or four wounded.

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        So, in a flame of fire, ashes and glory perished the ill-starred "Louisiana," on whose strength and the stout hearts beating within her iron ribs had rested so many fond hopes. She never fulfilled the purpose for which she was built; but who dares deny that her phantom flag will float over the river, from New Orleans to the Passes, so long as the Mississippi has memories!

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FOUR RICHMOND GIRLS

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        IT was the 2nd of April of that most disastrous year, 1865, that Miss X. attended morning worship in the old Monumental Church of Richmond, Va. A vague unrest born of premonition seemed to permeate the congregation as, dismissed by the rector, they slowly moved down the aisles to the central exit. At the doorway, as Miss X. stepped upon the marble vestibule, her arm was firmly seized by a friend in waiting and she was hurriedly drawn aside from the pressing crowd. In a low tone was whispered: "I am just from St. Pauls'. The President received a dispatch and left the church in haste. Gen. Ewell has ordered out the militia. It is said that Richmond is to be evacuated to-night. Come!" Ominous whisper that boded much! A look that spoke volumes was interchanged and the friends silently tried to make their way through the steadily increasing, questioning crowds on the sidewalks. Already the direful news was in the air, but its effects were stunning rather than demonstrative of either anger or grief. It seemed as if a mephitic vapor had fallen from midair and clogged the utterance of speech. People looked at each other and in some subtle way understood that all was over, that love, valor, sacrifice - not even Lee in whom they trusted - could do aught more for the proud Capital of the Confederacy. It was doomed! And yet the heavens smiled serenely fair! It seemed so strange to see that bright sunshine on the streets and the skies so blue, when the cold shadow of despair was creeping over human hearts.

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        The friends hurried home and packed a few necessaries in handbags. Now, their number augmented by two others, they hurried to the depot. It was about 4 p. m. and the platform was jammed with struggling humanity seeking entrance to a long train that was drawn up for departure, and impatiently signaling to be off. What was remarkable was the fact that there were no noisy protests when trunks were refused. or tumbled off when surreptitiously put on - whatever came was stoically accepted. All was confusion of moment; but it was a confusion dominated by a sullen silence of disappointment and heart-break.

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        No ticket agent was in sight. It was "save himself who can." After vain attempts to gain a foothold, even upon the open freight cars, the four friends returned to their home. All Richmond was now upon the streets. They passed groups blanched in face standing at street corners, or leaning over the gates of residences asking in troubled tones for the latest news from Lee - their alarm increased by belated orderlies who, carrying dispatches, clattered by with whip and spur. It seemed impossible for the four young women to get out of the beleaguered city, and yet it was equally impossible for them to remain and face the invading army on the morrow. "What was to be done?" they despairingly asked one another. They knew that they were desperately hungry, for they had eaten nothing for hours - that was the first point. After a scant meal of corn bread and cold turnips left from dinner of the day before, again the quartette with anxious hearts footed the long weary way back to the depot. It was now about 8 p. m. and the aspect of the city had changed. In the semi-darkness, companies of cavalry, like phantom horsemen speaking to none, but stern and grim, thundered over the stony pavements; the gutters ran a river of strong drink and a rabble, both white and black, knelt upon the ground and leaning over the edge drank of its flow like swine, or filled buckets and bottles to take home. Knots of negroes gathered on the sidewalks and seemed dazed, as if they could not make out the turn of events. Like their masters, they too were under the spell that forbade utterance or emotion. Through this half-drunken, but almost mute crowd, the four friends reached the depot. A long line of cars was drawn up that in the uncertain light seemed to stretch a league into outer darkness, and promise accommodation for the constantly increasing mob of refugees. But again the girls found that expostulations, entreaties, prayers were only a waste of vital energy. However, deliverance was at hand. A rough, but sympathetic official standing near, wearied perchance with the feminine din, gruffly said: "Ladies, this is a Government train with no room for civilian passengers, but, if you will go, the only place is on top of the cars. Up that ladder at the end is where you have to go." The friends, in dismay, contemplated what was before them.

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          A perpendicular climb of several yards and afterward should they survive the attempt, a ride through rain or shine on top of a car. Oh, shades of Southern ancestry and instincts of feminine reserve! But it was the time for action, not words. Miss X. was a young woman of decision and solved the problem. Out of that city she had to go, for her two brothers lying in soldiers' graves had sworn that their sisters should never be within the enemy's lines. Bravely, she seized a round of the ladder and with strong pulls finally reached the sloping top. Amid hysterical encouragement to one another, friend followed friend, until the four were aboard, drawn up close together on what seemed a central plank, on top of a carriage that promised both peril and discomfort. The train lingered and from their point of vantage they looked with aching hearts upon the motley scene below, and thought with dread upon what the morrow was to bring forth. The car on which they perched was out in the open and they watched the rockets, signaling retreat and disaster, flashing high up among the stars. They shivered in the chill night air and drew closer together as a dull report following an explosion was heard, or the blaze of a house in flames lit up the darkness. Towards the morning hours the train pulled out on its long journey, and the last view of the heroic city by the James was framed in the smoke and flames of burning cotton and tobacco.

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        Away the train sped through desolate fields, but ever under a mocking blue sky. Not much chance or desire for conversation was there. Sometimes, an overhanging branch from a wayside tree made the ladies duck their heads to escape a stinging slap in the face, and the swinging of the cars on long unrepaired roads produced a giddiness as if tossed on the ocean waves.

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        At last, the long dreary day ended. That night, April 3rd, at 11 o'clock, Danville was reached and the free ride was over. Half asleep from exhaustion and fatigue, stiff from cramped muscles and faint from the fast of hours, Miss X. and her companions backed down the narrow upright ladder and stood upon the ground. Imagine the amazement of the adventurous damsels, when horrified friends informed them that they had made the journey from Richmond to Danville atop an ammunition train!

        NOTE - This and the following sketch are compiled from the author's own personal experience while as Miss Ada Stuart she served the Confederate Government so loyally and faithfully.

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THE HALT

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        THE spring of 1865, in Virginia, was one of the fairest ever given to earth. There was a thrill in the air, a lustre in the light, a joyous beauty all around that seemed strangely out of tune with the sorrowful drama-of-war played by man beneath the ever-smiling, unclouded sky. The gardens bloomed like a second Eden; undisturbed by human tragedy, the aspens danced lightly in the soft sunshine, flinging their gossamer lace-like shadows over the green lawns; and every breeze that swept the cheek came laden with rich perfume from the forest jasmine. None looking upon this delicate beauty, enlivened by the glad song of minstrel birds, could ever dream that the men and women of the Old Dominion were, in reality, a band of mourners gathered at a Nation's deathbed. The little town of Danville seemed a place for the soft, rosy dreams of peace and security, not for fear and wailing, nor for the bugle call to meet danger, disaster and humiliation.

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        It was here that President Davis and his Cabinet halted for a few days after the flight from Richmond. The reopening of departments, the dash of mounted soldiery, of couriers coming and going gave quite a martial, lively air to the sleepy, country town. Refugees came crowding in from all over the State, for the dread of separation from loved ones by falling within the enemy's lines was upon all. We literally lived out of doors those last days of the Confederacy, for hearts were too restless and oppressed to remain within. Sitting on the front steps, the swift hoof-beats of a horseman galloping past would bring every one in a tumultuous rush to the gate to scan his face and read the message it bore of good or ill tidings. It was in the air that our troops in North Carolina would have to fall back to some more distant Southern point; but we were not dismayed, for we understood that it meant only a new line of defence where Johnson would form and fight again. Then came the President's stirring, hopeful proclamation that rang out in our ears like the notes of a clarion invoking renewed effort and devotion.

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        We caught its indomitable spirit, for Appomattox had not yet been reached, and we likened our gloomy present to the dark days of Wallace and Bruce when they fought for Scotland's deliverance. Boldness and adventure won for the Scots, why not for the Confederates? Our hearts, like that of the President, were unconquered and unconquerable. So truly confident were we that the God of Battles was with us, despite the fact that we were overborne by numbers; driven from our Capital; our once victorious army sullenly falling back, still we cried: "God is in it all - as truly in the dreadful retreat from Petersburg as in the sun-glory of the first Manassas." Though fronting constant disaster, our hearts stubbornly assumed that victory, in the end, would crown the South. Sometimes, however, when we thought of Lee in whom we always trusted, now so far away; of his right arm, great Stonewall Jackson, forever still; of his left, Stuart, that "Flower of Cavaliers," under the sod, in spite of the effort to be brave and strong against such heavy odds, a shadowy fear crept out of the future and chilled our hearts.

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        It was in this epoch-making time that two young Government employees of the Richmond post office - Miss Selden and Miss X. found themselves in Danville, still attached to the fortunes of a fugitive Government; but without opportunity for giving it service. Until the routine was established calling for renewal of their duties, they were fortunate in finding friends who opened hospitable doors to them. Miss X. was taken in charge by the mother of "raiding Jeb. Stuart," whom the fair Virginians dubbed "The Knight of the Golden Spurs." To be thrown so intimately with this distin-guished and stately old lady, and to hear from her own lips, told with a mother's eager warmth, delightful home gossipry of the bold leader of the famous Pamunkey expedition, was an incident that appealed most strongly to the hero-worshiping, enthusiastic temperament of this young girl. It came into her life like a bright flower found blooming under a gray, wintry sky.

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        Several restless days were spent in anticipation of a summons to duty - varied one beautiful Sunday morning by church services and a prayer for President Davis. How little we dreamed it was for the last time! Then the two friends were notified to hold themselves in readiness to report to their department at Greensboro, North Carolina. The sunny afternoon upon which they received orders found them promptly at the depot.

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        They were at once given accommodations in a rough box car whose sole merit was that it was wholly private to themselves. It was roomy, but with open doors, and void of any attempt at comfort or convenience. Its furniture was limited to two chairs and some nondescript luggage. The fearless temper of the women of that time is clearly shown in the fact that these two young girls - brought up in comfort and refinement, and with a most scrupulous observance of the proprieties of life - accepted the situation, not only without question or complaint, but with cheerful stoicism as a necessary outcome of the times. Alone in a box car, in a season of war; off on a train that went whizzing away to Greensboro like an uncanny monster in the darkness and silence of the night! A perilous trip for two young maidens, does it not seem - as we view it in the light of this quiet, uneventful. prosaic present - forty-five years after occurrence? Life demanded prompt action in those stormy days and everything was so topsy-turvy that, if called upon to ride on the horns of the moon in discharge of their accepted duty, they would have responded to the call, feeling that some way would be provided to make the feat possible.

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        The train stopped a short time at Compay Shops beyond the Virginia line, and kind old Col. Clement of the Richmond post office, like a good Samaritan, sent a couple of hospital mattresses, a new tin basin and also some apples for the refreshment of the young marooners. Matters were much improved by his thoughtful kindness and in the twilight they became quite merry, as they spread their apples for a "starvation party" and speculated upon the future. President Davis and his aide, Col. Wm. Preston Johnston, loyal Judge Reagan with several other members of the Cabinet. were in a car not far from that occupied by the two young girls. Judge of their surprise when a little after sunrise the next morning, Colonel Clement suddenly appeared from somewhere and asked to borrow the tin pan for the President's ablutions. Fortunately, their slight toilettes had been discreetly made in the early dawn so, regretting that they could not furnish towels also, the laughing damsels cheerily sent the pan for His Excellency's service and felt quite honored by the requisition - homely though it was.

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        Later in the day, it crept out that the entire Presidential party, one by one, had followed their Chief's example in the use of the pan. Only an humble bit of tinware was it, but a relic to be sought after, when one recalls the distinguished and historic group of faces reflected from its shining surface.

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        From Greensboro, a day or two after, the Confederate Government as represented by its Executive and Cabinet went Southward. Then came the crash of doom! With the Government in the saddle, the two employee realized that the death warrant of all things Confederate was written, and their connection with the post office had ended without the formality of a dismissal. The "Lady Mayoress" of Greensboro, having heard of the freight car episode, cordially invited the young ladies to accept her hospitality during their enforced stay in the town - an invitation of which they gladly and gratefully hastened to avail themselves. In the meantime, events were making history fast. Fate struck the South two hard blows. One was the assassination of the Northern President, and the other - crushing us with anger, grief and humiliation - was the capture and disgraceful treatment of the Chief Magistrate of our beloved Confederacy.

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        The two young employees never understood why, or through whose agency they were awarded thirty Mexican dollars, each, also a 20-pound box of tobacco apiece, as a share of the ex-Government spoils. What became of the tobacco was problematical, but the silver money came in most happily, for the treasury notes were now worthless, save for sentiment. On their return to Danville, Miss Selden finding the North an open door, at once went on to her friends in Maryland. Miss X. was again taken under the wing of Mrs. Stuart until, later on, she rejoined her friends in that city of ruins and sentinel chimney-stacks, the fire-scarred, blackened Capital of the dead Confederacy - sad Richmond-by-the-James.

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PART II.

THE CONFEDERATE GIRL.

PART I.

        (Data for this and the two following papers furnished by Mrs. George H. Tichenor, of New Orleans.)

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        JUNE 3, 1861, Tennessee severed her connection with the Union. At once "Soldier Serving Societies" were organized by the ladies of Memphis for the purpose of making uniforms and clothing for our troops, and the preparation of bandages, lint, etc., for the hospitals. Old and young, matron and maid were eager to aid in a cause that appealed strongly both to their affection and patriotism. Soon the gatherings outgrew private houses and, when other buildings were not available, the churches were pressed into service for their noble work - a work all untrained, but pursued with a heart and soul that gave it life and energy.

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        Among the numbers that daily crowded one of these churches - turned during the week into an immense sewing-room - might be noted a young school girl, Margaret Thurman Drane by name, a golden haired lass of fourteen with eyes of Scottish blue. Ardently Confederate, each day after school she hastily tripped to church to aid in what warm fancy and a generous heart proclaimed a glorious task - that of making garments for the brave boys already on their way to Manassas, battle field of Virginia. Her eyes must have grown large from wonder and dim from dismay when the grey uniform coat of an officer was put into her untried hands to make. Poor little lass! She knew how to hemstitch, but not how to back-stitch, and it was before the days when sewing machines were made as much a part of the household equipment as beds and chairs. However, her heart was stout and with fingers both willing and diligent, after two days of hard toil and the breakage of a paper of needles, the coat was completed. Alas! when her labor of love was scrutinized at headquarters, no fault could be found with the stitches, but it was discovered that while the front and side pieces had been laboriously sewed together, the back had been innocently left out!

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        She did not receive the blue ribbon for her work that day, but was assigned the less responsible task of bringing hot smoothing irons from the basement, upstairs, to be used in pressing seams.

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        A new hotel that had never been used as a hostelry was converted into a hospital and the city was divided into sections, each section taking its turn at service. The mothers, with a train of household servants nursed the wounded and sick, while the young girls carried flowers, wrote letters for the convalescent soldiers and sometimes - it was told with much glee by the mischievous recipients - they again washed faces that, in the course of a day, had already received due attention by earlier visitors, at least half a dozen times - all equally solicitous of giving aid and comfort to our brave defenders. Here came our lass - most eager to help, but so little knowing how. Timidly threading the long aisle of cots, she was implored by a soldier suffering from a gunshot wound to rub his arm with liniment to cool his fever and ease its throbbing pain. Proud to be called upon, her eyes bright and face aglow from sympathy, she seized a bottle nearby and hastily poured its contents on arm and in wound - bathing, saturating, rubbing it in with all the energy of which her young muscles were capable to make sure it would do good work. "Ah! unfortunate girl!" shrieked the soldier from the cot, his agonizing pain getting the better of his chivalry. At the sound of his wrathful voice there was a sudden flutter of skirts and patter of feet, for the young practitioner fled down the aisle that seemed endless, for fear that she had killed him! We will trust that the remedy was curative - it certainly was heroic and the pungent odors of turpentine were not a sweet, health-distilling fragrance in a ward filled with sick folk.

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        The days had now come when the looms of Dixie, hitherto an unknown quantity, were to be busy weaving homespun for its people to wear. But Margaret Drane with her sister and two young friends may claim to be the first of the "Homespun Girls" of Dixie of gentle birth who wore that much derided, homely material. A good-humored merchant of the city, doubtful of their brave, oft-repeated cry to

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                        "Live and die for Dixie"

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resolved to test them on a point where he was confident their girlish vanity would shake their constancy. It was in the first days of the war when Southern maidens still affected what was dainty and becoming. Cynicus challenged them to put aside their pretty, airy, muslin frocks and walk down the fashionable thoroughfare of Main Street clad in humble homespun. While daring them to do this, he offered to make the material a gift. At once the quick pride of the Confederate girl was touched. She gloried in this opportunity for the sacrifice of personal vanity upon the altar of patriotism. The merchant's offer was accepted so soon as made and the girls marched in a bevy to his store. There they selected the unmistakably genuine article, with their own hands made the dresses in the style of the day - ten widths to the skirt, tight waist and low-corded neck. Wearing their homespun, not as housemaids, but as if it were the ermine of royalty, and trying to keep step in their ungainly brogans; with cornshuck hats of their own braiding, bravely trimmed with red-white-and-red ribbons, shading their blushing faces. the appearance of the quartette on Main Street at once set the patriotic fashion and made them the toast of the hour.

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        Ah! those early days of a war that had not yet grown cruel and when, to the bounding heart of youth, the drama seemed just enough touched with danger to be wonderfully fascinating and entertaining! In the summer of '61 it was more of a game than a reality. Our girls, from daily visits to the soldiers' target practise, were fired with a spirit of emulation. "Who could tell' - they reasoned - "but what, like the Maid of Saragossa, behind the rampart of cotton bales with which General Pillow has fortified the river front, we, too, may defend our city." True, many of the young maids had learned to handle without fear the pistols coaxed from brothers and friends and, too proud to betray ignorance, after a unique fashion of their own, loaded them. First they carefully rammed in a generous wad of paper, then bullets and all the powder the chambers would hold. But lo! nothing they could do would induce the weapon to go off and the entire contents persisted in rolling out. Again and again the charge was varied, bullets at bottom and paper on top, but of no avail.

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        Possibly the cap was omitted. They could not tell, but cheerily looked to the future to remedy their inexperience and crown them with laurels. By no means discouraged, they turned to the target-practise - shooting with guns and cartridges already prepared and about which there could be no perplexing mixture of contents. Their spirits rose, for it seemed so easy. Margaret led her companions in this as in whatever enlisted the sympathies of her adventurous spirit. Ambitious to excel, she flouted the friendly counsel of her wise but over-mischievous escort, and chose for her first essay a sharp-shooter rifle intended to pick off its victim a mile distant. Averting her eyes, she resolutely pulled the trigger. What fatal ease! There was a terrific bang as if earth and heaven had collided. The rifle was dropped - our brave sharpshooter knew not where, for a space she knew nothing! Dazed by the shock of sound, she fell backward and rolled down hill to be picked up a somewhat bruised and aching young rebel, but irrepressible as ever and burning with the desire to fit herself for the service of Dixie.

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        If there was one delinquency more than another resolutely frowned upon, and that excited the keenest contempt of a Dixie girl, it was the cowardice of a man that kept him at home in a safe berth and left the fighting to be done by others. The girls looked upon that as a blot which all the power and wealth of the world could not purge away. Those not enrolled and known as "Minute men" - enlisted for the war and ready for the field at a moment's notice - received short shrift at the hands of these young fire-eaters. Margaret bribed a young man, whom she suspected of being unduly slow in entering the ranks, with a promise to mould the bullets he was to fire at the enemy. To do this tardy young Southerner justice it must be said that he was the only stay of his mother and she was both a widow and helpless invalid. But golden hair and eyes of Scottish blue have more than once taken the crook out of the way for a man. It was so in this case. The young man went to an early battle-field taking with him the pledged dozen bullets shining like newly minted dollars. Soon it was his good fortune to return proudly to dangle before Margaret's shining eyes an empty sleeve, and tell her that was her work. And the stouthearted little maiden was glad while she grieved, for the South's true boy had stood General Bragg's grim test of manhood - "To the front to die as a soldier."

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        So the memorable year of 1861 passed away and the shadows were fast deepening over the land. A typical girl of the '60's, our Margaret had sewed, wept and sung for the boys in gray through the golden summer months and early autumn days. At this time there was a Thespian temple in Memphis, newly built, but never opened to the player folk. The grand old "Mothers" of the city took possession of it and through local talent gave concerts for the purpose of equipping several companies with uniforms. Memory recalls one of those tuneful evenings, when all the girls who had melody in their voices gathered upon the stage arrayed in whitest muslin, with reddest roses for jewels, to sing the songs of Rebel-land under the waving Stars and Bars. And the rebel girls sang with a warmth and volume of voice that stirred tender old memories, or touched a patriotic chord whose vibrations set the audience wild with enthusiastic cheering and clapping of hands.

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        The "Marsellaise," "When this Cruel War is Over," then the sad sweet strains of "Lorena" in clear bird-like notes floated through the hall and a hush, born of its pathos, fell upon all. Who so deservedly proud as Margaret, our Confederate Girl, when one who loved the song told her that she sang it better than a great singer, claiming the fame of an artist! "Lorena" suggested tears and heart-break, so there was a quick transition to lively old favorites - as well known to the audience as the whistlings of their own mocking-bird - such as "Maryland my Maryland," "Hard Times Come No More," "My Mary Ann," with a score of others, but always sliding at the close into the inevitable "Dixie" that was the signal for a shower of bouquets, sonorous hand-claps, pounding of feet, and strong-throated hurrahs.

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        In the meantime our Confederate Girl retires from the stage to come forth again with the story of her refugee life and subsequent return from Memphis.

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