by Dorothy Love
My hands shook as I handed them back to him. I was terrified for him. For all of us. “Are you certain, Robert?”
He nodded.
“Then so am I.”
He summoned Billy to deliver the letters to the War Department, and thus our fate was sealed.
April 26, 1861
Richmond
My dear Mary,
I am very anxious about you. You have to move and make arrangements to go to some point of safety, which you must select. The Mt. Vernon plate and pictures ought to be secured. Keep quiet while you remain and in your preparations. War is inevitable, and there is no telling when it may burst around you.
“Mother?” Agnes joined me in the parlor. “You are pale as milk. What is it?”
I handed her the letter. “Your papa thinks we may be invaded.”
Only three weeks earlier, Robert, newly appointed to lead the Confederates in Virginia, kissed us in farewell and rode away from Arlington. Now he was preparing for the worst while I still prayed for some miracle to save us all from the coming carnage.
Agnes frowned. “What should we do?”
“Pack up the Washington treasures, as he directs. But I’m not certain we need to leave just yet.”
“I read in the paper last week that some in the South are burying their treasures in their backyards,” Agnes said.
I had stopped reading the papers, especially those from the North, for they were full of hatred for my husband.
If Mr. Custis could have lived until now, he would have good cause to be bowed down in grief and sorrow to behold his son-in-law following in the steps of Benedict Arnold.
I promptly penned a succinct reply to the Washington paper.
I cannot conceive why Lincoln has assembled such an army if it is not his intention to attempt to crush the South. I have but one great consolation now, that my dear parents are both laid low in their graves, where but for my children I would most gladly lie beside them.
“So will we bury the silver, Mother? The paintings and the plates? And where shall we go?”
“Hush, child. Let me think.”
“We could go to Ravensworth. Aunt Maria will take us in.” Agnes indicated the letter. “Papa says we must decide on our own where to go.”
I called for Selina. Together we filled two crates with our silver, our papers, and those of President Washington. Those I sent by rail to Robert for safekeeping. My books and engravings were locked into storage. Draperies and carpets, the Washington china, and the punch bowl that had been used at my wedding were hidden in the cellar. My girls and I worked feverishly by day and lay down at night in rooms stripped bare save for our beds. I slept fitfully, knowing that sooner or later I must flee. Dreading the moment when I must take my daughters and make for safety on my own.
A few days later I was outside, enjoying a rare moment of quiet among my flowers. The May morning had dawned warm and fair. The first roses of the season had come into bloom, and the air around me was thick with their sweet fragrance.
Markie’s brother, Orton Williams, rode into the yard and began speaking even before he dismounted.
“Mary, the Union army is camped just across the river.” His face was tight with worry. “General McDowell intends to use Arlington as a base for protecting the capital. You are going to have to get out. Today, if you can manage it.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“The servants and Mister McQuinn can help you. Just take the most valuable things. I’d stay to help you if I could, but I’m needed elsewhere.” He looked toward the house. “Is Agnes here?”
“In the study, packing up her grandfather’s globe.”
Just then Agnes appeared on the porch. Orton strode across the yard and spoke with her most earnestly, though I couldn’t hear what he said. He retraced his steps and planted a swift kiss on my cheek. “Markie sends her love and says to tell you she will catch up with you as soon as she can. Take care of yourself, Cousin. And pray this war is over swiftly.”
Orton swung up and rode away. I summoned the overseer and gave him instructions for looking after the grounds. I set Daniel and his son to packing up our trunks, some paintings, and our housekeeping items. Daughter and Agnes went back and forth from the house to the wagons, loading their belongings. I was too busy and too frightened for emotion until Selina appeared with a bundle of clean linens.
“Here you are, Miss Mary. These are the ones scented with the lavender you are partial to.”
My heart was so heavy and my nerves so frayed that my reserve crumbled.
Selina frowned. “Now, you listen to me. You are just as well to dry those tears. We all got to be strong until this is over. Nothing we can do to change it, so we have to get through it best we can.”
“I know it. I wish you could come with me. But Robert says the army will start taking servants as contraband.”
“I can’t risk it. Besides, who would look after my children?”
Mr. McQuinn, the overseer, arrived to help Daniel and Ephraim load the piano. When that was done he brushed his hands together and looked around. “That’s just about got it, I reckon, Mrs. Lee. Except for that walnut cupboard in the north hallway. If you want to take it, I can make room for it somehow.”
“Missus?” Daniel looked worried. “If we don’t get going soon we gone be half the night getting to Ravensworth, and you told me yourself what your cousin said about the soldiers camping all around these parts.”
“He’s right, Mama,” Agnes said. “We ought to get started.” Her eyes filled. “I miss Papa so much. And I sincerely hate leaving my home.”
“It can’t be helped, child. Go get your cat, unless you intend to leave him behind.”
She ran into the house. I turned to Selina. “I want you to have the cupboard.”
“I can’t take your cupboard, Miss Mary. I used to leave Mr. Robert’s buttermilk in there most every night.”
“Well, he won’t have time for buttermilk until this war is over, and heaven alone knows when that will be. You may as well take it. And the blue-and-white pitcher we keep there too. I know you have always admired it.”
Selina stood there with her hands on her hips, her eyes welling up.
My own eyes burned. For thirty years Selina had been my comfort; at times she had been my conscience. I wanted to do something to help her. Something to keep her safe. But there was little I could do.
On impulse I took the last of the money I had with me from my travel bag and pressed the bills into her hand. “This isn’t much, but it might save the day if you can’t get the produce to market this fall.”
“I can’t take your last dollar. You’ve got to eat too. You and the girls.”
“I’m related to half the population of Virginia. They won’t let me starve.”
Agnes returned with her tom snuggled securely in the crook of her arm. “I’m ready, Mama.”
Selina shoved the bills into her pocket. “All right then. You planning to stand there till sundown, or you going to give me the keys?”
“What?”
“Well, somebody’s got to look after Arlington till you get back.”
Without another word I handed Selina the keys. Daniel helped me into the carriage. The reins snapped and the wheels turned, taking me into exile.
35 | SELINA
Before Miss Mary’s flowers had even finished blooming, the Yankee soldiers arrived. Dozens of blue-coated men on horseback and in wagons loaded with guns and tools and I don’t know what all poured over the bridge and up the road to the house. White tents sprang up all over the grounds. The men chopped down trees for their cooking fires. They dug trenches and practiced marching, their orders shouted through a thick, gray cloud of woodsmoke hanging in the air.
Mister McQuinn kept his cold eye on the few of us still living in the quarters. In the long shadow of evening he would come up to the yard to drink with the officers on duty. Some nights I could hear them laughing, and I wondered if they weren’t on the same
side, even though the overseer was collecting his money from Colonel Lee.
Lawrence came back from southern Virginia with reports that the Yankees were building as many forts as fast as they could. Every day they dug trenches somewhere around Washington City, and Lawrence said those trenches were full of guns and ammunition. Day and night I worried about my children. The war was supposed to be about freedom, but moving around in Arlington’s empty rooms, I sometimes felt like my dreams were further away than when I was a child learning my letters at Miss Mary’s knee.
Miss Markie showed up to get the things she kept there when she was in residence, and it was a pitiful sight, seeing her so full of grief for the old house. She locked herself inside the room and cried until she was out of tears. Then she asked me to come in and help her pack her trunks. While I was in there folding petticoats and shawls and whatnot, one of Miss Mildred’s tomcats slipped into the room. Miss Markie scooped him up and cried some more.
I handed her my own handkerchief to wipe her eyes.
Finally she said, “Oh, Selina, this poor old house looks so desolate. Isn’t it strange, how quickly everything has changed?” She set the cat on his feet and picked up her hatbox. “Last year we were all so happy here, so peaceful. Who in their wildest dreams could have conjured this present state of affairs?”
Miss Mary had sent Daniel with the carriage to take Miss Markie home, and he came in to tote her trunks outside. “You ’bout ready, Miss Markie?”
She blew her nose and looked around the room like she was trying to memorize it. “As ready as I can be, I suppose.”
I went into the yard with her. My mother and old Judah, plus Young Daniel and Ephraim, crowded around Miss Markie, grabbing her hands, telling her good-bye and good luck and remember us kindly to Miss Mary and the girls. I handed her a letter for Miss Mary and watched the carriage roll down the hill and out of sight.
The next week when Daniel came back to fetch more of Miss Mary’s things, he brought me a letter. I walked past the soldiers’ tents and stacks of firewood they had made from Miss Mary’s trees and sat on the lawn where I could see the river.
July 7, 1861
Kinloch
Dear Selina,
Your letter brought a ray of sunlight into this present darkness. I am greatly cheered to know that my gardens still survive despite the occupation of the Yankees. Please remind Ephraim that the lilac bushes nearest the rose garden must be pruned, and tell him not to forget to tend to my mock orange trees.
Precious Life has returned here from school and her lively presence is a balm to my empty days. The Genl writes as often as his schedule allows, but of course no letter can substitute for his kind and loving presence. My Turner cousins remember you well from our visit here when my children were small and have asked about you most sincerely. I have told them of your taking over as keeper of the keys and how that fact brings some measure of peace to my fevered mind.
I expect things to get worse before they get better. Just last week Aunt Maria wrote that a neighbor was accosted on the road and threatened by a band of perfectly lawless troops from New Jersey. Every day there are rumors of marches and countermarches, and in this atmosphere I cannot help feeling that some crisis is approaching.
That God may protect us and bring a swift end to this late unpleasantness is the constant prayer of your devoted friend, MC Lee
Three weeks later we got word that Confederates beat the Yankees in a fight in Manassas. Lawrence said surely the war was over, but no. It went on.
When Christmas came I went into the woods and cut some mistletoe and greenery for my cabin. My daddy made some corncob toys for my children. But it was nothing like in the olden times when everyone dressed up in their best clothes and went up to the house to call for Christmas gifts. I wasn’t sure whether Thornton was still at White House or if he’d been hired out to the railroad. I didn’t know where Miss Mary was either. There had been one letter after the news from Manassas that said she was moving someplace farther from the fighting. I hadn’t heard a word since.
The next spring more soldiers showed up at Arlington. They cut more of the old trees that had sheltered my children; they helped themselves to the contents of the smokehouse and cleaned out the wine cellar. I could understand that. Even Northerners had to eat. But then one day I was up at the house polishing the staircase banisters and sweeping cobwebs from the windows when a bunch of rowdies crashed through the door and started helping themselves to the things Miss Mary had left in the parlor.
I went in there with the broom in my hand. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”
One of the soldiers, a redheaded man with a face that looked like he lost a fight with an ice pick, grinned and said, “Spoils of war.”
“That’s right,” said another one. “Nothing you can do about it, neither.” He picked up a little wooden side table. “This is real nice. My wife will enjoy it.”
I pointed my broom at him. “Don’t you touch Miss Mary’s things!”
“Aw, don’t worry about it. She’s so rich she won’t hardly miss them.”
Another soldier came in carrying one of Missus Washington’s engravings that Miss Mary had locked in a closet in the rear hallway. “Hey, fellas, lookee what I found. I bet this is worth something.”
I left them and went into the yard, where more Yankees were swarming like ants. I stopped the first one I saw, a tall, pale-faced man who stank of sweat and whiskey. “Where is General McDowell?”
He frowned at me. “Who wants to know?”
“I do.”
“Is that so? What’s your name, girl?”
He looked at me like I was another piece of furniture, one more possession belonging to Arlington, and I thought about Missus counting our heads after a trip to the market, to make sure we all came back. I thought about standing with her in the china closet writing down what all was broken or missing, and how even Miss Mary thought of me as one more thing that belonged to her. Something broke inside me. I was done with being owned.
I stared at his hard, pale eyes. “I am Missus Gray.”
“Mrs. Gray, eh? Well, the general was headed to his tent the last time I saw him.”
I crossed the yard, stepping around the puddles left from the night’s rain, and found the general sitting behind a little desk in his tent, the flaps tied back to let in the river breeze. He was barrel-chested and in a blue uniform with a double row of brass buttons that shone in the morning light. His dark hair was trimmed and parted. His mustache and goatee were tidy. General McDowell would have been an appealing man if it hadn’t been for the bad manners he allowed his soldiers.
When I stepped to the door, still holding my broom, he set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, what is it?”
“General McDowell, your men are stealing from this house.”
He frowned. “And you are?”
“Mrs. Gray. I didn’t say a word when they helped themselves to our food, but now they are breaking into locked closets, taking things that once belonged to President Washington.”
He shrugged. “If that’s true, it’s—”
“It is true. I just watched them with my own eyes.”
“All right. I’ll speak to the captain and—”
“You think they will listen to him? You ought to take care of this your own self. Because the war will end someday. If I was you I would not want to be the one responsible for the loss of President Washington’s belongings.”
He pushed back from his desk and reached for his hat.
I leaned on my broom and watched him walk up the front porch steps and into the house.
A little while later a wagon pulled up and a couple of soldiers started loading things onto it. General McDowell came over and said, “You may not believe me, but I have the most sincere sympathy for your mistress’s distress.”
I didn’t say anything. Just gave him a hard look. Because I didn’t see any trace of sympathy in him.
“As far as
it is compatible with my duty, I shall always be ready to do whatever may alleviate it.” He waved his hand toward the wagon. “To that end I have decided to remove Mrs. Lee’s things to the Patent Office. They will be safe there until the war is over.”
“All right then. Reckon I ought to go feed my children. If there is any food left.”
“We won’t starve you out. You have my word on that.” He tipped his hat. “And now you must excuse me, Mrs. Gray.”
I started back to my cabin. My knees had gone weak with the sudden realization of what I had done. A slave telling off a general of the United States Army. But I had to do it. Even though I wanted to leave Arlington for a home of my own, I still felt tied to that old place, with its years and years of memories.
My heart was heavy for the loss of things the soldiers had taken that would never be returned. But my feet were so light it seemed like I was floating. The shame and despair of being human chattel had gone from me, rising up like incense to the sky because the Yankee general had seen me as a person. My own words ran round in my head like a song heard over and over. I am Missus Gray. I am Missus Gray.
More of the Binghams left Arlington that summer, some of them riding the soldiers’ supply wagons that went back and forth across the river. Lawrence paid no attention to Mister McQuinn’s orders and spent more and more time in the city, coming and going whenever he took the notion. When he came back he brought news of fighting in places like Shiloh, New Orleans, and Chattanooga.
Without the routine of keeping the house and tending the gardens and fields, time seemed to slow down, until it was hard to keep up with the days and months passing by. Before the war everyone at Arlington looked forward to Christmas, but that year it was just a regular day. I didn’t care for myself, but it was hard to look into the expectant faces of my poor little children knowing there was nothing I could do to make a celebration for them.