When Will This Cruel War Be Over? Read online

  She begged the soldiers to conduct themselves with more consideration, explaining that she had not been well lately and that she feared the excitement might damage her health. One of the Yankees — who appeared to be quite drunk — told Mrs. Baldwin, in a surly tone, that her husband and brothers were killing his countrymen and that they did not care what happened to her.

  She was afraid that he would kill her, but he was more interested in food than anything else, and he ransacked her house with the others and took what food they could find, shot all the pigs and fowl, and rode off, carrying them in bags.

  I fear my heart will simply break

  Monday, November 7, 1864

  Colonel Davenport and his soldiers departed, hurriedly, this morning, although we are unsure of the cause.

  The house is in a complete shambles.

  The downstairs is in wretched condition. It is frightening to see. There is dirt and confusion everywhere. They have broken into everything — chests and bureaus forced open, their contents destroyed or taken, the china and the crystal shattered, and the fruit knives Mother prized gone. The linens and curtains have been torn; the furniture destroyed; the piano in the parlor broken, I fear, beyond repair.

  Outside, our lovely lawn is no more — there are ruts made by their wagon wheels crisscrossing every which way, and Mother’s garden has been trampled by their horses and mules, who have also stripped the bark from the trees in the apple orchard. Most distressing of all is that they have taken our horses — the stables are empty except for Falla’s colt — and have butchered most of the animals and taken them too. The smokehouse lock has been pried open, the door forced in, and the contents emptied. The yard is filled with rotting garbage.

  The Negroes’ houses remain intact.

  I immediately began trying to restore order in the pantry and the kitchen, with help from Iris and Denise. It will take days and, I fear, many of the other downstairs rooms are beyond repair. The library remains, oddly, untouched. I think this is due to the fact that Colonel Davenport used the library as his office and also because the Yankees have no interest in books.

  I wonder if these few words can convey my despair. I fear that nothing I say can truly express it. For the first time in quite a while I have shed tears. I fear my heart will simply break.

  Friday, November 11, 1864

  Early yesterday a group of Yankees came by but, much to our relief, passed on without coming into the house.

  Saturday, November 12, 1864

  Still no Yankees. We do not know what to expect.

  Sunday, November 13, 1864

  Last night three Yankees came looking for our soldiers and the guns they said they had heard we had hidden. I was awakened by the sound of their horses’ hooves on the back porch. They were banging on the back door with their sabers and threatening to break in unless we responded. Fortunately, Aunt Caroline was able to rush downstairs in time to prevent any more damage to the house. She barely had time to put on her night dress and her hair was falling loosely around her shoulders. Aunt Caroline explained that the house had been occupied these past two months by Colonel Davenport, who only recently departed, and that we were sure, therefore, that there were no troops hiding about. This seemed to assure them — although they remained sitting all over the front porch and laughing and joking in the most outrageous manner all night. Finally, at dawn, they rode off.

  Thursday, November 17, 1864

  Nelson, along with almost all the other Negroes except Iris and Amos, has run off. I am sure he convinced the younger ones to go with him. We are all quite dismayed. Fanny, Rosetta, and the children all left with him. I am certain that Nelson convinced them to do that. Nelson’s leaving has taken me quite by surprise, I must confess. Amos and Iris remain as faithful as ever.

  Sunday, November 20, 1864

  We walk about in constant fear of the Yankees, fearing that at any moment we might be invaded. We all feel like prisoners in our own home, although there is no one about. We are afraid to open the windows or step outside. Sometimes I feel so shut up I have to go out for a walk despite the weather and the fear. When I do, Aunt Caroline insists that Amos be nearby.

  I am no longer young

  Wednesday, November 23, 1864

  Sometimes I try to remember what our lives used to be like, but it has been so long I have difficulty conjuring up the images. I can, at times, picture the house when it was alive and full of activity — everyone getting ready for a carriage ride into town or perhaps an excursion into the countryside. Mother giving the servants lastminute instructions, Father and Brother Cole seeing to the bags, and me sitting at my vanity for what I am sure must have seemed like endless hours, holding everyone up while I decided how I should wear my hair or which dress would be the most flattering. Those days are gone forever — I am no longer young.

  At times I feel like I am a thousand years old — that is what this cruel war has done to me. No matter what the outcome — if peace was declared tomorrow, if the Yankees vanished from our land and allowed us to govern ourselves, if all the Negroes were somehow miraculously returned to us and resumed their former roles, if all of this were to occur, I know I have changed forever and there is no going back.

  I was at a loss for words

  Thursday, December 1, 1864

  Cousin Rachel has become impossible to understand. She says she feels like a heroine because of the war and the Yankees, who, she believes, are certain to be driven from our land. She wishes she could play a greater role in their defeat. Women, she says, should be proud of the task that is before them and that in the end we can all be proud that we have stood up to the Yankee invaders. She says she is sorry she does not have a pistol, for if she did, she would shoot some Yankees.

  I cannot share her view and wonder if there is something wrong about me. I scold myself for my despair, but I am certain that Cousin Rachel is simply deluding herself. She lives in a world of make-believe.

  Friday, December 2, 1864

  This morning, while looking out my window, I saw a Yankee soldier standing just behind the oak out by the garden. He stood still, as if he knew I was watching, but I could see the brim of his hat when he made a movement. I was concerned about it all day but nothing ever came of it.

  Saturday, December 3, 1864

  We wait in breathless anticipation for news.

  Sunday, December 4, 1864

  Baby Elizabeth is ill.

  She has a very high fever and sleeps little, tossing in her crib. She eats nothing, and swallowing seems to cause her great pain.

  Aunt Caroline is besides herself with concern. She stayed up with her until early this morning, when I awoke and went in and gently urged my aunt to get some sleep, assuring her that I would wake her if necessary.

  The baby slept peacefully for a few precious hours and, at dawn, opened her tiny eyes. I think I could see a questioning look in her eyes, wondering where her mother was. I was at a loss for words to comfort her and had to be satisfied with patting her cheeks.

  We both must have fallen back to sleep, for when I awoke I was sitting in the rocker with the baby fast asleep in my arms.

  Monday, December 5, 1864

  Baby Elizabeth still has a raging fever and shows little appetite. Her throat appears to be swollen and it is quite distressing to see an innocent child suffer so. No matter what kind of nourishment we give her she turns her head aside. It is as if she too has given up hope.

  How long O Lord, how long?

  Thursday, December 8, 1864

  The weather turned quite cold today. O how I long for the time when there was a fire in every hearth shielding us from the cold nights, when the house was such a haven from the harsh winter just outside our door.

  The moon always seemed to shine most brilliantly in the winter, hanging in the night sky like a hopeful light among the twinkling stars. At those times it seemed that all was well.

  Now the house is constantly damp and cold. There is little firewood and, althou
gh Amos has done his best to keep us supplied, he is old and tired and can only do so much. We are huddled in blankets and shawls a great deal of the time.

  Friday, December 9, 1864

  I scarcely think the baby will live out the night, as her fever is once again making rapid progress. She seems quite ill despite our constant attentions, which I fear are proving futile. I try to keep my faith in the Lord, but I’m afraid not even He can help us.

  We are all alone. Thank the Lord for Amos and Iris. Amos has provided enough wood for a fire, which helps keep the baby warm. Without them we would be in an even worse state.

  Sunday, December 11, 1864

  How long O Lord, how long?

  Wednesday, December 21, 1864

  I have not written in my diary for the past two weeks, being simply unable to record the tragic death of my dear cousin, who was taken so suddenly from us. We have lost the only ray of light in our dreary existence. This war has torn apart our lives and the pieces have been scattered to the wind. The only thing that keeps me from utter despair is the knowledge that Aunt Caroline needs me in the way that I needed her when Mother left us forever. I cannot fail her and must put my unspeakable grief aside.

  Thursday, December 22, 1864

  I am growing thin and feeling weak. I can no longer even weep.

  There is a black hole where my heart previously beat

  Sunday, December 25, 1864

  How many thousands of years ago was it that we all came together to celebrate this most joyous holiday?

  But this day is forever cloaked in a black shroud of grief.

  There is a black hole where my heart previously beat. Anything would be better than this painful wound — a wound that grows infinitely more acute when it is filled with the uncertainty about Father and Tally. I am unwilling to accept that they, along with Mother, Brother Cole, Uncle Benjamin, and Baby Elizabeth are gone forever — never to return.

  I find it impossible to imagine them lying cold upon some battlefield with no one to care for them. I cannot bring myself to believe — as others seem to — that somehow it would be worth it. Is anything worth dying for? Is this awful waste — this painful sacrifice — justified in God’s eyes?

  Epilogue

  Miraculously, Emma’s house, although extensively damaged, survived the war. Aunt Caroline and Amos Braxton continued to live there when the war ended. Aunt Caroline, forced to earn a living for the first time, turned the house into an orphanage. Amos, although seventy-one, was an accomplished carpenter and he was able, along with some hired help, to repair the inside of the house. “Aunt Caroline’s Home,” as it came to be known, functioned from 1865 until 1893, when Aunt Caroline died at the age of sixty-two. Amos died three years later.

  Cousin Rachel lived with her mother at the orphanage, helping occasionally with the children, but only occasionally. Although speculative, it is assumed that Rachel Colsten suffered a nervous breakdown during the war.

  In 1867, Aunt Caroline was forced to commit her to the Richmond Lunatic Asylum, where she died a year later when she fell, jumped, or was pushed from the fourth floor of the asylum. Unfortunately, the available information surrounding her death is confusing and, at times, contradictory.

  Colonel Robert Stiles Simpson died at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864. Apparently, he had become separated from his regiment, was without a coat in bitter cold weather, and had taken the overcoat of a dead Yankee soldier for warmth. He then attempted to find his way back to his own lines and was accidentally shot and instantly killed by Confederate soldiers, who mistook him for the enemy. He is buried next to his wife, in the Simpson family graveyard, which survives to this day. The house, however, went to ruins after Aunt Caroline’s death and was demolished some time after 1893. There is no trace of it today.

  Taliaferro “Tally” Mills was wounded twice and taken prisoner on the outskirts of Winchester, Virginia, in September 1864. He was taken to a Federal prison in Elmira, New York, in April 1865, when Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union commander General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, ending the war.

  He was released a month later and made his way back to Virginia and the Simpson home where he was united with a relieved Emma Simpson, who knew nothing of his capture or his fate. They moved to Richmond where they were married. Tally went to work for The Richmond Examiner, beginning what was to become a lifelong, successful career as a journalist. In his later years he became well known as the publisher of a small but influential weekly newspaper. They had two children, Robert, born in 1868, and Jane (named after Jane Eyre), born two years later.

  During the early years of their marriage, Emma, who was considered quite a beauty, taught piano and volunteered at the Richmond Library. Over the years, as the children grew, she devoted more and more time to working at the library, where she developed a reputation as quite an authority on Charlotte Brontë. Tally died in 1916, at the age of seventy, and Emma died the next year.

  Iris, who, with her daughter, Dinah, accompanied Emma and Tally when they moved to Richmond, lived with and worked for them for a number of years. Some time before 1875 Iris married and moved north with her husband and daughter, possibly to Chicago. Their whereabouts after that are unknown.

  The ring Tally sent Emma never did quite fit on her finger — she always wore it on a chain around her neck. It has been passed down through the generations and currently is worn on the finger of her forty-five-year-old great-great-granddaughter Emma Clark Broughton, who lives in New York City, where she is a journalist.

  Life in America

  in 1864

  Historical Note

  Any understanding of this nation has to be based … on an understanding of the Civil War…. The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you’re going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe in the nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads: the suffering, the enormous tragedy of the whole thing.

  — Shelby Foote

  The Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, was the darkest and most critical period in American history. It was a bloody, brutal, and bitter war. Three million soldiers fought at a time when the population numbered only thirty-one million. More than six hundred thousand died — nearly as many Americans as died in all other wars combined — two-thirds of them from illness and disease. Frequently families were torn apart as brother fought brother.

  There were two central issues that divided the nation and caused the war to be fought. One was slavery. The economy of the Southern states was based on slavery. In the 1850s, as the country was rapidly expanding to the West, the issue of slavery in the new territories became, despite attempts at compromise, an incendiary issue.

  Many Northerners were opposed to the expansion of slavery in these new territories. Abolitionists, an extreme but vocal minority in the North, wanted to abolish slavery wherever it existed. They considered it evil and contrary to the ideals of democracy.

  Most citizens of the South believed that blacks were biologically inferior to whites and therefore unable to care for themselves. Blacks were better off, they argued, being watched over by their white masters. Northerners, they believed, were out to destroy their way of life both economically and socially. Southern leaders threatened to secede from the Union and form their own country. They claimed that the United States was a voluntary Union of independent states that had a right to withdraw from that Union at any time. The majority of citizens in the North favored preserving the Union. This, along with slavery, became the primary reason the war was fought.

  In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president. He vowed to keep the country united: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolve
d — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

  For Southern leaders, Lincoln’s election signaled that the time had come for drastic action. Eleven Southern states seceded from the Union, creating the Confederate States of America.

  In December 1860, Southern forces, supported by artillery, surrounded the tiny federal Fort Sumter, located on an island in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. By the spring of 1861, Lincoln was forced to send ships to resupply the Union soldiers who had been besieged for over four months. On April 12, 1861, the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter and the Civil War began.

  Both sides were tragically mistaken in their belief that the war would be brief.

  The first major battle took place just twenty-five miles away from Washington, D.C., near a small stream in northern Virginia named Bull Run. Ordinary citizens brought picnic baskets and binoculars and sat down to watch the fight from the sidelines. The Confederate soldiers counterattacked so fiercely that the watching civilians and the inexperienced Union soldiers fled in terror. Almost five thousand soldiers were killed or wounded that day.

  For the next four years the war was a series of endless, bloody battles in places like Shiloh, Cold Harbor, and Antietam. In three days of fighting at Gettysburg there were over fifty thousand casualties. Americans were slaughtering each other at a staggering rate and it seemed that the war would never end.

  The North and the South were two very different regions. The population in the North was about twenty-two million, while the South had only nine million inhabitants, at least three million of whom were slaves. The North was industrialized and had a well-developed transportation system, while the South was mainly an agricultural society. Three-fourths of the world’s cotton was grown in the South. It was a vital part of the Southern economy — and cotton picking was dependent on slave labor. The South had a much stronger military tradition than the North, but they were badly outnumbered and outgunned.