Myrta Avary - A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865

Well, to make a long story short – as Dan and I did – we were married in exactly four months and a half from the day on which he was introduced to me as I sat cross-legged among the evergreens; and when Willie and George and Charlie came up to congratulate us, every wretch of them said, “Didn’t I tell you you ought to meet Dan Grey?”

Soon after my marriage my brother-in-law moved to Baltimore, and my mother decided to go with Milicent and her little boy. I had never really been separated from them before; I was only seventeen, a spoiled child, but though I loved them dearly, after the first I scarcely missed them. I had my husband, and ah! how happy we were – how glad we both were that I had met Dan Grey!

We did not go to housekeeping at once. In the first place, I did not know anything about housekeeping and I didn’t want Dan to find it out; in the second place, we wanted to look around before we settled upon a house; and in the third, and what was to me the smallest place, the country was in a very unsettled condition.

The question of State’s rights and secession was being pressed home to Virginia. The correspondence between the commission at Washington and Mr. Seward was despatched to Richmond, and Richmond is but twenty miles from Petersburg. There were mutterings that each day grew louder, signs and portents that we refused to believe. Local militia were organizing and drilling – getting ready to answer the call should it come. Not that the people seriously thought that it would come. They believed, as they hoped, that something would be done to prevent war; that statesmen, North and South, would combine to save the Union; that, at any rate, we should be saved from bloodshed. As for those others who prophesied and prayed for it, who wanted the vials of God’s wrath uncorked, they got what they wanted. Their prayers were answered; the land was drenched in blood. But for the most of us – the Virginians whom I knew – we did not, we would not believe that brothers could war with brothers.

Then something happened that drove the truth home to our hearts. The guns of Sumter spoke – war was upon us. But not for long; the differences would be adjusted. Sumter fell, Virginia seceded. Still we befooled ourselves. There would be a brief campaign, victory, and peace. North and South, we looked for anything but what came – those four long years of bloody agony; North and South were each sure of victory. In Virginia, where the courage and endurance of starving men were to stand the test of weary months and years, we scoffed at the idea that there would be any real fighting. If there should be, for Virginia who had never known the shadow of defeat, defeat was impossible.

One day my brother-in-law, Dick, walked in.

“I’ve come to tell you good-by, Nell – I’m off to-morrow.”

“Where?”

“Norfolk.”

“What for?”

“Infantry ordered there. The Rifles go down to-night, the Grays to-morrow.”

I looked serious, and Dick laughed.

“Don’t bother, Nell, we’ll be back in a few days. There won’t be any fighting.”

Dick was a good-looking fellow, and I liked him much better than I had once said I did. He was the dandy of the family, and on the present occasion was glorious in a new uniform.

“Dick,” I said, “please don’t get in a fight and get shot.”

“Not if I can help it, Nell! There won’t be any fighting. We’re going to protect Norfolk, you know. Just going there to be on the spot if we’re needed, I suppose.”

He went away laughing, but I wasn’t convinced. When Dan came, I was almost too weak with fear to ask the question that was on my tongue.

“Is Norfolk to be bombarded?”

“No, I think not,” he spoke cheerily. “The boys will be back in a few days.”

Oh, I hoped they would! Many of my friends were among “the boys.”

“Do – do you think your company will have to go?”

I was only seventeen; mother and Milicent were away; my young husband was my life.

“The cavalry have not been ordered out,” he said. “I don’t think we will be sent for. Cheer up, Nell! The boys will be back in a few days, and won’t we have a high old time welcoming them home!”

The Rifles went down one day. The Grays went down the next. The day after my husband came in, looking very pale and quiet.

“Dan,” I said, “I know what it is.”

“The cavalry are ordered to Norfolk,” he said in a low voice. “It’s only a few days’ parting, little wife. I don’t think there will be any fighting. Be brave, my darling.”

I had thrown myself into his arms with a great cry.

“I can’t, Dan! I can’t let you go!”

He did not speak. He only held me close to his breast.

“Mother and Milicent are gone,” I cried, “and I can’t let you leave me to go and be killed! I couldn’t let you go if they were here.”

There was silence for a little while, then he said:

“I belong to you, little wife – I leave it to you what I shall do. Shall I stay behind, a traitor and a coward? Or shall I go with my company and do my duty?”

I couldn’t speak for tears. I felt how hard his heart beat against mine.

“Poor wife!” he said, “poor little child!”

When I spoke, I felt as if I were tearing my heart out by the roots.

“I – I – must – let – you – go!”

“That is my own brave girl. Never mind, Nell, I will make you proud of your soldier!”

“Oh, Dan! Dan!” I sobbed, “I don’t want to be proud of you! I just don’t want you to get hurt! I don’t want you to go if I could help it – but I can’t! I don’t want fame or glory! I want you!”

He smoothed my hair with slow touches, and was silent. Then he spoke again, trying to comfort me with those false hopes all fed on.

“I still doubt if there will be any fighting. But if there is, I must be in it. I can’t be a coward. There! there! Nellie, don’t cry! I hope for peace. The North and the South both want peace. You will laugh at all of this, Nell, when we come back from Norfolk without striking a blow!”

“Dan, let me go with you.”

“Dear, I can’t. How could you travel around, with only a knapsack, like a soldier?”

“Try me. I am to be a soldier’s wife.”

I was swallowing my sobs, sniffling, blowing my nose, and trying to look brave all at once. Instead of looking brave, I must have looked very comical, for Dan burst out laughing. The next moment we were silent again. The chimes of St. Paul’s rang out upon the air. It was neither Sabbath nor saint’s day. We knew what the bells were ringing for. Not only St. Paul’s chimes, but the bells of all the churches had become familiar signals calling us to labor as sacred as worship. Sewing machines had been carried into the churches, and the sacred buildings had become depots for bolts of cloth, linen, and flannel. Nothing could be heard in them for days but the click of machines, the tearing of cloth, the ceaseless murmur of voices questioning, and voices directing the work. Old and young were busy. Some were tearing flannel into lengths for shirts and cutting out havelocks and knapsacks. And some were tearing linen into strips and rolling it for bandages ready to the surgeon’s hand. Others were picking linen into balls of lint.

“I must go make you some clothes,” I said, getting up from Dan’s knee.

“But I have plenty,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter. I must make you some more – like the others.”

Before the war was over I had learned to make clothes out of next to nothing, but that morning, except for fancy work, I had never sewed a stitch in my life. I could embroider anything from an altar cloth to an initial in the corner of a handkerchief, but to make a flannel shirt was beyond my comprehension. Make it, however, I could and would. I never hinted to Dan that I didn’t know how, for I was determined that nobody but me should make his army shirts – I must sew them with my own fingers. I went down town and bought the finest, softest flannel I could find. Then I was at my wits’ ends. I looked at the flannel and I looked at the scissors. Time was flying. I picked up my flannel and ran to consult my neighbor, Mrs. Cuthbert. She showed me how to cut and fashion my shirts, and I made them beautifully, feather-stitching all the seams.