A Year in the South Page 4

  Nursing was only one of many skills Lou acquired in the McGehee household. He could drive a carriage, cultivate an ornamental garden, and even operate a sewing machine, not to mention serve expertly as butler and body servant. But it was nursing that he liked more than anything else. When he was called on to act as a night nurse for a sick slave at the saltworks, he did so gladly. This was the first case of typhoid he had ever seen, but he remembered what Boss had taught him about the disease, and he did what he could, drawing on whatever medicines the works’ hospital could offer. The patient was too far gone to respond to Lou’s tender ministration, however, and he died within a few days.18

  Disease was not the only threat to health at the saltworks; accidents, too, took a toll. Much of the work done there was hazardous. Razor-sharp ax blades and falling trees caused casualties among the wood choppers; blazing fuel and boiling brine scorched and scalded the furnace tenders. The various steam engines in and around the works posed another sort of danger, one tragically illustrated on January 19, 1865, when the Dick Keys blew up on the Tombigbee. This was one of the steamboats that made regular runs up and down the river; it was at a point some miles below the works when all five of its boilers exploded with a tremendous roar, blasting the vessel to bits. More than half a dozen people were killed and many others injured.19

  There were natural disasters, too, along the river that winter. Heavy rain in late January and early February brought dangerously high water in the creeks that fed the Tombigbee, flooding out roads. An even worse deluge at the end of February sent river water spilling over the levee that protected the saltworks, inundating the furnaces and wells and halting operations for a time. It was not only a wet winter but an extraordinarily cold one, too, by the standards of south Alabama. The last part of January saw seven consecutive days with temperatures at least eight degrees below freezing. A week later came a heavy snowfall, a rare sight so far south.20

  Louis Hughes had many matters on his mind during those chilly, soggy days of January and February. There was almost always something demanding his attention at headquarters: fireplaces or stoves to be tended, items to be fetched or delivered for Woolsey and Brooks, meals to be served. In the little spare time that he could find, there was his tobacco venture to attend to and other personal things as well, especially one: his and Matilda’s new baby.

  She was born in February and they named her Lydia. She was not their first child, but she was the only one now living (twins born to them in 1859 had died in infancy). The new addition to their family made the upstairs room at headquarters, where they lodged, a little more crowded, but it probably meant also some time off from cooking for Matilda, for it was customary among slave masters to accommodate nursing mothers.21

  Matilda was thirty-four, nearly two years older than Lou, when she brought forth this child. They had married in the Memphis mansion of Boss and Madam on November 30, 1858. It was a wedding of a sort few slaves could boast of: Boss, acting on one of his frequent paternalistic impulses, arranged a formal ceremony in the parlor, brought in a white minister to officiate, and invited not only his own slaves but those of his neighbors, too.22

  Matilda had known Lou from the time she arrived at the mansion in 1855. Her first months there had been miserable. She had grown up with her mother and six brothers and sisters in Kentucky, but in 1855 her master had decided to sell the whole family. He hired two agents to take the eight blacks to Memphis, where they were put on the auction block in the prominent slave-trading establishment of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Matilda’s mother and five of her siblings were all sold to different buyers and taken away. Matilda and her sister Mary Ellen were sold to Boss, who gave Mary Ellen to his sister-in-law as a present and kept Matilda as a cook.23

  Torn from her family, Matilda was inconsolable for a time. To Lou she seemed “a sad picture to look at.… Any one could see she was almost heartbroken.” Her grief eventually subsided, and her blossoming relationship with Lou no doubt brought her much joy and comfort. But with the passage of time came new miseries for her to contend with, including the death of her twin babies and the cruelty of Madam, who abused Matilda no less than she abused Lou.24

  The marriage of Matilda and Lou was in some ways a union of opposites. They had very different temperaments, for one thing. Lou was about as bold and resourceful as a slave could get away with being; Matilda was timid and tended to go to pieces in a crisis. They had spiritual differences, too. Matilda was a devout Christian whose faith consoled her in gloomy times: “God will help us,” she would tell Lou; “let us try and be patient.” Lou was not exactly a skeptic, but neither was he deeply religious. And he had a couple of habits that no doubt bothered the pious Matilda: he wore a voodoo bag, a little leather pouch containing roots and pins and such that supposedly had the power to protect him from harm; and he drank whiskey, often carrying a bottle around with him. With all their differences, however, the two were deeply committed to each other.25

  The months that Lou and Matilda spent at the saltworks were undoubtedly the happiest time either had experienced since being purchased by the McGehees. This is not to say that it was some sort of idyll; Lou may have had an agreeable job, indulgent supervisors, extraordinary privileges, a lucrative business, and a healthy new baby, but he and Matilda were never for a moment allowed to forget that they were enslaved members of a despised race. Moreover, as long as they remained at this site deep within the Confederacy, Lou’s dream of escape was unattainable. Still, they would remember this as a good time in their lives.

  The question was how long this happy interlude was going to last. Reports of a possible Yankee advance against Mobile had reached Clarke County in December 1864. One of the few major cities of the Confederacy still unconquered, Mobile was defended by 10,000 Southern troops, 300 cannons, and five gunboats. But no one knew how big a force the North might throw against the city. And if Mobile fell, the state saltworks would be vulnerable—it was absurd to think that the two small rebel forts perched atop bluffs overlooking the Tombigbee below the works would stop the powerful Yankee army and navy.26

  Lou Hughes probably knew that Woolsey and Brooks had a contingency plan for such an emergency. If enemy forces threatened the works, the two managers intended to evacuate all the slaves and try to return them to their owners. As the winter of 1864–65 came to a close, there still seemed no cause for alarm. The Clarke County newspaper assured the citizens as late as March 9 that “All is quiet about Mobile.” But how much longer that would be was anyone’s guess.27p

  CORNELIA MCDONALD

  Cornelia McDonald’s house in Lexington was a rented, two-story clapboard on the west side of Main Street, just north of the two-block stretch of Main that comprised the town’s business district. The house was at least seventy years old and hard to heat, for it had a lot of windows and some of the rooms had no fireplace. The rats were a problem, too. But it was spacious compared to the other places she had lived in as a refugee: there were three rooms on the first floor, three on the second, and a kitchen in the basement. The yard was big, too, except on the south side where the house abutted a side street. The front yard, which stretched forty feet between the porch and Main Street, had grass and trees and was very pretty from spring to fall. But now, in early January, the grass was yellow and the trees bare.1

  As roomy as the house was, it was nevertheless crowded most of the time. All seven of Cornelia’s children were there with her, and there was a hired cook who came during the day and visitors from morning to night. The first-floor room that served as the parlor was generally the busiest part of the house, except at mealtimes, when everybody crammed into the dining room. When she first set up housekeeping there in November 1863, Cornelia had been hard-put to furnish the parlor respectably. She had salvaged only two wagonloads of possessions from her home in Winchester, mostly clothes, mattresses, and bed frames. But she did save a nice carpet and some red curtains, and after settling in Lexington she had a cheap pine table made that she covered
with a red cloth. These, along with some other odds and ends of furniture that she picked up, including an old sofa covered in flowered calico and a few chairs, made for a cozy if not elegant parlor, and Cornelia was satisfied to entertain there.2

  6. The house in Lexington, Virginia, where Cornelia McDonald and her children resided in 1865, as it appeared in the 1920s. Shown is the left side of the house as one faced it from Main Street; the front door and porch were moved to that side sometime after the McDonalds moved away.

  From her backyard she could see Washington College and the Virginia Military Institute where they stood on a low ridge overlooking the town. Next door to her was a two-story building that housed Deaver’s shoemaking shop downstairs and the Odd Fellows hall above. Across the street lived a demented old man named Parks. He had lost his mind one night in 1861 when a coffin containing the corpse of his son, a Confederate soldier decapitated by a cannonball, was delivered without warning at his doorstep.3

  Lexington was a picturesque town of about 2,500 people, nestled among hills and ridges and skirted by the winding North River. It was remarkably neat and orderly, by Southern standards; except that it lacked a square, it might have been mistaken at first glance for a New England village. Other than that, however, there was nothing Yankee about it.4

  It may well have been the most prominent small town in Virginia in 1865. Some of its fame derived from the presence of the college and the military institute, both noted educational institutions. The town was also home to John Letcher, the recently retired governor of the state. But the real source of Lexington’s glory was its association with the legendary Stonewall Jackson, martyred hero of the Confederacy. He had taught at the military institute before the war, and after his death in May 1863 he was buried in the old Presbyterian cemetery on the south side of town.5

  The two-hundred-mile-long Shenandoah Valley had been ravaged since the war began, but mostly in the lower counties in the northern part of the state, which Union troops had marched through many times. The upper counties, including Rockbridge, of which Lexington was the seat, had not been spared altogether from the enemy’s wrath, but for the most part they remained secure, quiet, and productive.6

  Had some of Cornelia’s kinfolk prevailed, she would not have stayed in Lexington. In the days following the death of her husband, Angus, in Richmond—it had occurred just a month before, on December 1, 1864—she had talked with relatives in that city about her future. They bluntly reminded her that she was now facing poverty and advised her to parcel out her children among other family members and move to Richmond, where she could get a job as a government clerk. That she was facing poverty Cornelia could not deny, but she adamantly refused to break up her family. “[M]y children were given to me to care for, and bring up” was her reply. Should she renounce that duty, she thought, she would have to answer to Him who had reproached the faithless rulers of Israel with the words, “where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?”7

  So she remained in Lexington in the house on Main Street with her flock gathered around her. Three of them were so young they needed pretty much constant attention. Four-year-old Hunter was the littlest. Blue-eyed Donald (“my little urchin,” Cornelia called him) was two years older. Roy was a yellow-haired, dark-eyed, mischievous eight-year-old. The only girl, Nelly, was a sympathetic, sad-faced child whom Cornelia dubbed “my little shadow”; she was ten now, old enough to help with the smaller ones. Kenneth, an affectionate twelve-year-old, assisted her. The two oldest boys—Allan, fifteen, and Harry, almost seventeen—were nearing maturity, and Cornelia was relying on them more and more. Harry, in particular, was a great help, for he was as large and strong as a man, dependable, and fearless.8

  She and the children would need all the strength they could muster in order to survive and keep the family intact, for their financial situation was little short of desperate. Before the war, the family had held substantial property. The estate in Winchester, the half-dozen slaves, and Angus’s other investments were together worth almost $70,000. But all of those were now lost or beyond Cornelia’s reach. Furthermore, during her flight from Winchester in 1863 she had sold her good jewelry and most of her fine clothes. When she and the children arrived in Lexington, they had little besides the furniture, everyday clothes, china, and silverware that were piled in the wagons; the horses and wagons themselves had been borrowed.9

  7. The McDonald family in 1870. Standing, from left, are Hunter, Donald, Kenneth, and Nelly; seated, from left, are Roy, Allan, Cornelia, and Harry.

  From that point on, the family had been heavily dependent on Angus’s salary. As a Confederate colonel, he made $210 per month. During the half-year that he was posted in Lexington he was also entitled to a “commutation of quarters” allowance of $175 per month because he made his office in his home. The allowance had dried up when he was captured in June 1864, but Cornelia had continued to receive his monthly pay while he was a prisoner of war. That ended with his death, however, and the Confederate government made no provision for widow’s benefits.10

  As 1865 began, Cornelia’s cash holdings amounted to about $300 in Confederate currency. She was preparing to file a claim with the government for money still due Angus at his death—$427—but she knew it would take weeks for the paperwork to make its way through the bureaucracy in Richmond. Once that money was in hand it would not buy much, anyway. Butter was now selling in Lexington for twelve Confederate dollars per pound and coffee for eighteen dollars. A yard of linsey-woolsey cost twenty-five dollars, and a pair of children’s shoes, forty. And besides food and clothing, she had to worry about rent and firewood.11

  Some people in town had stopped accepting Confederate money in payment for goods, knowing that it would be worth less tomorrow than today. Barter was becoming more and more common. But Cornelia had few goods to offer in exchange for what she needed, so she had to use currency. And, like everyone else, she felt compelled to spend it fast because it was depreciating so rapidly. These days, however, there was less and less to spend it on, for the shortages that had plagued the Confederacy from its beginning had by 1865 reached critical proportions. Cornelia knew a butcher on the north end of town who accepted Confederate money, but sometimes when she visited his shop he had no meat to offer at any price.12

  To some it seemed almost incomprehensible that there could be such scarcity of food in the midst of agricultural abundance. The farms of Rockbridge County and the rest of the upper valley still produced great quantities of wheat, corn, livestock, and other foodstuffs. Where was it all going? citizens demanded to know. There was much suspicion that “speculators” and “profiteers” were hoarding it, but the truth was otherwise.13

  As one after another of the Confederacy’s food-growing regions fell to the Northern invaders, the upper valley was increasingly called on to help feed the rest of the rebel population. Army impressment agents scoured the region, taking what they needed from the farmers and paying them in Confederate money at government-set prices far below market value. And what the farmers turned over to these agents was in addition to the annual tithe—one-tenth of all harvested crops and slaughtered livestock—that the Confederate tax collectors demanded of them.14

  These levies created agricultural scarcity in Rockbridge County, which had never known it before the war. The skyrocketing food prices that resulted brought great distress, especially among the county’s poorest families. Local government stepped in, acting under new state laws that allowed county magistrates to borrow money to buy provisions for the poor. By early 1865, some 1,400 Rockbridge citizens were on the dole. But for those not poor enough to qualify for assistance—Cornelia and her family among them—there was no relief from scarcity and high prices.15

  What worried a lot of people in Rockbridge about the food shortage was not only the suffering it caused but also the desperation. As the winter of 1864–65 went on, there were more and more reports of food theft in the county. Among the victims was one of Lexington’s prominen
t families, the Pendletons, who were good friends of Cornelia: on a stormy night in late February someone broke into their smokehouse by ripping away the back wall and stole thirty slabs of bacon. This wave of pilferage did not yet constitute anything like a threat to order, but as everyone in Rockbridge knew, isolated acts of desperation, if multiplied sufficiently, can achieve explosive power.16

  Cornelia’s own situation as the winter began was undeniably grim, but she did not see it as hopeless. She had her older children to lean on and she had her own considerable resources of strength and talent. Beyond that, she had a circle of friends and benefactors in Lexington who were rallying around her now in her time of need.

  From the moment she arrived in Lexington in August 1863—an utter stranger, homeless, with one dollar in her purse—she had been blessed with acts of kindness. She was lucky in this regard, for in many Southern communities refugees were encountering hostility. As more and more of them crowded into the dwindling number of safe havens within the Confederacy, they strained the communities’ resources of food and housing and provoked resentment among the natives.17

  Perhaps it was not just luck in Cornelia’s case. Although she could be stubborn and sharp at times, she had a generous nature and an appealing way about her; and she made friends easily, at least among people of her own social class. In any event, a good number of Lexington folk took to her and went out of their way to help her. Reverend William McElwee and his wife, Anne, were among the first. Cornelia showed up at their doorstep soon after her arrival in town, having heard they might have some spare rooms in their home to rent. Even if they did, she expected them to turn her away; one shopkeeper had already done so, not caring to have seven children running around in the rooms he let over his store. But when she made her plea, Anne McElwee replied unhesitatingly “in her sweet kind voice” that the McDonalds were welcome. Cornelia was overcome. “I could not thank her [because of] the choking sense in my throat. I could have wept.… I can never forget the sound of her voice when she said she could not refuse a stranger and a refugee.” Cornelia and the children lived there only a month, until they found roomier accommodations, but she and the McElwees remained close.18