Three daughters of the confederacy; the story of their loves and their hatreds, their joys and their sorrows, during many surprising adventures on land and sea

Front matter

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Preface

The Southern girls were, and are yet, very charming — I speak by experience of one — ^and it is no wonder the blue-clad conquerors bowed before them and at their imperious behest gladly essayed the r61e of the vanquished involved in matrimony. With one daughter of the Confederacy I sometimes fight the battles of the great rebellion — only she does not like that term — over again; but to-day the results are different. I often say had she been in command of one side, and I the other, the verdict of Appomattox might have been reversed and much history would have had to be rewritten. At least I am warranted in believing this if I may judge from the vigor with which the lost cause is espoused by the twentieth century fireside — i.e., our patent gaslog!

Two of the lovers of this trio of girls which I have so proudly and affectionately championed in ^i these pages were Northern men: one a sailor and O the other a sort of non-combatant, but a good fellow, ^' nevertheless. The third hero, who won the last girl, %: was Southern in every fibre of his being. Two of r^ the girls loved the South with all the passionate /■s fervor for which the Southern woman was famous; ^^ the third was but a lukewarm daughter after all. ^ Yet in other ways she was such a nice girl that I pray for her the charitable judgment of the feminine — I know the masculine will agree with me in thinking her an altogether pleasing young person.

Prrface

For the rest, there is not much history and but little fighting hereafter; but there is plenty of love making, and not a little fun, mingled with the adventure. Tears follow, of course, and the clouds of the havocmaking days, but the light of affection always provides a silver lining, and everything, as did the great war itself, comes out happily in the end. Take my word for it, anxious reader, and look not at a final page until you come to it in due course.

Of all the novels and romances that I have written, those of the Civil War have met with the warmest welcome and have elicited the highest praise. May you begin this volume with pleasant anticipation; inay you read it with increasing satisfaction; and may you put it aside finally, as I do this preface, with a feeling of regret that there is no more of it!

CYEUS TOWNSBND BRADY.

Toledo, Ohio, September 1, 1906.

Table Of Contents

I The Lady from the Sea

OHAFTBB PAOE

I Unique Participants 9

Chapter I Ukiqub Paeticipants

BoMANOE^ in books, is associated always with the beautiful, generally with the best. We go backward into the past for a theme, since " His distance lends enchantment to the view/' We fancy that the heart beats more warmly — certainly more gracefully — beneath satin and lace than beneath calico and fustian; that the love that quotes poetry is purer and more admirable than that which through hard necessity expresses itself imgrammatically ; that diamondbuckled shoes, capering nimbly upon a carpet to the " lascivious pleasing of a lute," carry a man whose ideals must inevitably transcend those of his lowly brother who is upborne by the sabot or the brogan.

It is a dictum that there is no romance among the common people. The hero and the heroine, in the novel, must be disassociated from real life by unusual qualities and characteristics, else no one will care for their story — so, at least, it is imagined. Yet as the saddest tragedies are those of the commonplace, so the finest romances are those of the common people.

To pick up at random any of the current stories of the day is to find one evidence of a concession to the supposed popular yearning for the beautiful and the unusual in the descriptions — and, eke, the names — of the persons who give title to the story and live through their brief hours upon the written stage. With rare exceptions the heroines are beautiful in person, cultivated in mind, ancient in family — Lady Clara Vere de Veres, in short; while the hero is no longer beautiful — ^beautiful heroes went hopelessly out of fashion after the middle of the last century — ^but he is strong, tall, brave, noble, generous ; and if dissipated, will ultimately reform. The names, as I have suggested above, of these godlike persons correspond, so far as names may, — and they may to a great degree, notwithstanding Shakespeare, — ^to these attributes. They fall trippingly from the tongue and linger musically in the memory. Invention which might better be devoted to the story is wasted on a name that, like Wordsworth^s famous light, " never was on sea or land.'* I have invented several myself, therefore I know!

The heroine of the ensuing story is named Jones,

Unique Participants 11

the hero, Smith. These names have been selected deliberately. That sets this romance at once apart from all other stories that have ever been written. That it may live up to its uniquity is the prayer of the writer. There must of necessity be thousands of romances in the Smith and Jones families, there are so many of them — and they are not dying, but, on the contrary, are increasing at a rapid rate! Cannot a Smith love as well as a Montmorenci ? Is not the blood of a Jones filled with the same ichor as that of a Howard ?

Miss Jones — ^her first and only other name was Ellen — ^was a young woman of no particular ancestry which need be dwelt upon. While it must be frankly admitted that she was not strikingly beautiful, it may be affirmed with equal truth that neither was she painfully homely. She was just a tall, wellformed, healthy American girl, such as you meet with in plenty, thank God! in any community in the land. Her hair was brown, her eyes were blue, her cheeks were red, and her teeth were white — these are not unusual colors, I believe. Her temper was quick, her disposition cheerful, her soul honest — ^nor are these qualities at all uncommon. She had been reasonably well educated for the period in which she lived, and in addition to what she had learned at the "Female Academy" she could sing a song, make a dress, or cook a dinner — ^happily, ability of this sort was, and is, not rare. There was nothing extraordinary about her from any point of view. Thousands of women like that — Smiths,

Jonet^ Browns, etc. — are being loved, wooed, and married every day; and the future of the country depends upon the steady continuance of a supply adequate to meet the demand.

As for Smith, the hero of this veracious tale, his first name was Thomas, intimately abbreviated to Tom. If he could have won Ellen Jones for his wife, he would have been supremely happy as well as very fortunate. If Miss Jones had no family to speak of, Mr. Smith had absolutely none at all. He had been raised — I use the word advisedly, it was more like raising than rearing — in an eleemosynary institution, — to wit, a public orphan asylum. The superintendent of the institution, not being gifted with imagination, had named him Smith. He had a regular list of names for the foundlings which he bestowed upon his charges in unvarying succession, and Smith fell to the lot of this unfortunate. One of the women attendants had further called him " Tommy " after her sweetheart. To identify the little waif from the New York streets and to differentiate him from other " Tom " Smiths, of whom there were not a few, the authorities had inserted a middle name. He had been picked up in Beekman Street, and in the records his full name, therefore, ran this way, Thomas Beekman Smith — ^which was imposing and highly satisfactory.

He was an unusually bright boy and as homely as they make them — ^freckled, red-headed, and, for all his name, evidently of Irish parentage. He was a jolly, cheerful, willing, hard-working little rat,

Unique ParUcipa/nts 18

who dearly loved a joke, yet who was as ambitious aa a ward politician. The superintendent of the or* phan asylum happened to have a brother who was a captain in the United States Navy, one of the old-time, " 1812,'^ sailing-frigate captains. The superintendent's interest had been excited by this precocious young Smith. He had communicated some of this interest to his brother, and — in short, at the age of eleven the boy went to sea as a captain's servant

By and by old Conmiodore Bainboro, observing there was good stuff in the lad, had him warranted a " reefer." Smith went through the usual course of the young aspirant in those days. He served creditably as a midshipman in the Mexican War, and thereafter, being still young enough, sought and received permission to go through the Naval Academy, from which he graduated in the Class of '52. Behold him in the fall of 1861 a full-fledged lieutenant in the United States Navy, still freckled-faced, still red-headed, still homely, still fond of a jest, still happy, and still ambitious — also in love. He was one of those rare mortals who can be happy, ambitious, and in love at one and the same time.

The war between the States had just begun. Opportunities for distinction would be many. That some of them should fall to his lot and be embraced accordingly was the determination of Smith. He owed everything to the United States, and was resolute to discharge some of the obligation. Things did not look very promising at first, however. Being without influence, — ^for old Commodore Bainboro was long since dead, — ^the best assignment he could get for duty at the outbreak of the war was the old-fashioned sailing-frigate St. Laurence, Smith had promptly applied for an appointment to one of the new steam sloops-of-war, but his application had been passed over and he had been rel^ated to this useless relic of the past

The commander of the St. Lawrence was Commodore Hiram Paulding, who had been a midshipman in the War of 1812 and commended for his gallant conduct while executive officer of the Ticonderoga at the battle of Lake Champlain. The veteran also chafed at his relegation to the St. Lawrence, but there was no present help for it In modem times he would have been retired long since, so he might perhaps consider himself lucky at being given any command at all.

As I have said, the war had just started. Blockade-running was in its infancy. Privateering on behalf of the Confederates was, however, beginning vigorously. Had it not been nipped in the bud by the prompt efforts of the Federal cruisers it might have done enough damage to have rendered imnecessary the appearance of the Alabama later on. The United States had proclaimed a blockade of the southern coast, but as yet it was laxly maintained, owing to paucity of force, and the Confederate privateers came and went pretty much as they pleased.

The St. Lawrence, attached to the North Atlantic blockading squadron, had been out two months and had not made a single capture. Officers and men

Unique Participants 15

were disgusted. Why they should have expected to capture anything in a sailing-vessel when the Confederates usually employed the swiftest steamers for privateers and blockade-runners is a question. One afternoon in late July the St. Lawrence under easy sail was swinging along to the southward of Cape Hatteras. A week before she had been spoken by a despatch-boat, which had transmitted a general order from the flag-officer commanding the squadron to the effect that a certain Confederate privateer called the Petrel was fitting out in Pamlico Sound for a dash to sea, and that all the ships of the squadron were cautioned to look out for her.

"Nice notice to send us," remarked Smith, who was the executive officer of the frigate, to the second lieutenant of the ship. " We couldnH catch her with this old hooker if she were anchored. Oh, why don't they lay up this tub as a guardo, or store-ship, somewhere and give us a chance in a steamer? — something that has heels as well as guns ? "

This was a poser for the second lieutenant He did not attempt to answer it, but left Smith, who was enjoying a leisure hour, standing on the lee side of the quarter-deck staring over the rail at the empty sea and vacant sky to starboard. Empty sea and vacant sky? Well, not quite. When there was nothing else to attract his attention Smith could always see Ellen Jones in the ambient on the horizon. He was looking straight west Beneath the sky-line some fifty miles away rose the low sands of the chain of islands that separated Pamlico and Albemarle

Sounds from the ocean. On one of the broad estuaries of Pamlico Sound stood the home of old Major Jones, Miss Ellen's father. For aught Smith knew the object of his dreams was there. At any rate, he did not know that she was anywhere else, and he embodied her there without hesitation.

Major Jones was of somewhat humble English birth. As a child he had come to the United States with his elder brother, a man of much shrewdness and mercantile ability. The elder Jones, who had settled in North Carolina, had amassed a considerable fortune. With a middle-class Englishman's love for position, he had succeeded in getting a commission in the army for Miss Ellen's father* While Smith had been stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Miss Ellen's father at Governor's Island, the young people had met. Smith had loved madly, Miss Ellen had been deeply interested. Her father had been absolutely opposed to Smith's wooing. He had sent him about his business ; his brother's influence had been exerted, and the young man had been ordered away on a three-years' cruise in Asiatic waters, whence he had just returned at the outbreak of the war.

The year before that Major Jones' brother had died, leaving him all his property in North Carolina. The major had resigned his command and gone down to live on his brother's plantation, taking witli him his daughter, his only child. Miss Ellen, save for her inclination toward Smith, was still heart-whole and fancy-free* It is falsely urged that the absent

Unique Participants 17

are always wrong. Someone has said that a proverb is a lie or a platitude. In this case the wise saw quoted above was both. If she had been allowed free and unrestricted IdtefOdurSe With the homely Mr. Thomas Beekman Smith, Ellen Jones might have found it impossible W httte tHAde him the object of her romance — ^which is going all contrary to the theories ttated in tb« intfodttetioa I Howevet that may be, icfreted from him by the fetdiii edict of a practical parent, the interest engendered by th6 Ardent wooing to which she had been subject^ ripened into a deeper feeling. Sh^ gteW to lot^^ the absent sailor almost as the absent sailor loved hen For his silke she had refused many offets of mattlkg^ whi6h sh^ had received both from th^ a«ny arid from the strrrounding people of her North Catoliiui hmne. It is not only the superlative wom^n wlio hate mefl kt their feet, be it remembered. The sociftl l>o6itioii of the Joii^ family in ptoud, aristocratic, tide-Water North Carolina was only fair. Yet Major Joties had money, hh daughter was distinctly likable, and 6f youflg visitors the plantation bad not a few.

Smith had come back from his Asiatic cruise with a determination, fruit of three years of absenc^e and repression, to seek Miss Ellen and take her, willy nilly, for his owu The war had interrupted all that When he might see her now was a question.

Chapter II A Yankee Tbiok

Mb, Smithes reveries were interrupted, as the reveries of heroes upon ships always are interrupted, by the cry of, —

"Sail-ho!"

The keenest eyed on the frigate were kept constantly on the royal yards on the lookout. If the 8t. Lawrence did not catch anything, it would not be the fault of her captain. So soon, therefore, as the approaching sail had been sighted, she was recognized as a small topsail schooner, just the size and description of the Petrel.

Inasmuch as it was highly improbable that any vessel of that size, save such an armed vessel, would be in those waters in wartime, especially one heading toward the open sea, it was more than likely that the sail sighted was the Petrel. Originally the Petrel had been the revenue-cutter Aiken, a very swift goer — so swift that, although she was not a steamer, the Confederates had determined to risk her on a cruise. That the St. Lawrence, a heavy old fifty-gun frigate, could overhaul the light, dancing schooner was an impossibility.

Commodore Paulding, a resourceful old seaman, had been considering the matter since he had re-

A Yankee Trick 19

ceived the flag-o£Bicer's notice, and he had determined to effect by stratagem what he could not hope to accomplish by any other means. Happening to be on deck when the sail was reported, so soon as, through the oflBicers whom he had sent aloft for the purpose, he had verified the report that indicated that she was the Petrel, he resolved to run away !

Feeling sure that his great ship must have been observed from the small schooner, Commodore Paulding brought the frigate to the wind on the port tack and struck off at a broad angle from his former course directly away from the schooner, to the great astonishment of officers and crew. The evolution was observed from the schooner, which immediately changed its course so as to keep in the wake of the frigate.

" Wot's the old man up to ? '' growled old Bob Gantline, chief boatswain's mate. " Here we air, arter two months out, an' not a shot o' prize-money in our locker ! An' the fust time we raises a sailin' wessel an' gits a chance, we ups with our stam an' runs away from her ! "

The captain's mysterious move was presently elucidated, for the men were sent to quarters, the guns were rim in, loaded and secured inboard, the port shutters were dropped, the openings for the gui^-muzzles tightly closed ; the men, save a few necessary hands, were sent below. The commodore and his aides on the poop-deck removed their swords and uniforms, the yards were braced in and cock-billed slightly, and in a thousand little ways not intelligible to any but practised^ trained observers^ the great frigate was given the appearance of a lumbering old merchantnian« Observing too that he was not being overhauled so rapidly as he wished, the captain got out drags astern, which materially decreased the speed of his ship. He told the helmsman not to keep too tight a luff on the frigate, but to let her go off to leeward gradually. Then everybody knew what was intended.

The manceuvre — ^the ruse, rather — ^was completely successful. The Petrel was not manned by a body of experienced man-o'-war's-men, whom it might have been difficult to deceive, and seeing the old 8t. Lawrence lumbering away from them, apparently making every effort to escape, her people — ^long^ shore, fresh-water sailors — came to the conclusion that a rich, old-fashioned merchantman — some of the East India ships at that time carried single topsail yards — ^was theirs for the taking. They cracked all sail on their little schooner, therefore, and drove recklessly after the flying frigate.

There was a long twenty-four pounder mounted on the Petrel's forecastle and two smaller guns, sixpounders, in broadside. Under the circumstances, the chase was neither a long nor a stem one. Before evening the Petrel had drawn almost within range of the frigate. Not a gun could be seen on the St. Lawrence and but few men about her decks. Those aft were in their shirt-sleeves and wore straw hats and sea-boots, like merchantmen. Ranging along to irindward of the chase, as the Petrel did, there was

A Yankee Trick 81

nothing to be seen of the maindeck of the frigate, anyway, on account of her heavy heel to starboard. Confident of their prey, the men on the Petrel cast loose and provided the " Long Tom " forward quite after the maimer of the old-time privateer, and sent a shot sharp across the forefoot of the supposed trader.

No attention whatever was paid to this threat by the St. Lawrence^ and when it was repeated, although the ball came perilously near to hitting the bows of the old frigate, she still remained silent. By this time the Petrel was well abreast and slightly to windward of her supposed prey. Her men must have been a very stupid lot, for at that distance it should have been impossible to escape the conclusion that they had a huge, old-fashioned man-of-war under their lee. Possibly they had so thoroughly absorbed the idea that they y^ere chasing a merchantman in the ardor of their pursuit that their judgment was blinded. At any rate, the Petrel, confident of success, put up her helm and swooped down toward the frigate. The ports of the latter were thrown open as by magic. Huge black guns thrust their muzzles out over the sides, some of them speaking grimly and to a purpose. Two heavy bolts from long thirtytwos of the main battery ripped through the hapless Confederate cruiser. An eight-inch shell from the forward pivot exploded just as it struck the Petrel's side, tearing a hole in her big enough to drive a wagon through. The schooner was a total and absolute, wreck. She careened and sunk in less than four minutes. The St. Lawrence stopped firing immediately she saw the plight of the privateer and put her boats over. They had barely reached the Petrel when she went down, carrying a number of wounded with her. The rest were brought back to the frigate amid the loud guffaws of her officers and men. It was a huge sea joke, this, the capture of that saucy privateer in the way I have veraciously related it. Unfortunately, while the Petrel's men could not fail to see the point, the humor of it did not especially appeal to them.

The discomfited Confederates who were passed over the side of the frigate were not the only prizes, however. The one member of the St. Lawrence's crew who suffered any hardship in the battle was Lieutenant Thomas Beekman Smith, who had got away in the first boat dispatched to succor the sinking Confederate privateersmen. Just as he reached the Petrel one of her officers darted across the deck and threw something overboard. Smith could swim like a fish. As the object flew through the air past his head he saw that it was a mail-bag. Too late to stop the man, he promptly dived for it, and by great good fortime caught it as it sank below the surface of the water. A dripping but triumphant figure, he handed it to Commodore Paulding at the gangway, then went below to the ward-room to change his clothes.

The mail-bag was a treasure-trove indeed. Shortly afterward Lieutenant Smith was called to the cabin, where old Commodore Paulding sat in consultation

A Yankee Trick 28

with his secretary. There was an open letter spread out on the table before him.

"Mr. Smith/' he began formally, "your quickness of thought and promptness of action, which I take this occasion to commend, have done us a great service.*'

" Thank you, sir."

" I have examined the letters taken from the mail-bag. Most of them are personal and appear to be unimportant. This one, however, is of great interest. It seems that there is a new an^ formidable Confederate privateer being outfitted and prepared for cruising at Jones' Wharf, wherever that may be."

" I know about where it is, sir," volunteered Mr. Smith.

"Hey ! what ! " exclaimed the commodore. "Have you been in these waters before, sir ? "

" No, sir, but it is one of those estuaries opening oflF Pamlico Sound between the Neuse and the Pamlico Rivers, and is the private property of Major William Henry Jones, formerly of the United States Army."

"Exactly true," said the commodore, looking at the letter again. " That's the man. Do you know him?"

" I did, sir, before the war. He was a major of artillery and was stationed at Governor's Island. He ^" Smith hesitated.

"Well, sir?" interrogated the commodore impatiently.

^* H^ — he bad — a — daughter, sir,''

24 The Ifody fr(m ikp Sea

'' Ob, I see/' smiled the old maiL ''Well, ha haA a privateer now. What was hia daug^liter'a naipe t "

"Mia8EUen,8ir."

'' That's the name of his privateer. I gather from, this letter that she's all ready but her annament This is to be brought to her from the Bahamas by the blockade-runner Greyhound. This schooner we have just sunk was to lie off the mouth of the inlet and pilot the Greyhound ul This letter is from Jones to her captain. It gives in detail the nij^t and day signals by which the blockade-ruimer was to recognize the privateer a^id encloses a part of a chart"

" What a pity," murmured Mr. Smith, " that we were so precipitate in sinking her."

''Ay," said Commodore Fwlding. "However, that can't be helped now. We must do the next best thing. It seems from this letter that the blockadenmner is uot expected for a week yet I have decided to run up to Fortress Monroe and get a schooner, if I ca4, and rig her up to look lil^ this privateer. Then I intend to put you aboard her in the hope that you can capture the Greyhound* After that you must go in with her and destroy thp privateer."

" Ay, ay, sir," said Smith, griiming with delight; '' I'U do it"

" How will you proceed ? 'f asked the coxnmodpre.

" Why, sir, I'll lay off the mouth of the i»Iot and keep watch for the Greyhound. When I sight hor 111 make the signals and go nbpard her dpd take d Yankee Trick 26

po09e38U>ii. Then I'll traas-ship jaj crew to the Oreyhound, take her through the inlet, cross the fK)uxid, go up the river, lay the bloeJwde-rwmer &longgide the Ellen under pretence of bringing her the guns, and take her by boarding."

" That's very well, indeed, 30 far a^ it goes,'* said the commodore, smiling at his eager subordinate, " but what will you do then ? "

" Bring out the privateer, sir."

"But if you cannot?"

" Destroy her."

" How will you get back, then ? "

" I'll not be thinking of getting back in that case, sir," answered Mr. Smith gravely.

"But you must," said the commodore impressively. " It will be touch and go at best, but I do not wish to throw away any men or lives if I can help it. Besides, the more honor to you and to us all if you bring her out. I hardly suppose you can do that, but certainly you must do your best to get back safely."

" I shall, sir."

" I sent for you thus early," continued the commodore, " that you might have ample time to mature your plans. We ought to fall in with the fleet day after to-morrow. The Greyhound isn't expected for a week. Our privateering captain evidently thought himself at liberty to cruise on his own hook for a few days before he attempted to deliver his message, and came to grief, luckily for us. That's aU."

"Beg pardon, sir/' said Mr. Smith, "but may I have the letter?''

" Certainly," said Commodore Paulding, handing it to him with the half chart " Don't lose it It's a valuable document"

Smith, with his pulses throbbing, his heart beating, took the papers and walked out of the cabin. The Ellen! And he was going to capture her 1 The privateer, not the woman. Well, it would go hard if in the melee he did not get a chance at the woman as well as at the privateer.

Chapter III The Plan That Did Not Wobk

FoBTUNE favored Smith. Fortune seems to have a weakness for the Smith family, paralleled only by a similar feeling for the Jones family — ^there are so many of both in the world, and playing great parts too! If fortune had not been kind to them, they would have died out long since, as other great families have become extinct.