Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/308

 302 Southern Historical Society Papers.

with her husband the dangers and privations of the South. She vainly tried to persuade Stanton, Secretary of War, to let her and her three children with a nurse return to the South; finally he con- sented to let her go by flag of truce from Washington to City Point, but without a nurse, and as she was unable to manage three little ones, she left the youngest with his grandparents, and with two others bravely set out for Dixie. The generous outfit of every description which was prepared for the journey and which was carried to the. place of embarkation was ruthlessly cast aside by the inspectors on the wharf, and no tears or entreaties or offers of reward by the parents availed to pass anything save a scanty supply of clothing and other necessaries. Arriving in the South, the brave young mother refused the proffer of a beautiful home in Wilmington, the occupancy of the grand old mansion at " Orton," on the Cape Fear river, but insisted upon taking up her abode with her children and their colored nurse in the upper room of a pilot's house, where they lived until the soldiers of the garrison built her a cottage one mile north of Fort Fisher on the Atlantic beach. In both these homes she was occasionally exposed to the shot and shell fired from blockaders at belated blockade runners.

It was a quaint abode, constructed in most primitive style with three rooms around one big chimney, in which North Carolina pine knots supplied heat and light on winter nights. This cottage became historic and was famed for the frugal but tempting meals, which its charming hostess would prepare for her distinguished guests. Besides the many illustrious Confederate Army and Navy officers who were delighted to find this bit of sunshinny civilization on the wild sandy beach, ensconced among the sand dunes and straggling pines and black-jack, many celebrated English naval officers enjoyed its hospitality under assumed names; Roberts, afterwards the renowned Hobart Pasha, who commanded the Turkish navy, Murray, now Admiral Aynsley, long since retired, after having been rapidly pro- moted for gallantry and meritorious services in the British navy ; the brave but unfortunate Burgoyne, who went down in the British iron-clad ''Captain " in the Bay of Biscay, and the chivalrous Hew- itt, who won the Victoria Cross in the Crimea and was knighted for his services as ambassador to King John of Abyssinia, and who, after commanding the Queen's yacht, died lamented as Admiral Hewitt. Besides these there were many genial and gallant merchant