A Southern Girl in '61 The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter [1905.] (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

A Southern Girl in '61 The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter [1905.] 258 p IN gathering the sad and happy memories of the years of which I write, I am actuated by two motives - one, that I am conscious that the days are passing, and that if done at all, the chronicle had best be written ere the eye that has seen these things grows dim and the memory faulty; and the other, that I would fain live in the thoughts of the children who shall come after me, and have their hearts, as they read this record, beat in unison with mine. Thus shall we be linked together in these memories. I remember, in the summer of 1858, sitting on the broad piazza in front of our home in Marshall, Texas, watching the great comet that hung in the heavens. I can see now the crêpe myrtle bushes with their rose-colored blossoms, flanking the steps; feel again the warm, languorous air of the summer night, heavy with the odor of white jasmine, and honeysuckle; and hear again the voices, long stilled, as we talked together of the comet and its portent. As a child, I felt the influence of the time: great events were forming; the "irrepressible conflict," which culminated in the awful struggle of the sixties, was just becoming, to the mind of thinkers, a fearful probability; and when we looked at the blazing comet in that fair summer sky, a feeling of awe and mystery enveloped us. Night after night we watched it, and singular to say, it is the only distinct impression left on my mind of the summer of '58. In the autumn my father was elected the State Senate and we made preparations for our journey to Austin. There were no railroads across the State in those days, and the hundreds of miles had to be traversed by private conveyance, or by stage coach. We decided to make the expedition in our old- fashioned family carriage, drawn by a pair of stout horses and driven by our negro coachman, Henry. My brother came with us on horseback. We made the journey in easy stages - our luggage, of course, being sent on by coach. We would drive about thirty miles a day - never more; stopping in the middle of the day for an hour or so, when the horses would be thoroughly rested and fed, and we would have our luncheon. At night, we always stopped at a convenient farmhouse, the location of which had been previously learned, and whose owners were accustomed, in a country where there were no inns, to receive occasional travelers. What a delightful journey it was! The beautiful, level, prairie roads, hard, white and smooth, over which we rolled, with little effort on the horses' part - stretching behind and before us that wide expanse of prairie, now, in November, covered with tall, waving, yellow grass; but in June glorious with the exquisite blue flowers of the buffalo clover - stopping, from time to time, to water the horses from the pure, limpid springs; the heavens blue as a sapphire and the sun shining! I do not remember any rainy days in the ten during which we were on the road. The midday meal, taken by the banks of some clear, beautiful stream, was a feast indeed - a daily picnic of the most enchanting kind. I recall only two adventures by the way. One was our setting the prairie on fire by thoughtlessly throwing a lighted match in the dry grass, which might have resulted very seriously had we not been near a stream, and had not the wind been blowing towards it, and in the opposite direction from that in which we were going. As it happened, it was an interesting and novel sight, viewed at a safe distance. And it resulted in much merriment, as we recalled our first frightened efforts to put out the prairie fire by futile little journeyings to and from the stream with cups of water. Our other adventure was fording the Brazos River, a broad, swift-running, shallow stream, so limpid that the stones on the bottom were clearly visible.