University of Virginia Library

XII.
ROSLYN AND THE WHITE HOUSE:
“BEFORE AND AFTER.”

“Quantum mutatus ab illo!” That is an exclamation which
rises to the lips of many persons on many occasions in time of
war.

In 1860, there stood on the left bank of the Chickahominy,
in the county of New Kent, an honest old mansion, with which
the writer of this page was intimately acquainted. Houses
take the character of those who build them, and this one was
Virginian, and un-“citified.” In place of flues to warm the
apartments, there were big fires of logs. In place of gas to
light the nights, candles, or the old-fashioned “astral” lamps.
On the white walls there were no highly coloured landscape
paintings, but a number of family portraits. There was about
the old mansion a cheeerful and attractive air of home and welcome,
and in the great fireplaces had crackled the yule clogs
of many merry Christmases. The stables were large enough
to accommodate the horses of half a hundred guests. The old
garden contained a mint patch which had supplied that plant
for the morning juleps of many generations. Here a number
of worthy old planters had evidently lived their lives, and passed
away, never dreaming that the torch of war would flame in their
borders.

The drawing-room was the most cheerful of apartments; and
the walls were nearly covered with portraits. From the bright
or faded canvas looked down beautiful dames, with waists just
beneath their arms, great piles of curls, and long lace veils; and

fronting these were gentlemen with queer blue coats, brass buttons,
snowy ruffles, hair brushed back, and English side-whiskers.
The child in the oval frame above the mantel-piece—
with the golden curls, and the little hand on the head of her
pet dog—could look at her father and mother, grandfather,
grandmother, and great-grandmother, almost without turning
her head. Four generations looked down from the walls of the
old mansion; about it was an indefinable but pervading air
of home.

Of the happy faces which lit up this honest old mansion
when I saw it first, I need not speak. Let me give a few words,
however, to a young man who was often there—one of my
friends. He was then in the bloom of youth, and enjoyed the
spring-days of his life. Under the tall old trees, in the bright
parlour full of sunshine, or beneath the shadow of the pine-wood
near, he mused, and dreamed, and passed the idle hours of his
“early prime.” He was there at Roslyn in the sweetest season
of the year; in spring, when the grass was green, and the
peach-blossom red, and the bloom of the apple-tree as white as
the driven snow; in summer, “when the days were long” and
all the sky a magical domain of piled-up clouds upon a sea of
blue; and in the autumn, when the airs were dreamy and memorial—the
woods a spectacle from faery-land, with their purple,
gold, and orange, fading slow. Amid these old familiar scenes,
the youth I write of wandered and enjoyed himself. War
had not come with its harsh experiences and hard realities—
its sobs and sighs, its anxieties and hatreds—its desolated homes,
and vacant chairs, and broken hearts. Peace and youth made
every object bright; and wandering beneath the pines, dreaming
his dreams, the young man passed many sunny hours, and
passed them, I think, rationally. His reveries brought him no
money, but they were innocent. He had “never a penny to
spare,” but was rich in fancy; few sublunary funds, but a heavy
balance to his credit in the Bank of Cloudland; no house to
call his own, but a number of fine chateaux, where he entered
as a welcome guest, nay, as their lord! Those brave chateaux
stood in a country unsurpassed, and those who have lived there

say no air is purer, no sky more bright. War does not come
there, nor the hum of trade; grief and care fly away; sorrow
is unknown; the doors of these old chateaux are closed against
all that carries that most terrible of maladies, the Heartache.

They were Chateaux en Espagne, you will say, good reader;
and truly they were built in that fine land. Do you know a
better? I do not.

Many years have passed since the youth I speak of wandered
amid these happy scenes; but I know that the dead
years rise like phantoms often before his eyes, and hover
vague and fitful above the waves of that oblivion which cannot
submerge them. While memory lives they will be traced
upon her tablets, deeper and more durable than records cut
on “monumental alabaster.” The rose, the violet, and the
hyacinth have passed, but their magical odour is still floating
in the air—not a tint of the sky, a murmur of the pines, or a
song of the birds heard long ago, but lives for ever in his
memory!

But I wander from my subject, which is Roslyn “before
and after.” The reader has had a glimpse of the old house as
it appeared in the past; where is it, and what is it now?

That question will be best answered by a description of my
last visit to the well-known locality. It was a day or two
after the battle of Cold Harbour, and I was going with a
few companions toward the White House, whither the cavalry
had preceded us. I thought I knew the road; I was sure
of being upon it; but I did not recognise a single locality.
War had reversed the whole physiognomy of the country.
The traces of huge camps were visible on the once smiling
fields; the pretty winding road, once so smooth, was all furrowed
into ruts and mud-holes; the trees were hewn down;
the wayside houses dismantled; the hot breath of war had
passed over the smiling land and blasted it, effacing all its
beauty. With that beauty, every landmark had also disappeared.
I travelled over the worn-out road, my horse stumbling
and plunging. Never had I before visited, I could have
made oath, this portion of Virginia!

All at once we came—I and the “merry comrades” who
accompanied me—in sight of a great waste, desolate-looking
field, of a clump of towering trees, and a mansion which the
retreating enemy had just burned to the ground. There were
no fences around this field; the roads were obliterated, deep
ruts marking where army wagons had chosen the more level
ground of the meadow, or had “doubled” in retiring; no
landmarks were distinguishable. I recognised nothing—and
yet something familiar in the appearance of the landscape
struck me, and all at once the thought flashed on me, “I know
this place! I know those peach-trees by the garden-fence!
the lawn, the stables, the great elms!—this is Roslyn!”

It was truly Roslyn, or rather the ghost of it. What a spectacle!
The fair fields were trodden to a quagmire; the fences
had been swept away; of the good old mansion, once the
abode of joy and laughter, of home comfort and hospitality,
there remained only a pile of smoking bricks, and two lugubrious,
melancholy chimneys which towered aloft like phantoms!

I heard afterwards the house's history. First, it had been
taken as the headquarters of one of the Federal generals; then
it was used as a hospital. Why it was burned I know not;
whether to destroy, in accordance with McClellan's order, all
medical and other stores which could not be removed, or from
wanton barbarity, it is impossible to say. I only know that it
was entirely destroyed, and that when I arrived, the old spot
was the picture of desolation. Some hospital tents still stood
in the yard with their comfortable beds; and many articles of
value were scattered about—among others, an exquisitely
mounted pistol, all silver and gilding, which a boy had picked
up and wished me to purchase. I did not look at him, and
scarcely saw the idle loungers of the vicinity who strolled about
with apathetic faces. It was the past and present of Roslyn
that occupied my mind—the recollection of the bright scenes
of other years, set suddenly and brutally against this dark picture
of ruin. There were the tall old trees, under which I used
to wander; there was the wicker seat where I passed so many

tranquil hours of reverie in the long, still afternoons, when
the sun sank slowly to the western woods; there was the sandy
road; the dim old pine-wood; the flower-garden—every object
which surrounded me in the glad hours of youth—but Roslyn
itself, the sunny old mansion, where the weeks and months had
passed so joyously, where was Roslyn? That smouldering
heap of débris, and those towering, ghost-like chimneys, replied.
From the shattered elms, and the trodden flowers, the
genius of the place seemed to look out, sombre and hopeless.
From the pine-trees reaching out yearning arms toward the
ruin, seemed to come a murmur, “Roslyn! Roslyn!”

In war you have little time for musing. Duty calls, and the
blast of the bugle jars upon the reveries of the dreamer, summoning
him again to action. I had no time to dream over
the faded glories, the dead splendour of Roslyn; those “merry
comrades” whereof I spoke called to me, as did the friends of
the melancholy hero visitor to Locksley Hall, and I was soon
en route again for the White House.

This was McClellan's great depôt of stores on the Pamunkey,
which he had abandoned when deciding upon the James river
line of retreat—“change of base,” if you prefer the phrase,
reader—and to the White House General Stuart had hurried
to prevent if possible the destruction of the stores. He was too
late. The officer in charge of the great depôt had applied the
torch to all, and retreated; and when the cavalry arrived,
nothing was visible but a black-hulled gunboat which slunk
away down the stream, chased by the shots of the Horse Artillery
under Pelham. Behind them they left fire and destruction;
a scene in which a species of barbaric and disgusting
splendour seemed to culminate.

Strange moment for my first visit to the White House! to a
spot which I had seen often in fancy, but never before with the
mortal eye. For this place was one of those historic localities
where the forms and voices of the “mighty men of old” appeared
still to linger. Here young Colonel Washington, after
that bloody march of Braddock, had paused on his journey to
Williamsburg to accept the hospitalities of John Parke Custis.

Here he had spent hour after hour conversing with the fair
young widow who was to become Mrs. Washington, while his
astonished body-servant held the bridle for him to mount; here
he had been married; here were spent many happy days of a
great life—a century at least before the spot saluted my gaze!

In this old locality some of the noblest and fairest forms that
eye ever beheld had lived their lives in the dead years. Here
gay voices had echoed, bright eyes had shone; here a sort of
masquerade of ruffles and silk stockings, furbelows and flounces,
and lace and embroidery, and powder and diamonds, was
played still in the eyes of fancy! The White House had been
to the present writer an honest old Virginia mansion of colonial
days, full of warm hearts, and kindness and hospitality,
where bright eyes outshone “the gloss of satin and glimmer of
pearls;” where the winding river flowed amid blooming fields,
beneath lofty trees, and the suns of earlier years shone down on
Washington and his bride.

Again, as at the White House—quantum mutatus ab illo!

Let me outline the objects that met my view as I galloped
up the avenue, between the great trees which had seen pass
beneath them the chariots of other generations. The house, like
Roslyn, was a ruin still smouldering. No traces of it were
left but overthrown walls, bricks calcined and shattered, and
charred timbers still sending up lurid smoke. The grounds
were the picture of desolation; the flower-beds, once carefully
tended by fair hands, had been trampled beneath the feet of
Federal soldiery; the trees were twisted or champed by the
cavalry horses; and the fences had been long since torn up and
burned. The mansion was gone; it had passed like a dream
away. The earth upon which the feet of Washington had trodden
so often was a waste; the house which stood upon the site
of that former one in which he was married, had been swept
away by the hot breath of war.

On each side of the avenue were the beds of an extensive
field hospital. The enemy had carried off the large “hospital
tents;” but the long rows of excellent beds, carefully protected
from the damp of the earth by plank floors, had not been removed.

Here were the general headquarters of disease; the
camp of the sick, the dying, and the dead. The arrangements
were admirable. The alleys between the tents were
wide; the beds of the best quality, with ornamental coverlids,
brought probably by friends; and everywhere lay about, in
admired disorder, books, pamphlets, magazines, journals, with
which the sick had doubtless wiled away the tedious hours.
Many Bibles and Testaments were lying on the ground; and
Harper's “Monthly” and “Weekly” were seen in great numbers,
their open pages exhibiting terrific engravings of the
destruction of rebels, and the triumph of their “faction.”
Here were newspapers fixing exactly the date of General
McClellan's entrance into Richmond; with leading editorials
so horrible in their threatenings, that the writers must have
composed them in the most comfortable sanctums, far away
from the brutal and disturbing clash of arms. For the rest,
there was a chaos of vials, medicines, boxes, half-burnt lemons;
and hundreds of empty bottles, bearing the labels, “Chatean
Margot,” “Lafitte,” “Clicquot,” “Bordeaux,” and many
others—the very sight of which spolia of M. S. nearly drove
the hungry and thirsty Confederates to madness!

It was a sombre and frightful spot. Infection and contagion
seemed to dwell there—for who could tell what diseases had
afflicted the occupants of these beds? No article was touched
by the troops; fine coloured blankets, variegated shirts, ornamental
caps, and handkerchiefs, and shawls, remained undisturbed.
One object, however, tempted me; and, dismounting,
I picked it up. It was a little black lace veil, lying upon one
of the beds, and evidently had belonged to a woman. I looked
at it, musing, and asking myself whether it had belonged to
wife, sister, or daughter—and I pitied her. This girl or
woman, I thought, had probably no hatred in her heart
toward us; if she had been consulted, there would have been
no war; her child, or her husband, or her brother, would have
stayed at home with her, leaving his “Southern brethren” in
peace. Women are best after all; and, doubtless, they of the
North would even yet end this “cruel war” if they could;

would shatter the sword, break the musket to pieces, and sink
the rifled cannon a thousand fathoms deep in the waters of the
Atlantic! If the women of the North could have their way,
I think they would call to those who remain alive to return to
them,—would heal their broken hearts, and joyfully bid the
“erring sisters” go in peace—furling the battle-flag for ever.
This daughter, or sister, or wife, may have been one of these
angels; perhaps she did not see that she had dropped her lace
veil—she was crying, poor thing!.....

A curious subject for reverie—a lace veil picked up in an
enemy's camp; but such are the vagaries of the human mind.
It seemed strange to me there,—that delicate woman's veil,
in the Plague City, on the hot arena of war.

Passing the hospital and the ruined mansion, I hastened to
the locality of the camp; and here the whole wild scene burst
on the eye. I cannot describe it. Stench, glare, insufferable
heat, and dense, foul, lurid smoke—there was the “general
impression.” A city had been laid out here, and this was now
in flames. Jews, pedlers, hucksters, and army followers of
every description, had thronged here; had worked like beavers,
hammering up long rows of “shanties” and sutlers' shops; had
covered the plain with a cloud of tents; and every steamer
from New York had brought something to spread upon the
improvised counters of the rising city. Moses and Levi and
Abraham had rushed in with their highly superior stock of
goods, going off at an enormous sacrifice; Jonathan and Slick
had supplied the best quality of wooden hams and nutmegs;
Daüerflinger and Sanerkraut had brought the best malt liquors
and lager, with brandy and whiskey and gin under the rose.
In a few weeks a metropolis of sutlerdom had thus sprung up
like a mushroom; and a whole host of pedlers and hucksters
had seratched and burrowed, and made themselves nests like
Norway rats;—the very place smelled of them.

The rats had thus gone far in building their capital of Ratdom;
but those cruel terriers, the Confederates, had discovered
them, given chase, and scattered them to the four winds, to
return no more! Their own friends struck them the heaviest

blow. The officer commanding at the White House had
promptly obeyed the orders sent him, and the nascent city was
set fire to without mercy. When the Confederates arrived, the
long rows of sutlers' stores, the sheds on the wharf, the great
piles of army-stores, the surplus guns, pistols, sabres, and the
engines on the railroad, were wrapt in roaring flames. From
this great pile of fire rose a black and suffocating smoke, drifting
far away across the smiling landscape of June. Destruction,
like some Spirit of Evil, sat enthroned on the spot, and
his red bloodshot eye seemed to glare through the lurid cloud.

The heat was frightful, but I rode on into the midst of the
disgusting or comic scenes—advancing over the ashes of the
main bulk of the stores which had been burned before our
arrival. In this great chaos were the remnants of all imaginable
things which a great army needs for its comfort or luxury
in the field. Barrels of pork and flour; huge masses of fresh
beef; boxes of hard bread and cakes; hogsheads of sugar and
molasses; bags of coffee and beans, and all conceivable “army
stores”—had been piled up here in a great mass nearly a quarter
of a mile long, and set on fire in many places. The remains
of the stores were still burning, and emitted a most disgusting
odour; next came the row of sutlers' shops, among which the
advance guard of the cavalry had scattered themselves in
search of edibles. These were found in profusion, from barrels
of excellent hams, and crackers and cakes, to the luxuries so
costly in the Confederate capital, of candy and comfits, lemons
and oranges, bottles of Jamaica ginger, and preserved fruits.
There was no little interest in a walk through that débris of
sutlerdom. You knocked in the head of a barrel, entirely
ignorant whether hard bread or candy, pork or preserved
strawberries, would greet your curious eyes. The box which
you dashed to pieces with an axe might contain fine shoes and
elastic socks, or excellent combs and hair-brushes, or snowy
shirt bosoms and delicate paper collars, penknives, pickles,
portmonnaies, or perfumes. All these things were found, of the
last New York fashion, abandoned by the sutler rats, no doubt
with inexpressible anguish. The men helped themselves freely

to everything which they took a fancy to, and revelled for that
day in a plenty which repaid them for all their hardships.

One amusing example of the wholesale destruction was furnished
by the barrels of fresh eggs set on fire. But they were
only half burned. The salt in which they had been packed
resisted the fire; and the result was that the eggs were only
roasted. They could not have been prepared more excellently
for the visitors; and every taste was gratified. Some were
charred and roasted hard, others less than the first, others
again were only heated through. You could take your choice
without difficulty; nothing more was necessary than to take
them from their beds of salt; and a pinch of that salt, which
was excellent, made them palatable. Crackers were at hand;
jars of preserved fruits of all descriptions. There were strawberries
and figs and dates for dessert; and whole boxes of tobacco,
if you wished to smoke after your meal. The greatest
luxury of all was iced lemonade. The day was terribly hot,
and the men, like their horses, were panting with the combined
heat of the weather and the great conflagration. Under
such circumstances, the reader may understand that it was far
from unpleasant to discover a cool spring beneath the bank;
to take water and ice and lemons and Jamaica ginger, and
make a drink for the gods!

Of this pandemonium of strange sights and sounds and
smells—of comic or tragic, amusing or disgusting details—I
shall mention but one other object; one, however, which
excited in me, I remember, at the time a very curious interest.
This was a tent filled with coffins, and a dead body ready
embalmed for transportation to the North. In front of the
tent stood an oblong pine box, and in this box was a coffin, so
richly ornamented that it attracted the attention of all who
approached. It was apparently of rosewood, with massive silver
handles, curiously carved or moulded, and the interior was
lined with rich white satin, with a fringed pillow, covered with
the same material to sustain the head of the corpse. Above
the tents ocenpied by this mortuary artist, was a long strip of

canvas stretched between two upright poles, and this bore the
inscription in large black letters:

This strange locality, as I and my comrades approached it,
“gave us pause.” All these paraphernalia of this grave
struck us with profound astonishment, and the force of novelty.
Our poor Confederate dead we buried in pine boxes, or in none;
often a long trench received them, wrapped only in their
old tattered uniforms or threadbare blankets; and lo! here
was quite another mode of preparing men for their last rest;
quite a superiour conveyance for them, in which they might
make their journey to the other world! That rich and glossy
rosewood; that soft-fringed pillow; those silver handles, and
the opening in the lid, where through fine plate-glass the face
of the corpse might be seen!—strange flattery of the dead—
the dead who was no longer to crumble to dust, and go the way
of humanity, but was to be embalmed by the new American
process, in accordance with the “order” of the Secretary of
War! In the streets of a city that spectacle would, no doubt,
have appeared quite commonplace and unsuggestive; but here,
amid the insufferable heat, the strangling smoke, and the horrible
stench, that dead body, the coffin, and the embalmers'
whole surroundings, had in them I know now what of the repulsive
and disgusting. Here the hideous scene had reached
its climax—Death reigned by the side of Destruction.

Such was the scene at the White House on that June day
of 1862; in this black cloud went down the star of the enemy's
greatest soldier, McClellan. A great triumph for the Confedcrates
followed that furious clash of arms on the Chickahominy;
but alas! when the smoke rolled away, the whole extent of the
waste and desolation which had come upon the land was revealed;
where peace, and joy, and plenty had once been, all
was now ruin. The enemy were lighted on their way, as they

retreated through the marshes of Charles City, by the burning
houses to which they had applied the torch.

Of two of these houses I have spoken, because they chanced
to attract my attention; and I have tried to convey the emotions
which the spectacle excited. It was useless and barbarous
to burn these private dwelling-houses; the wanton indulgence
of spite and hatred on the part of a defeated enemy, who destorys
in order to destroy. But let that pass.

Since that time I have never revisited Roslyn or the White
House.