1. I.
THE SURRYS.
Having returned to “Eagle's-Nest,” and hung up a dingy
gray uniform and batered old sabre for the inspection of my
descendants, I propose to employ some leisure hours in recording
my recollections, and describing, while they are fresh in my
memory, a few incidents of the late Revolution.
This will not be a task, my dear, unknown reader—rather an
amusement; for nothing delights more your old soldier returned
from the wars than to fight his battles o'er again, boast of his
exploits, and tell the children and grandchildren, clustering
in fancy around his knees, what wonders he has seen, and how
many heroic deeds he has performed.
I think coming dear, coming grandchildren will take an interest
in my adventures. They will belong to the fresh, new generation,
and all the jealousies, hatreds, and corroding passions of
the present epoch will have disappeared by that time. Simple
curiosity will replace the old hatred; the bitter antagonism of
the partisan will yield to the philosophie interest of the student,
and the events and personages of this agitated period will be
calmly discussed by the winter fireside. How Lee looked, and
Stuart spoke—how Jackson lived that wondrous life of his, and
Ashby charged upon his milk-white steed—of this the coming
generations will talk, and I think they will take more interest in
such things than in the most brilliant arguments about secession.
Therefore, good reader, whom I will never see in the flesh, I
am going to make some pictures, if I can, of what I have seen.
Come! perhaps as you follow me you will live in the stormy
days of a convulsed epoch, breathe its fiery atmosphere, and see
its mighty forms as they defile before you, in a long and noble
line. To revive those days, surround you with that atmosphere,
and reproduce those figures which have descended into
the tomb, is the aim which I propose to myself in writing these
memoirs.
I foresee that the number of “I's” I shall employ will be
enormous, and beyond a peradventure you will call me egotistical;
but how can the use of that stiff, erect character be done
away with in an autobiography? Be magnanimous, therefore,
O kindly reader, and regard me as a friend who is telling you
his adventures, not as an author composing a feigned history.
It is only a poor “prisoner on parole” who is talking: leave
him that one resource to while away the time—that single consolation.
We sit on the old porch at Eagle's Nest; yonder
flows the Rappahannock; the oaks sigh; the sunshine laughs—so
I begin.
I always heard that the first of the Surrys in Virginia was
Philip, the son of Philip, and that he took refuge here when the
head of Charles I. went to the block. This Cavalier was
a gay gallant, the family legend says, and did much hard riding
and fighting under Prince Rupert; but the royal banner dropped,
the Roundhead pikes carried the day; and, collecting such money
and jewels as he could lay his hands on, Colonel Philip Surry
repaired to the head-quarters of Cavalierdom, Virginia. Here
everything suited him. Cavalier faces were seen everywhere,
land was cheap, and foxes abounded; so he built this house of
“Eagle's-Nest” below Port Royal, on a hill above the Rappahannock,
gave it the name of the family estate in England, and,
collecting a number of thorough-breds, and a pack of bounds,
married and settled down. All I have heard of him thereafter
may be stated in a few words: he went with Richard Lee to see
Charles H., then in exile at Breda, where he offered to proclaim
the youth King of England and Virginia at Williamsburg.
When his offer was not accepted, he returned to Eagle's-Nest,
where he dedicated his energies to fox-hunting and raising
blood horses for the remainder of his life. His portrait hangs on
the wall here—a proud, handsome face, with blue eyes, pointed
beard, black mustache, and broad shoulders covered with Venice
lace falling over a hauberk of steel; in the hand is a hat with
a black, trailing feather. There is Colonel Philip Surry, dead this
many a day.
He left in his will the curious injunction that the eldest son of
the family in every generation should sign his name, “Surry of
Eagle's-Nest;” so my father always called himself, and I have
followed the family habit. My father was the fifth or sixth in
descent from Philip I., and bore his name. He was the soul of
benevolence and kindness. Intellectually, he was the greatest
man I ever knew. At the bar of the Court of Appeals of Virginia
he ranked with the old race of lawyers, Marshall, Wirt,
Wickham, and Leigh—all his intimate friends; but as his hair
had grown gray he had retired from the profession, and spent his
days at home in the country. He has died since the beginning
of the war, but his portrait is yonder, a tall and stately figure,
with a noble countenance, clear loyal eyes, and a smile of exquisite
sweetness. He is gone now, like all the Surrys of the past,
but his memory still lives. His intellect was so powerful, his
temper so sweet and kind, that the first men of his age saluted
him with respect, and I never knew a lady or a child not to love
him. He belonged to that old generation of Virginians who have
disappeared, and the sun to-day, I think, shines nowhere on his
like.
I shall only add to this family sketch the statement that my
dear mother, who died in my boyhood, was Mary Annesley, of
Princess Anne, and that she had but two children besides myself.
One of these was my sister Annie, about sixteen years of age
when the war began; and the other, my younger brother, was
only nineteen at that time, but a graduate of West Point, and a
lieutenant in the United States army.
Such was the origin of the writer of the present memoirs,
and from this point of view he looked upon the struggle which
was approaching.
