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10 Memories of Jefferson Davis with the sky - At the time or impression he gas; United States secretary of war, Wrti come from Washington with President Pierce to review the troops at Fortress Monroe. The night follow ing the review the fort and the waters beyond were such a blaze of pyro technic wonders as few had ever seen. Then there came a lull in the booming of cannon, the cheering and applause, and suddenly there flashed across the sky in flaming letters the two names, Jefferson Davis and Franklin Pierce. Across the sky of my memories one of those two names still flashes with dazzling brilliance. History has done its worst, and its bcust, for Jefferson Davis, just as dur ing his life Fate did for him her best I have no wish or will to A\snuS| the political issues which sent ksefcXiuent orator, the brilliant stev, IS , A, the noble man, out of the ITW.S injure Destiny was calling him ttPhigyjr—to the highest heights. I have- f» /gotten them. His aims and garbled perhaps and often •« assly misrepresented, are borne AM- Axpon the tide of history. Only ’ /Kracter, the man, live in my something as much revered in that lon & a so when I had Zjßfi fortune to see much of him pjflWw him well. And of that, of i) 4K* e «rsonal memories of Jefferson Lk. by am always glad to speak. Os that first memory, only one inci dent remains—a curious incident. I had been told that Mr. Davis had lost an eye, and when they took me to see the great man, in real flesh and blood after the letters of fire I only remem ber looking most eagerly at his face and experiencing a sense of surprise at not being able to discover that an eye was missing. The disappointment of expectation, however, was more than balanced by the pleasure it gave me to see that earnest, soulful face which won my childish trust, as it won the admiring confidence of older people. When Three Were a Crowd. When next I saw Mr. Davis, it was, at the time, with a feeling of inex pressible vexation. He was president of the Confederacy then, having been elected to the office by a single vote over Robert Toombs. It was in July, 1862, just after the battle of Gaine’s Mill. Gen. Pickett, to whom I was en gaged, had been severely wounded and was at his home in Richmond. I was returning from school in the care nf that noble, self sacrificing, but most unfortunate clergyqmen, Parson Brownlow, and was so eager to see the general that his sympathetic heart yielded and he took me for a brief call on the way. I had hardly taken a seat by the man I loved when President Davis was announced, and I saw the precious minutes slip away while he occupied my chair and I sat in a cor ner beside the general’s sister. In spite of the very green glasses through which I looked, I could not help seeing the man and forming a mental picture of him which through life and death has grown ever bright er, more vivid and revered. His very entrance into the room captivated me. He was tall and extremely thin, but there was a dignity and grace about him which is inexpressible. He was a type of the old south, cultivated, re fined, a brilliant conversationalist. His eyes were clear and of a blue gray color, his forehead high, nose straight, lips thin and compressed, chin point ed, and cheek bones high. Deep inter 3ectuig lines furrowed his mouth. His face was thin, features long and sharp, and an angular outline empha sized the Intensity of his expression. There was no pomp or strut in his movement, neither was there anything uncertain. His walk was wonderful. It was poetry, music, grace. It was just what a president’s walk ought to be, but seldom is. Often on Sundays after that I watched him at St. Paul’s church, and whenever I saw him on horseback I was fascinated by the beautiful unaffected harmony and grace of every motion. He took Gen. Pickett’s left hand and pressed it, laying it gently down on the arm of the chair to avoid jarring him, as he seated himself, asking, “How soon will you be able to go back? We need you in the field.” “I should like to go tomorrow,” re plied the general; at which the presi dent shook his head. He gave the general a brief account of the fighting which had followed the battle of Gaine’s Mill, praising his brother, Capt. Charles Pickett, who had been wounded by carrying the flag on foot after his horse had been shot under him. I remember how his eyes flashed as he said: “I am too much a soldier to keep out of it in this way. I wanted to be in the fray. I would much have preferred to fight in the fields rather than in the council chambers. I had gone out to consult with the generals, when the artillery duel between Jackson and Franklin began. I barely missed being acci dentally killed, and they carried me off, I may say, by force.” Then they began to talk of years before when they fought together in Mexico. Meeting Him “Officially.” I never met Mr. Davis “officially” till the evening of September 16, 1863, the night of my wedding reception. Os all who came to greet the child bride of the beloved general, Mr. Davis and his cabinet were almost the only ones who wore civilian's evening dress. In those days the men were all soldiers, and the women were all sacrificing everything to help. Very little, in deed, was to be had even for money, to eat, drink, or wear. Through the kindness of friends at the north, my wedding dress had been smuggled through the lines for me, and it was something so unusual that after greet ing me Mrs. Davis remarked: “Dear me! Where did you get those clothes?” Turning to the general, smiling, Mr. Davis said: .“Where did you get the little lady who is in the clothes?” The editor of The Richmond Exami ner was standing across the room. He had been mercilessly assailing the president and the administration. Mrs. Davis called her husband’s atten tion to his presence there, but Mr. Davis instantly replied: “Let us not look that way, my dear. We have come tonight to look at beautiful things and think pleasant thoughts.” The general’s sister suggested tak ing the president and his wife to the dining room. “Have you really something to eat there?” Mr. Davis asked; for in truth it was no longer expected. “Cold water balls” had become the rule. When she told him that everyone in the neigh borhood of Gen. Pickett’s home, Tur key Island, had sent in sora (little reed birds) for the occasion, he smiled and said: “What a time you must have had picking them!” “No, a part of the gift was the pick ing of the birds.” I have spent tee much space upon ./HE WEEKLY jf-.'s-RSONIAN. By LA SALLE CORBELL PlC re o f. I f this evenin, 'haps, but it lingers with me in oughts of Mr. Davis, not because . as my night, but be cause it was the last time that I ever saw real happiness in the thin, earnest face. I had a good look at it, too, for Mr. Davis and his wife were presented imediately after the general’s family. He was just a free, gallant gentleman that night. As he said, he had come to enjoy. But clouds, public and pri vate, were gathering, and soon enough there was no longer the possibility to forget. I saw him often in sadness and suffering after that, but never again with a look of real happiness lighting his face. The power of Mr. Davis’ sympathy was perhaps his greatest charm. All who knew him in those days saw and felt a great deal of that. On March 24, 1864, the park at the Capitol grounds was filled wtih emaciated, hol lowed eyed, restless men, our returned prisoners, and the friends who had come to meet them. Mr. Davis spoke to them, not as a president addressing his people, or a commander in chief his soldiers, but precisely as a father welcoming back his children who had reached home again out of great peril. Never had the tones of his wonderful voice been more tender and heart moving than that day. But his voice was always, like himself, something unique; possessed of a charm that would be difficult to put into words. Years later my little boy, after listen ing to Mr. Davis during a call, asked: “Mamma, what has Mr. Davis got in his throat that makes his talk sound so musiky?” His Penetrating Voice. It was so soft that it could hold noting that would jar on the most sensitive ear, yet he found no diffi culty in filling spacious halls, as some who still remember his burning elo quence in the United States senate can testify. But those who realized that music best were the friends to whom he came in the great crises of life. We can never forget the music that thrilled us in those moments. On May 10, during the heavy bur dens of the last year of the war, the saddest company gathered in the pres ident’s mansion, attending the funeral of little Joe, the father’s favorite, who, in perfect health, had fallen from a ve randa to the brick pavement and been killed. It was Sunday morning, and the president was called from the church in time of service to receive the sad news. There were four children. Three of them were as unmanageable as chil dren could well be, but little Joe work ed like a hero to be a balance wheel. One evening when the president was holding a cabinet meeting in the li brary and Mrs. Davis was giving a re ception, the children were romping up stairs in away that proved wholly be yond both Joe and the nurse and Joe did what many a hero in difficulty has done before. He knelt down and prayed: “Dear Lord, do take hold and help me manage the children! Father and mother have got the Confederacy and society on their hands and they haven’t any time, and I can’t do it by myself.” Another evening when it was bed time and his father, who was receiving in the drawing room, was not on hand to hear him say his prayer, little Joe trot ted down in his nightgown and before all the guests knelt down at his father’s knee and said his prayers. We went to the house before the fun eral, but did not see the president. His grief was too deep then. We heard his step upstairs, walking, walking, Interesting Incid jpdured in jhe Stren- r uous Life of Grea. rafter ofthe Confederacy. X. walking. In another room Catharine, the nurse, after the manner of her kind, was wailing and moaning, and Mrs. Davis, knowing her husband’s nervous nature, tried to quiet her, that she might not add to his suffering. “Catharine, you must stop that screaming! You must stop that screaming!” she said. Mr. Davis opened the door and said, “Let her scream!” Then he turned back to his solitary walking, wishing, perhaps, that he, too, could vent his sorrow and lighten his burdens in some human way. We stood near him at the grave. Mrs. Davis’ Madonna face was white and drawn with all a mother’s suffer ing, but Mr. Davis seemed to me the very personification of grief, agony, and pain, without one outward sign, a tear, the quivering of a muscle even. All about him mourners were sob bing for his grief, and the sound of the James river dashing over the rocks came up to us in the golden flashing of the setting sun. There were a great many children, all bringing flowers, and each with a bunch of evergreen. There was one little girl with an apronful of white violets. She went directly to the gray haired man stand ing so still and erect by the grave and said to him: “Joe and I were watching these violets coming out all last week, and I’ve picked them, every one, for him.” Mr. Davis bent over, lifted her in ' his arms, held her over the grave and whispered to her. She opened the apron and let the white violets fall up on all that remained of little Joe. As he set her down and stepped back, Mr. Davis drew his hands slowly across his eyes. His burdens were almost greater than he could bear. Less than a year later we were sit ting in St. Paul’s in the midst of com munion service, when a letter from the secretary of war was handed to the president. I think we were all watch ing him. How could we help it in that terrible hour? We saw him read the letter, then calmly rise and leave the church with all the dignity that was always his. But we knew. Dr. Minnergerode instantly began a fer vent prayer, and our sobs and cries went up with it We knew that some great calamity had thrown a black veil across the sunlight of that beauti ful morning, and were not surprised when we learned later that the letter from the secretary of war had an nounced the impending fall of the capital. Civil war brings with it conflicting entanglements. One of the men whom Davis most highly esteemed was President Lincoln. They were born the same year and within a few miles of each other in the same state. In childhood one was taken north, the other south, leaving the world to won der what the result would have been in history had they each taken an op posite direction—so much depends up on the accident of environment. But their whole lives were interwoven. At the opening of the Black Hawk War General Scott sent Lieutenant Davis to Dixon, Illinois, to muster the state troops into the service of the nation, and the young lieutenant ad ministered to Captain Abraham Lin coln the oath of allegiance to the United States, a fact to which Lincoln often called attention in later years. After his arrest, Davis was being driven to the railway station in an old barouche drawn by miserable, bony horses, surrounded by a guard of cav alry. An old Confederate soldier ran beside the bareuche, determined to