THE ANTE-BELLUM WOMAN

 

 

By MARY CARSON WARFIELD

 

 

 

 

I hesitate to write on the ante-bellum woman, not because the subject is meagre or difficult, but because of its magnitude; because of the impossibility to do justice to the many types of Southern women; and because of the difficulty of choosing the most interesting and the most noble of my acquaintances for illustration.

 

As I sit here trying to select one, there passes before me a legion of lovely women whom I knew and loved when a child, in ante-bellum days. First comes a petite, dainty, dark-eyed, beautiful woman, refined and soft-voiced, but wielding more power, producing more effect by one glance from her soft dark eyes, by one gentle word from that sweet voice than many a commander of well disciplined troops can effect by his authoritative orders. Love was her sceptre, to which the whole household bowed in glad obedience. Mistress of a luxurious mansion situated in spacious, beautifully laid out grounds, with a retinue of devoted slaves to do her every behest, she was not a useless butterfly. The poorest woman in this state looked not more carefully to the welfare of her household or took more care of every individual belonging to it. Not a want or pleasure of her husband or children was ever forgotten, nor was the comfort of the least baby slave on the place neglected by this wonderful woman. Smoothly, easily, comfortably, moved the well oiled wheels of that home which in the many years of intimate intercourse of our two families never felt a jar or jolt until the Civil War brought it to an anguished stop forever. God bless my mother's sweet friend, to visit whom was like stepping into an ante-chamber of Heaven.

 

Another lovely face appears, a figure of Juno-like mold, rippling dark hair, and laughing blue-gray eyes. A voice, the happiest, most youthful I ever heard from an adult woman; these things are the first that I recall of the beautiful mother of my husband that was to be. Her home was on a large cotton plantation on the Mississippi River; the house was not large nor fine, but comfort and even luxury were visible in every room of this rambling plantation house, which was the family residence for eight or nine months of the year, the hot months being spent in a cooler and more salubrious climate. I can see her now, as she was waked in the morning by her devoted servant, who had been a gift from her father in her girlhood, who had been her maid, then the nurse of all her babies, and who now brought in her mistress' bath water (there were no waterworks in country homes then) and laid out fresh clothes for her to put on.

 

Good morning, Nancy," she would say, "Now tell me of a dream I had last night. It was such a queer one, all about eggs.

 

Oh, Miss Maria," hastily interrupting, "Wuzenny of 'em broke?"

 

No, Nancy, not one. Why?"

 

It's all right den, Miss Maria, dat means good luck. You gwine to have good luck sho' all dis year, but if any of 'em had been broke, den I w'arn't gwine tell yer what it means."

 

After the dream was told and the interpretation given, came the daily affectionate, half familiar intercourse of this mistress and maid.

 

Now, Miss Maria, don't you put on dat dress. You know Marse William don't never like you to wear sich sober colors."

 

But it is time for me to wear sober colors, Nancy, with nine children, two daughters married, a grown son and three grandchildren.

 

Yes, but youse young yet, Miss Maria, and youse prettier dan bofe Miss Haryet and Miss Mary. Foks takes youse for deys sister."

 

Oh, Nancy, poor Miss Harriet and Miss Mary."

 

It's de trufe, Miss Maria," with a finality of utterance that brookeded no demur.

 

Then came the questions about the sick man in the quarters; how the colored babies were thriving; and everything concerning the people.

 

"Oh, Miss Maria, did you know Mr. Cullifer told Clarissy dat she gotter go to de fiel' dig coming Monday; en her baby ain't more'n fo' weeks old?"

 

"Four weeks old, Nancy, of course she shall not work in the field yet. I will see your Marse William about it. You know he will never allow such a thing."

 

"Yas'm, I sho does. I told Jane she nee'n worry, dat I gwine tell you."

 

Then breakfast - Oh, the table of the ante-bellum lady. It makes my mouth water now to recall the delicious food that it was not thought unrefined to load the breakfast, dinner, and supper tables with in those happy days. There were the breakfasts with the hot rolls, as light as sea foam; the beaten biscuit, white as snow; the corn muffins; the broiled chicken; the eggs; the hominy; the waffles; the coffee and cream. Then there were the indescribable dinners, always with chicken gumbo in season, dishes of every known vegetable, roast turkey, and fried chicken; and suppers to match. At breakfast, the whole family collected promptly and partook with healthy appetites of the delicious dainties prepared by Ailsie, a cook trained by this mistress of every art that can make a perfect Southern housekeeper. When her husband, the boys, and their tutor had gone, the silver coffee service and all flat silver used for the meal, with the cups and saucers and glasses, were placed on a large tray on the dining room table in front of the lady of the house, who herself washed and dried and polished them until they shone, then left them on the table for the butler to put away when he had eaten his own breakfast.

 

The dairy came next, and there, this lady skimmed the great pans and crocks of milk, and saw the fresh milk strained into clean, well-sunned vessels and placed in the flat cemented trough kept full of ice cold running water, drippings from the ice house, conveyed there by pipes. Everything was immaculately clean.

 

Next in order was the poultry yard. The hen houses were swept by the boy who carried the corn to feed the poultry. New nests were made and hens set. Food and fresh water were given under her direction.

 

The school room, in a house near the dwelling, was next visited. A few pleasant words were given the tutor; inquiries were made as to how the pupils were doing; and she often stayed to hear a recitation, to commend, if there was anything to warrant it, but never to condemn, then departed with a smile and graceful bow.

 

Is there any wonder those boys adored their beautiful mother? Going to the kitchen, she would find Ailsie awaiting her with cups, pans, and spoons for orders for the two o'clock dinner. One day, they had entered the large storeroom, generally filled with six months' supplies of all kinds, when her husband appeared in the doorway, having come with an empty decanter to replenish it.

 

"Maria," he said, directly after filling it from a demi-john, "I find that my best sherry is disappearing very rapidly. You are not using it for cooking, are you ?"

 

"No indeed, William. Are you sure it is going too fast?"

 

"Yes, I know it is; Ailsie, have you been drinking it?"

 

"No, sah, Marse William, no sah, no sah."

 

"Here, blow your breath in my face and let me see."

 

No, sah, Marse William, I cudn't do that; ladies never blows deir bref in gentmen's faces, Marse William."

 

So "Marse William," with a laugh at his own expense, went out without being satisfied whether Ailsie had or had not been the purloiner.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Another form appears in this panorama of Southern women. This time, there is a log house, very comfortable and roomy, with many chimneys, the floors of unpainted white pine, the walls and ceilings simply white-washed. The presiding genius here is older than those I have described. She is on a long front gallery with a group of persons about her, seated in a large cane-seated rocking chair, swinging it rapidly back and forth, the tips of her tiny slippered feet just touching the floor enough to keep up the child-like motion, her merry laugh ringing out as she retells some bon mots of noted men and women of her girlhood - a girlhood in which she had reigned a belle at Richmond, Virginia, and Washington City, counting on her long list of adorers, General Winfield Scott, and as her near kinsman, Bishop Meade.

 

She is a brunette of fairy like proportions with bright black eyes, sparkling white teeth and black hair much sprinkled with white. Oh, she is adorable! How came this brilliant cultured woman to be so radiant, so happy in these plain surroundings? It was love - love for the handsome young husband who brought her to what was then a Mississippi wilderness - love that had sweetened and softened the hardships and made her forget her past social triumphs. They had together transformed this wilderness into broad, well cultivated fields. Here their children had been born and reared to be men and women highly respected and beloved; from here she had sent to General Lee's command in Virginia two noble sons; here her daughters married; here her grandchildren had been born, and here she had buried the husband of her youth. But love still was surrounding her, making life a joy. Her life had been full of work, full of usefulness, full of joys and sorrows, full of blessings, full of love; and now, in her old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren, a well rounded, well spent life was ready to accept both good and ill from God, who had showered upon her so many rich blessings; ready also, joyously, to "cross the River" at His call.

 

It was at her home that I first saw, during the Civil War, a hand loom, and cotton cloth being woven to clothe the people on the plantation. Here, too, I saw a curious home-made shuck broom, used to dryrub the smooth white floors every morning, making them as shiny and slippery as waxed floors. It was here that corn meal dough, rolled in cabbage leaves and baked in hot ashes, was served hot for lunch, with cold fresh buttermilk, baked sweet potatoes, and fresh golden butter - a feast an epicure could not disdain, especially if strawberries or raspberries, fresh from the home vines, were also served with thick sweet cream, as I was so fortunate to get. And now, lastly, but above all and beyond all, comes one to whom I owe existence and everything that has made life worth living.

 

When I look back upon my mother and think of her just as she was, my heart swells with gratitude, love, and pride, and I thank God for this loving, earnest Christian mother, though I tremble when I think of those solemn words, "Unto whom much is given, much will be required." "Lovely in person, lovely in deeds," describes her as she appears to all who knew her. Though not college-bred, as are women of today, she was the best informed, best read woman I have ever known, except my first example, who was her senior by ten years, and who may have been her equal. Of course, I had always known, had always believed my mother to be an exhaustless source of information, from which I could always draw with no fear of being disappointed; but I recall one small incident which had impressed itself indelibly upon my memory, while greater ones have faded away entirely. Soon after I was married, while on a visit to my parents, my husband and I were reading a magazine article in which the briefest, baldest allusion was made to a "Baliol man". There was nothing to give us a cue as to what or who Baliol was; neither of us knew; both wanted to know, so I went to my mother rather than an encyclopedia to find out. The instant I asked the question, she replied, "Why that is the name of one of the colleges at Oxford, England," and then I understood, and the allusion was made clear to us.

 

In her last illness, the whole town of Natchez vied with each other to minister to her in some way. Forgetting all she had done for others, these overwhelming attentions from rich and poor alike surprised and delighted her. "Why, if I were a queen, I could not receive more attention," she once said to me. A dear friend said of her after her death. "Her life has been a perpetual expenditure of love." Could there be a more beautiful epitaph? There was certainly never one more true. The happy, simple life was hers for many years before our unhappy war between the states. The plantation house. with rooms comfortably but simply furnished, long wide galleries, back and front, a wide hall extending through the center of the house, a large yard shaded by towering water oaks and beautified by many rose bushes, evergreen trees and shrubs - this was my girlhood home.

 

I cannot remember that I ever saw my mother idle. Her husband and six children claimed her first loving care; but with many negro slaves to serve her, her days were passed in serving others. She felt her responsibility as mistress of all these poor, ignorant, loving, humble souls. I can see her now visiting the sick, carrying medicines, delicacies or comforts of some kind; stopping at the day nursery to inquire into and look after the welfare of the babes and small children whose mothers were at work in the fields; questioning "Mammy Eliza" and advising her what to do; making changes in diet or clothing that she thought would be beneficial; calling at the cook shop to see to the quality of the food prepared there for the next meal of the numerous slaves; finally going into the house where the plantation seamstresses were at work, to assist them with her wise counsel, or to cut patterns and measure the goods for them; for here was made the clothing for every man, woman, and child on the plantation, not with sewing machines, but by hand. Hours would pass here in hard work for her as well as for the sewing women.

 

To be the mistress of a large plantation and to fulfill all the duties that a conscientious woman like my mother felt to be hers, was assuredly no sinecure. Not only were the necessary things done by her, but she gladly took upon herself the burden of lightening the dull work days for her slaves by anticipation of the holidays, making these as happy as possible. Christmas and the Fourth of July were joyful days on this plantation. Feasting and dancing and appropriate Christmas gifts were all provided by my mother, for my father was a busy lawyer and wisely left such things in my mother's hands. But in response to what he knew to be her wishes as well as his duty, he had built a "church house", as the Negro children called it, and there twice a month a white minister preached to "our people", as we children called the slaves. This religious instruction was augmented by the Sunday Bible readings and catechism by my mother.

 

We all know how mothers sacrificed themselves and strove in every way for our beloved Southland; with smiling faces, but bleeding hearts, sending to the front husbands, sons, sweethearts, fathers - all they held dear. They bore cheerfully, heroically, the hardships and deprivations consequent upon that four years of unparalleled warfare. For years, my parents had been living in Natchez to obtain educational advantages for their children, but now we went to the simple plantation life, feeling that "our people" would be better cared for, better contented, if we were with them. It would consume too much time to tell of the makeshifts, the substitutes every mother of a family had to resort to for medicines, salt, coffee, and other necessities. How often have I seen my mother brewing willow bark tea as bitter as gall, as a substitute for quinine, to administer to someone suffering from chills and fever in the house or in the quarters. Black and red pepper were also used to break chills. "Mammy Eliza", faithful old soul, who had been superannuated several years before the war began, and who had been assigned no regular duties for years, now came to our kitchen and cooked, doing everything she could to make the altered times fall less heavily upon her mistress. I have seen my mother teaching her to parch corn meal or sweet potatoes, cut into small bits, from which to make coffee, adding a precious coffee bean or two to give it the coffee flavor. I have seen my mother have the earthen floors of the smoke-house, where the meat had been salted for years, dug up and boiled to obtain salt to season our food. Were women ever less complaining, less impatient of really great deprivations of things absolutely necessary for life and health than were our Southern women during these awful times?

 

Forgetful of self, they were always ready to fly to the help of any suffering soldier; they sent to the field everything available that could add to the comfort of their loved ones, and went themselves to minister to the sick and the wounded. Then, when the war was over, they went back to desolated and impoverished houses, where everything was gone but the weed-grown land, and joined in the slow and painful work of restoration.

 

It is because of their loyalty, their cheerful self-sacrifice, their wonderful fortitude in dangers and sorrows of all kinds that the men of this generation honor and revere them, and are erecting monuments in every Southern state to perpetuate their memory. These heroic women will live forever in the hearts of the Southern people.

 

 

 

               

Back to Table of Contents

 

 

 

Back to Index