I shall never descend to the position of an informant. They then spoke of several having passed here. I replied that I did not consider myself responsible for those who traveled our public roads, or traversed the paths of our plantations; but it would be tedious to enter into the particulars of this and many other experiences.
During the revolution of '76, my grandfather, a colonel in the army, being with his command, my grandmother was visited at her country place by a party of Hessians. Her children were sent into the woods for safety, while she remained to give the slight protection of her presence to her house and property. While the work of destruction was progressing, one of the ruffians observed to her, "Where is your Rebel husband, madam?" "Where he ought to be, sir, fighting for his country," was the brave and patriotic reply—one which has gained for her a name among the matrons of that day, and for more than one of her descendants some public favor. I listened to it in my childhood as to a legend of romance not dreaming amid the security of that far-off time that such days would ever return again. But numberless are the incidents of this present time laid up in faithful memories—as numberless are the pens ready to record them! And for the sake of reputation, had I no higher motive, were I an officer, either Confederate or Federal, I would sanction no such expeditions. The desolations at Brandon are doubtless now presented in every European paper. How many of humbler name, more limited improvements and narrower boundary, are now deserted from the same cause by their homeless and impoverished owners, and as I told one of the soldiers on Tuesday, I believed that those homes in the North, now so secure and unsympathizing, will meet with similar visitations. I cannot say how, when or by whom. Retributive justice is in other hands.
It is said special care is taken to select the property of gentlemen, with the view of lowering their estimation of themselves and humbling them in the eyes of their fellow-men. They who have this object know little of the nature and character of those who are really ladies and gentlemen—not such as are formed by wealth, pride and the grimaces of fashion—but a combination of intelligence, education and refinement of higher principles, gentle independence and modest ease—a stamp which can neither be purchased by wealth, imitated by fashion, or effaced by malice and envy, and so legible as to be recognized by all.
I am not often openly thus warm in my defence of this patrician position, not wishing those over whom I have influence to value
