. They gave
him short shrift; that same day he was led out and met his death in the
presence of thousands. They told me that he was quite calm, and held
himself proudly; at the last he turned his face to the south, as if he
were gazing down, down, into the very heart of that land for whose sake
he was about to die. I think he saw the cotton-fields then, and our
home; I think he saw me, also, for the last time.

"By the end of that year, madam, my black hair was gray, as you see it
now; I was an old woman at nineteen.

"My father and I and that grave-eyed baby lived on in the old house. Our
servants had left us, all save one, old Cassy, who had been my nurse or
'maumee,' as we called her. We suffered, of course. We lived as very
poor people live. The poorest slaves in the old time had more than we
had then. But we did not murmur; the greater griefs had swallowed up the
less. I said, 'Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?' But the end was
not yet.

"You have heard the story of the great march, the march to the sea? But
there was another march after that, a march of which your own writers
have said that its route was marked by a pillar of smoke by day and of
flame by night--the march through South Carolina. The Northern soldiers
shouted when they came to the yellow tide of the Savannah, and looked
across and knew that the other shore was South Carolina soil. They
crossed, and Carolina was bowed to the dust. Those were the days we
cried in the morning, 'O God, that it were night!' and in the night, 'O
God, that it were morning!' Retribution, do you say? It may be so. But
love for our State seemed loyalty to us; and slavery was the sin of our
fathers, not ours. Surely we have expiated it now.

"'Chile, chile, dey is come!' cried old Cassy, bursting into my room one
afternoon, her withered black face grayly pale with fear. I went out.
Cavalrymen were sweeping the village of all it contained, the meager
little that was left to us in our penury. My father was asleep; how I
prayed that he might not waken! Although an old man, he was fiery as a
boy, and proudly, passionately rebellious against the fate which had
come upon us. Our house was some distance back from the road, and broad
grounds separated us from the neighboring residences. Cassy and I softly
piled our pillows and cushions against the doors and windows that opened
from his room to the piazza, hoping to deaden the sounds outside, for
some of our people were resi