Love
that every graduate takes to his grave, whether his life be one of
honor or of disgrace.
One could very easily have become sentimental, and fancied that he was
Old West Point, misled and broken in spirit, admitting in dignified
silence his defeat and disgrace to Young West Point, who, with Uncle
Sam's shoulder straps and brass buttons, could be generously oblivious
to the misguidance and treason of the other. We wondered many times if
Jefferson Davis regretted his life. He certainly could not have been
satisfied with it.
There was more in that meeting than a stranger would have known of. In
the splendid dining room where we sat, which was forty feet in length
and floored with tiles of Italian marble, as was the entire large
basement, it was impossible not to notice the unpainted casing of one
side of a window, and also the two immense patches of common gray
plaster on the beautifully frescoed walls, which covered holes made by
a piece of shell that had crashed through the house during the siege
of Vicksburg. The shell itself had exploded outside near the servants'
quarters.
Then, again, every warm evening after dinner, during the time he was
at the house, Jefferson Davis and Faye would sit out on the grand,
marble porch and smoke and tell of little incidents that had occurred
at West Point when each had been a cadet there. At some of these times
they would almost touch what was left of a massive pillar at one end,
that had also been shattered and cracked by pieces of shell from U.S.
gunboats, one piece being still imbedded in the white marble.
For Jefferson Davis knew that Faye's father was an officer in the
Navy, and that he had bravely and boldly done his very best toward the
undoing of the Confederacy; and by his never-failing, polished
courtesy to that father's son - even when sitting by pieces of shell
and patched-up walls - the President of the Confederacy set an example
of dignified self-restraint, that many a Southern man and
woman - particularly woman - would do well to follow.
For in these days of reconstruction officers and their families are
not always popular. But at Pass Christian this summer we have received
the most hospitable, thoughtful attention, and never once by word or
deed were we reminded that we were "Yank-Tanks," as was the case at
Holly Springs the first year we were there. However, we did some fine
reconstruction business for Uncle Sam right there with those pert
Mississippi girls - two of whom were in a short time so thoroughly
reconstructed that they joined his forces "for better or for worse!"
The social life during the three years we have been in the South has
most of the time been charming, but the service for officers has often
been most distasteful.
