The Captain saluted my Soldier, lifted his hat to me, suggestively pointed to the grove on our left and rode away. I watched him, admiring his fine horsemanship. Beginning to feel remorseful for my obstinate resistance to his appeal I was about to turn off to the safe path when one of the aimless cannon balls swept across the field and I saw the Captain's horse careering madly along bearing a headless body. Impulsively I sprang from my horse and ran and picked up the poor head, and I solemnly believe that the dying eyes looked their thanks as the last glimmering of life flickered out. Those pathetically grateful eyes have looked at me many times through the mists of vanished years and with them has come the booming of the guns that threw black bars across the sunshine of that far away morning.
The memory of General Grant often came to me afterward associated with that awful sight following my first view of him across the water where he stood peacefully smoking on the slope. The fact that he remembered the old friendship with my Soldier was impressed upon me many times after my view of him through field glasses.
Among the friends whom I often met at this station was General Robert E. Lee. It has been said that our Commanding General never knew or cared what he ate, and it is true that he did not, in comparison with the welfare of his soldiers. Once when he and his staff lunched with us I gave them one of our famous Brunswick stews, made of chicken, a slice of pork, corn, tomatoes and Lima beans, with bay-leaf and onion seasoning, and cooked slowly. It was particularly good this day, as I had received a gift of some smuggled salt and could afford to use it lavishly, and General Lee said the stew was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. I had just made some walnut pickles of which I was very proud. He praised them and told me that in his house he had them many years old and that the "older they became the better they were."
"But, you know," he said, "I never eat anything good without thinking of the soldiers and their privations."
One evening in Richmond my Soldier and I were invited to spend the evening with Senator and Mrs. Clement C. Clay, and while there General Lee called. We had ice cream made of buttermilk and sweetened with sorghum, and lemonade made with lemons from the conservatory of our hostess. She remarked that she had been saving those lemons for the soldiers in the hospital but that she had more which she would give to them. "If you will be sure not to forget the soldiers," said General Lee, "I will enjoy this lemonade."