Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: September 16, 1864

A visit to-day from my brother Dr. B., who bears the utter desolation of his home quietly, though so sudden a change of circumstances is of course very depressing. He tells me that he has lately had a visit from a very interesting young South Carolinian, who came to look for the body of his brother. The two brothers were being educated in Germany when the war broke out; and as soon as they were of military age, with the consent of their parents, they hastened home to take part in their country's struggle. In one of the cavalry fights in Hanover, in May last, one brother was killed, and the other, “not being able to find the body at the time, was now seeking it.” His mother was on the ocean returning to her home, and he could not meet her with the information that her son's body could not be found. He had heard that some of the fallen had been buried at S. H. or W. He mentioned that their intimate friend, young Middleton, had fallen in the same fight. Mr. Middleton had been buried at S. H., and his grave had been marked by Mrs. N.; but young Pringle (the name of the brothers) had been carried to neither place. Mr. Pringle had seen in a New York paper an account given by a Yankee officer of several wounded Confederates who had been captured, and having died on their way to the “White House,” they were buried by the roadside, and he had some reason to believe that his brother was among them. It was then remembered that there were three graves on the opposite side of the Pamunky River, and one was marked with the name “Tingle.” It was an excessively warm Sudday morning; but as the young soldier's furlough only extended to the following day, there was no time to be lost. Dr. B. and the brother set out upon their melancholy mission, having obtained a cart, one or two men, and given an order at a neighbouring carpenter's shop for a coffin. After crossing the river they found the three graves, at the place designated, in the county of King William. The one marked “Tingle” contained the body of a Federal and one of a Confederate soldier, but not the brother. The next one opened was not the right one; but the third contained the much-loved remains, which were easily recognized by the anxious brother. Tenderly and gently, all wrapped in his blanket, he was transferred from his shallow grave to his soldier's coffin, and then conveyed to S. H., to be placed by his friend Middleton. It was now night, the moon shone brightly, and all was ready. The families from both houses gathered around the grave. “Slowly and sadly they laid him down.” No minister of the Gospel was near to perform the services. Dr. B. stood at the head with a Prayer-Book for the purpose, but his defective sight obliged him to yield the book to Mrs. N., who, with a clear, calm voice read by the light of a single lantern the beautiful ritual of the Episcopal Church. The grave was filled in solemn silence, the brother standing at the foot. When all was over, the young ladies and children of the families advanced with wreaths and bouquets, and in an instant the soldier's grave was a mound of fresh flowers. The brother could no longer restrain his feelings; he was completely overwhelmed, and was obliged to retire to his room, where he could indulge them freely. Next morning he returned to his command, after a leave-taking in which the feelings expressed by all parties evinced more of the friendship of years than the acquaintance of hours. It seems strange indeed that this scene, so similar to that of the burial of the lamented Captain Latane, should have occurred at the same place. But who could relate, who could number the sad scenes of this war? Many such have probably occurred in various parts of the country.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 305-7

Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: Sunday, January 1, 1864

A melancholy pause in my diary. After returning from church on the night of the 13th, a telegram was handed me from Professor Minor, of the University of Virginia, saying, “Come at once, Colonel Colston is extremely ill.” After the first shock was over, I wrote an explanatory note to Major Brewer, why I could not be at the office next day, packed my trunk, and was in the cars by seven in the morning. That evening I reached the University, and found dear R. desperately ill with pneumonia, which so often follows, as in the case of General Jackson, the amputation of limbs. Surgeons Davis and Cabell were in attendance, and R's uncle, Dr. Brockenbrough, arrived the next day. After ten days of watching and nursing, amid alternate hopes and fears, we saw our friend Dr. Maupin close our darling's eyes, on the morning of the 23d; and on Christmas-day a military escort laid him among many brother soldiers in the Cemetery of the University of Virginia. He died in the faith of Christ, and with the glorious hope of immortality. His poor mother is heart-stricken, but she, together with his sisters, and one dearer still, had the blessed, and what is now the rare privilege, of soothing and nursing him in his last hours. To them, and to us all, his life seemed as a part of our own. His superior judgment and affectionate temper made him the guide of his whole family. To them his loss can never be supplied. His country has lost one of its earliest and best soldiers. Having been educated at the Virginia Military Institute, he raised and drilled a company in his native County of Berkeley, at the time of the John Brown raid. In 1861 he again led that company to Harper's Ferry. From that time he was never absent more than a week or ten days from his command, and even when wounded at Gaines's Mills, he absented himself but three days, and was again at his post during the several last days of those desperate fights. His fatal wound was received in his nineteenth general engagement, in none of which had he his superior in bravery and devotion to the cause. He was proud of belonging to the glorious Stonewall Brigade, and I have been told by those who knew the circumstances, that he was confided in and trusted by General Jackson to a remarkable degree.

Thus we bury, one by one, the dearest, the brightest, the best of our domestic circles. Now, in our excitement, while we are scattered, and many of us homeless, these separations are poignant, nay, overwhelming; but how can we estimate the sadness of heart which will pervade the South when the war is over, and we are again gathered together around our family hearths and altars, and find the circles broken? One and another gone. Sometimes the father and husband, the beloved head of the household, in whom was centred all that made life dear. Again the eldest son and brother of the widowed home, to whom all looked for guidance and direction; or, perhaps, that bright youth, on whom we had not ceased to look as still a child, whose fair, beardless cheek we had but now been in the habit of smoothing with our hands in fondness—one to whom mother and sisters would always give the good-night kiss, as his peculiar due, and repress the sigh that would arise at the thought that college or business days had almost come to take him from us. And then we will remember the mixed feeling of hope and pride when we first saw this household pet don his jacket of gray and shoulder his musket for the field; how we would be bright and cheerful before him, and turn to our chambers to weep oceans of tears when he is fairly gone. And does he, too, sleep his last sleep? Does our precious one fill a hero's grave? 0 God! help us, for the wail is in the whole land!" Rachel weeping for her children, and will not be comforted, because they are not." In all the broad South there will be scarcely a fold without its missing lamb, a fireside without its vacant chair. And yet we must go on. It is our duty to rid our land of invaders; we must destroy the snake which is endeavouring to entwine us in its coils, though it drain our heart's blood. We know that we are right in the sight of God, and that we must

“With patient mind our course of duty run.

God nothing does, or suffers to be done,

But we would do ourselves, if we could see

The end of all events as well as He."

The Lord reigneth, be the earth never so unquiet.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 248-50