April 17th, 1861.—Yesterday we had a picnic on Lake McBride, the occasion being the presentation of a flag to the Dixie Yeomen. The ladies of the Bradford neighborhood embroidered the banner and though cousins Martha and Rebecca Bradford designed and selected the silks, we, every one, did our part in the work. Even if the stitches were few, when the fingers were unskilled, those few stitches represented the deepest love for our country and her brave defenders.
The flag was presented by Miss Bradford and received by Captain Gardner. Both made fine speeches and, when that was over, we served an elegant dinner under the magnificent Live Oaks, which have stood guard over the lovely lake for many centuries. After dinner there was target practice and boat-riding; this does not seem like war.
The 1st Florida Regiment went to Pensacola today. Oh! this is like war. In the Leon Artillery, Captain Hilton commanding, Edward Bradford and Mr. Routh and many others of our Tallahassee friends. In the Leon Rifles were many more, but it was the Madison Company, Captain Richard H. Bradford commanding, which hurt me most. The entire Bradford family adore Cousin Rich, he is so young, so talented, so handsome and Sir Galahad himself was not more spotless than he. When the call for volunteers was made in the court house in Madison, Judge Vann made a stirring and patriotic speech. He pictured the grimness of war as well as its glory and when he had finished he stood beside the table, where a blank sheet awaited the signatures of those who should respond. For a moment the silence of death rested on the crowd assembled there, then Richard Bradford stepped forward and affixed his name to the paper which meant so much. Others came quickly and in a few minutes the hundred men needed for the company had signed and they elected Richard Bradford captain, and he the youngest man there.
I have often heard that “history repeats itself,” and it is surely true sometimes. The book Miss Brewer sent me years ago about Mrs. Nancy Bradford, of New England, is very like Mrs. Nancy Bradford of Florida. In her diary the Mrs. Bradford of Revolutionary days was telling of the dangers which surrounded her husband and their five sons, all of whom were in the American army. She told of the heartaches, which she knew and the privations they suffered.
Our Mrs. Nancy Bradford has five sons also and four of them have volunteered in the Confederate army; the fifth would like to enlist also but he is just a little school boy and must wait awhile. I hope the war, which is just beginning, will not last that long. One of her sons is in West Virginia with General Lee, one has joined the Dixie Yeomen, one went to Pensacola in the Leon Artillery, and one, the Benjamin of the household, is captain of the Madison Volunteers. Aunt Nancy is something like our mother in appearance, she is just as tiny but she is even fairer and where our mother’s eyes are blue and her hair a golden brown, her hair and eyes are of the lightest shade of brown you can imagine. I love her dearly and I tell her she dresses like Jenny Wren in Mother Goose, “For I will wear my brown dress and never look too fine.” Our mother dresses in the fashion and she likes silks and laces but Aunt Nancy thinks it is wrong to attach any importance to dress, beyond being neat and immaculately clean. Both of them are members of the Methodist Church but their ideas differ on many points. When I asked Mother to explain this she said, “Our Lord looks, at the heart and not the dress, read your Bible carefully and thoughtfully and you will find that our Heavenly Father requires nothing of His children but obedience and love.” I shall try to remember this, to obey and to love.
