This morning there was a most painful scene. Annie’s father came into Vicksburg, ten miles from here, and learned of our arrival from Mrs. C.’s messenger. He sent out a carriage to bring Annie and Max to town that they might go home with him, and with it came a letter for me from friends on the Jackson Railroad, written many weeks before. They had heard that our village home was under water, and invited us to visit them. The letter had been sent to Annie’s people to forward, and thus had reached us. This decided H., as the place was near New Orleans, to go there and wait the chance of getting into that city. Max, when he heard this from H., lost all self-control and cried like a baby. He stalked about the garden in the most tragic manner, exclaiming:
“Oh! my soul’s brother from youth up is a traitor! A traitor to his country!”
Then H. got angry and said, “Max, don’t be a fool!”
“Who has done this?” bawled Max. “You felt with the South at first; who has changed you?”
“Of course I feel for the South now, and nobody has changed me but the logic of events, though the twenty-negro law has intensified my opinions. I can’t see why I, who have no slaves, must go to fight for them, while every man who has twenty may stay at home.”
I, also, tried to reason with Max and pour oil on his wound. “Max, what interest has a man like you, without slaves, in a war for slavery? Even if you had them, they would not be your best property. That lies in your country and its resources. Nearly all the world has given up slavery; why can’t the South do the same and end the struggle? It has shown you what the South needs, and if all went to work with united hands the South would soon be the greatest country on earth. You have no right to call H. a traitor; it is we who are the true patriots and lovers of the South.”
This had to come, but it has upset us both. H. is deeply attached to Max, and I can’t bear to see a cloud between them. Max, with Annie and Reeney, drove off an hour ago, Annie so glad at the prospect of again seeing her mother that nothing could cloud her day. And so the close companionship of six months, and of dangers, trials, and pleasures shared together, is over.
______
Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in New Orleans, the diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were often used instead of full names — and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials.
