Queen of the Confederacy: The Innocent Deceits of Lucy Holcombe Pickens

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: “We do not forget!” Lucy Holcombe Pickens (1894–1899)

192 We do not forget! G rieving friends and family gathered to comfort Lucy and Douschka’s children. Fleming Gardner arrived with love and support for his dear “Lady Bird.” And there were Theodore and dear “Mamee” Lucinda to console, for they, too, were heartbroken . Lucy tried to rouse herself from the depths of despair, knowing that with Lucinda’s help, she must care for her grandchildren. They needed her and they in turn provided a link with her beloved Douschka. Although she admitted to being “much tied within my gates by grand-children,” she kept them constantly in her thoughts, particularly when they visited their father’s home in Augusta.1 About 1895 she wrote the following letter to the eldest grandchild, Lucy, now in her early teens.2 My darling Lucy— I sent Dolly’s [Adrienne Dorothea Rebecca] clothes—not CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 1894–1899 “We do not forget!” Lucy Holcombe Pickens 193 1894–1899 that I think she will need all of them as your Papa promised to send her home after a few days visit, but I want her to have a fresh dress every day, even if it is simple & plain she will be at least clean. You looked so ill—so deadly pale when you left that I have been most wretched. I hope you will take quinine. I send you $100 & beg you to send Joe & get some pt bottles of Claret & take it for it refreshes & strengthens you—I was shocked at seeing you in the hot kitchen looking after your Papa’s breakfast when you had a nurse up to that time looking after & giving you your meals. I send you arsenic. It is very important if nothing else, it will make your complexion fair & beautiful—many society women take “arsenic wafers” solely for their complexion—I will write you tomorrow. Do let me hear from you. I will telephone to know how you stood the journey. God bless you both—My darling—With love from all to all—Your devoted—Dan.3 Lucy attended Trinity Church each Sunday but it afforded little solace. Every glance at Douschka’s empty place in the pew beside her brought tears she found difficult to control. The longing for her daughter remained an aching pain in her heart. Trouble with her vision and the pain in her side and back caused Lucy to spend much of her time lying on the sofa dreaming of better days or hobbling about the garden on her cane.4 Lucy Holcombe Pickens’s life had been full. She held the South to be a Kingdom and gave to it her unquestioned patriotic loyalty. For this she was recognized and lauded, but in the cruel aftermath of war, glory, and recognition for her role in the Confederacy mattered little. Time had swept away her loved ones, her fortune, and her country. She was not alone in her misery. Her one-time rival, Mary Boykin Chesnut, spent the post-war years in poor health, without money or a home, and with an ailing husband. Virginia Clay, wife of ex-senator Clement Clay, tried for years to have her husband 194 We do not forget! released from the Yankee prison where he was held under suspicion of having plotted the death of Abraham Lincoln. Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederacy, spent the post war years dependent on the hospitality of friends while she struggled to have her husband pardoned. These women, once pampered and waited upon, experienced a rude awakening of suffering and privation that left them in pain and poor health. Sick and despairing, Lucy, like her mother, devoted herself to her family and to the memory of those who had gone beyond. Now out of the public eye, her name and achievements slipped from view yet she never faltered in upholding with patriotic fervor her belief in the South. And, with charm and intelligence she had succeeded in her own quest for recognition as a woman, assisted at times by what she termed, “the innocent deceits of the sex.”5 Now Lucy’s thoughts turned to former days and when Mrs. Atha, an old family friend from Marshall, arrived, Lucy welcomed her with tears of joy. Soon the two of them, comfortable in their age, slipped back to the old ways of “chewing hickory bark and locust nuts and indulging in Old Scotch honey-due [sic].”6 With...