“Madam,” said the handsome general, blushing and smiling, “I am entirely willing that you should.”
I caught a mischievous light in General Stuart’s merry eyes, and blushed furiously. Then I followed his laugh, and the whole table roared.
“I will tell Dan Grey!” ran around the table like a chorus.
But I fed my handsome general all the same.
It was while I was at Mr. Bradford’s that one of the most stirring events in Confederate history occurred. This was the trampling down of John Minor Botts’s corn. Very good corn it was, dropped and hilled by Southern negroes and growing on a large, fine plantation next to Mr. Bradford’s; and a very nice gentleman Mr. Botts was, too; but a field of corn, however good, and a private citizen, however estimable, are scarcely matters of national or international importance. The trouble was that John Minor Botts was on the Northern side and the corn was on the Southern side, and that Stuart held a grand review on the Southern side and the corn got trampled down. The fame of that corn went abroad into all the land. Northern and Southern papers vied with each other in editorials and special articles, families who had been friends for generations stopped speaking and do not speak to this day because of it, more than one hard blow was exchanged for and against it, and it brought down vituperation upon Stuart’s head. And yet I was present at that naughty grand review--afterward writ in letters of blood upon hearts that reached from Virginia to Florida--and I can testify that General Stuart went there to review the troops, _not_ to trample down the corn.
Afterward John Minor Botts came over to see General Stuart and to quarrel about that corn. All that I can remember of how the general took Mr. Botts’s visit and effort to quarrel was that Stuart wouldn’t quarrel--whatever it was he said to Mr. Botts he got to laughing when he said it. Our colored Abigail told us with bated breath that “Mr. Botts ripped and rarred and snorted, but Genrul Stuart warn’t put out none at all.”
There had been many reviews that week, all of them merely by way of preparation and practise for that famous grand review before the battle of Brandy or Fleetwood, but it is only of this particular grand review I have many lively memories. Aunt Sally was away, and we attended it in state. Mr. Bradford had out the ancient and honorable family carriage and two shadowy horses, relics of days when corn was in plenty and wheat not merely a dream of the past, and we went in it to the review along with many other carriages and horses, whose title to respect lay, alas! solely in the past.