32 On a Narrow Stage

And now Christmas was approaching. A gloomy Christmas it was for those who loved the Union, smarting under the great defeat at Fredericksburg, and gloomiest Christmas of all it was for us, locked in a prison under triple guards, and suffering from the deadly monotony of such a life—a life shut off from all the world and its interests. I can not now think of a man in prison, even though he be a criminal, without a thrill of pity. I know what it is to be held by four walls.

But the holiday feeling, even in those gloomy times, penetrated the barriers of brick and stone, passed the numerous sentinels with their loaded guns, and reached the poor prisoners who waited so longingly for the news of great victories that never came. We felt it in our bones, and for days past the most active among us had been arranging for a celebration, an evening of Christmas theatricals, an event the rumours of which had gone already outside the prison, and excited the wonder of the people of Richmond. The preparations were far advanced even when the two generals paid me their visit, and I was to take a part.

Our guards were kind to us then, and it was with no great difficulty that we obtained permission from the Confederate authorities to display our dramatic talents. People had not grown so hard as they became in the later years of the war, and we found plenty of sympathy. It was said, too, that Richmond itself, owing to the increasing curiosity in the city concerning our venture, would send as many spectators as the military authorities would allow.

Our ambition grew with this news, and we decided to give our entertainment in a manner that was right and fitting. The majority of us had a little money, and I received the appointment to solicit funds for programmes, succeeding well in the task. The authorities permitted us to hire the work from one of the newspaper offices outside, and in due time the programmes came. I have one of them yet, and even now, as I write these lines, I stop a little to take it out of the drawer and look at it, and smile at the memory of the men—boys rather—who worked with such eager zest to prepare that Christmas festival. Nor is there much sadness in the recollection. Nearly all of them are living yet, the majority scarcely in middle age. A few, exchanged or escaped, fell on later battlefields.

It was a long and varied entertainment that our programmes announced, and perhaps it would not be called intellectual drama now, but it was the best that we could do with our slender resources, and you will admit, perhaps, that our art lacked freedom of development. The printer did well by us, giving us the worth of our money, finishing the programmes in handsome style, and putting around each a border, but with grim humour making this border a chain. We appreciated the jest and made no objection. Our evening was to begin with a minstrel performance consisting of more than twenty songs, dances, and instrumental selections, closing with a short piece called The Rival Claimants. Then we were to give, after an intermission, a comedy entitled The Countryman in Town, which would be our severest dramatic effort, and the evening would close with a grand masquerade ball, in which all the members of the company were to take part.

We worked with the most extraordinary zest. We had nothing else to do, and it was a happy idea, a relief from the deadly monotony of our lives. We bought a violin, a bass-viol, a banjo, and a flute: it was not difficult to find men who could play them after a fashion, and thus we provided for an orchestra. The “cook room,” a great apartment on the first floor, convenient because of its size, was to be the scene of our festivities, and we sent word, through the guards, to the people in the city that the audience were expected to bring their seats with them. We could provide none.

I dwell upon these details, both for their own sake and because of what followed, making that the most memorable Christmas night in my life.

I was not hoping for any message from Elinor, not expecting that fortune would be so kind; but, two days before Christmas, Mary Pembroke, blond and happy—I suspected that she had a letter from De Courcelles—saw me in the prison, and told me that Elinor would be there on Christmas night, coming with her and her mother.

Christmas night arrived, bringing its early winter darkness, and the old warehouse was filled with the noise and confusion of untried actors and stage managers. The curtain was to rise at seven o’clock, and it was promised to us that “lights out” would not sound until twelve o’clock instead of nine, the usual hour. We had built a stage of old boxes at one end of the room, and an expanse of red calico hanging from a string was our curtain.

Three tallow candles served as footlights, and behold, the theatre was complete! All the actors were gathered in the rear of the stage, behind another curtain, making ready for their parts, and every one of us was as eager as a beginner on the real stage. The sentinels, feeling secure of us, and moved by curiosity, as their lives, like ours, were full of deadly dulness, watched the curtain with interest, and relaxed somewhat the severity of their discipline.

I dwell again upon details that you, who go where you please and see what you please, may know to what straits we were reduced within the walls of a military prison, and how we struggled even there to maintain our interest in the affairs of men.

“Shall we have a good house to-night, do you think, eh, Kingsford?” asked George Warren, a young lieutenant from Massachusetts, who was cast for a tambourine dance, and whose good spirits were unfailing.

“We can plead that our opportunities are limited,” I replied.

Ours was a cheerful company. The Christmas feeling had come undoubtedly; our work aroused gaiety in us all, and now and then we lifted the curtain to cast jests at the guards, who received them with good humour, and paid them back as best they could in like fashion. The orchestra was testing its instruments, and the notes of the flute mingled with the tanging of the violin strings. A farm lad named Sullivan, from Wisconsin, was to play the violin, and almost unconsciously his bow slid into the air of Home, Sweet Home. “If you don’t stop that, Sullivan,” exclaimed Warren suddenly, “I’ll take your fiddle away from you and break it over your own head! Play anything else but that!” “I guess you’re right,” said Sullivan, submissively, and he gave a few notes of Yankee Doodle.

“They’re coming! The audience is coming,” said Harris, an eager boy of not more than seventeen, and we peeped through the curtain to see the first arrivals. It was a party of three Confederate officers, three civilians, and four ladies, bringing with them some empty nail kegs, which were to serve as orchestra chairs, and two lanterns. They took their seats quietly and waited with great curiosity for the raising of the curtain.

The audience now came rapidly, and I watched their entrance as much as my duties would allow, waiting all the while for those whom I, wished most to see. I saw them at last—Elinor, Mrs. Pembroke, Miss Pembroke, and Tourville. Tourville carried his left arm in a sling, and I inferred that he had received another and a recent wound, thus accounting for his absence from the front. Elinor was paler than when I had last seen her, and she too watched the curtain with eyes which were full of deep expectation. I would have given her a sign, some word or gesture of greeting, but I could not.

Our curiosity was not inferior to that of the audience, and we appreciated too the friendly interest that was shown in us. Confederate officers were numerous in the crowd, but civilians constituted the majority. The lights of the lanterns and the tallow candles flickered over them and only half dispelled the dark in the great, gloomy room. I think it is rare that a line of armed guards divide the players on the stage from the spectators, though it might be wise; however, it was a trifle that we did not mind, and the curtain was ready to rise. Elinor and her friends were sitting very near the stage, but they did not see me until the evening was half over, my part not calling for my appearance until then.

We began with a minstrel show, a form of theatrical entertainment most popular at that time, and our men played the tambourine, the bones, and the banjo with much enthusiasm and what skill they had, pleasing the audience mightily and drawing continued applause. Thus the friendly relations between actors and people increased, and the guards became more lax; in truth, there was little reason at all for their vigilance, as around us were the walls of the prison; beyond them lay the hostile city, and beyond that the country as hostile. There was much laughter, but I saw what looked to me like tears in Elinor’s eyes. She beheld only the pathetic side of our little show.

We rose in ambition after the minstrel performance. Those of us who had voices sang passages from Ernani and Norma, and we even gave the serenade from Lucia di Lammermoor. But it was in the little one-act play, the Rival Claimants, that I appeared just for a minute, and only to speak a dozen words or so, as my histrionic abilities are not large, and I took a part solely because I was needed. Elinor’s eyes met mine for a moment, and she smiled. But the smile was pathetic, as her look throughout the evening had been.

The performance was passing smoothly; the applause increased; we were on the friendliest terms with our audience, and we reached the culmination of our genius, the short comedy The Countryman in Town. This, too, was passing to the music of applause and conscious success, when I saw one of the flickering candles in the front row of the spectators blaze up suddenly. A woman had leaned over too far, and the light, fluffy sleeve of her dress caught fire from the candle. An officer sitting next to her instantly put out the blaze with his military cloak before any harm was done, but not too soon to stop a panic. The ladies nearest to the scene of the accident cried out in fear, the men rushed forward to help, and in ten seconds the room was in confusion; some of the more timid fled toward the door, the guards forgot their duties in their eagerness to help put out the fire, and the officers were shouting in unbelieving ears that nothing was wrong.

I was standing at the very edge of the stage when this accident, so trifling in itself, so great in its consequences to me, occurred, and I saw as if in a flash of light the opportunity created so suddenly. I sprang from the stage and darted among the crowd, too confused now to pay any attention to me—all save one. A light hand was on my arm, and a glowing face was near mine.

“By the wall, where it is dark, Henry!” she exclaimed; “and they will not notice you.”

I ran by the west wall, where the lights were fewest, and toward the door. It was so simple that I was amazed at my own fortune. The exultant hope of liberty gave me presence of mind. I snatched from a chair the cap and cloak of an officer, and rushed through the doorway and down a hall. A sentinel met me.

“In there at once!” I cried, “and help them put out the fire, or our own people will be burned to death!” Thus spreading the alarm among the guards, I fled past them all and through the door and gates, and presently I was outside the prison and in the cold free air of Christmas night, scarcely realizing how it was done.

I had not the slightest fear for Elinor. The tumult was subsiding even before I left the room, and she was in no danger whatever. I heard long afterward that the play was resumed with entire equanimity in fifteen minutes, and that I was not missed either by the guards or those behind the curtain—my part was finished— until the play was over, the audience was gone, “Lights out!” were sounded, and Christmas morning had begun. But I have heard too that one Confederate officer swore profoundly when he found that he had to go to his quarters in the wintry air without his cap and cloak.

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