With Lee in Virginia | Page 4

in the facts of history.
G. A. HENTY.

Contents
Chapter 1.
A Virginian Plantation.
Chapter 2.
Buying a Slave.

Chapter 3.
Aiding a Runaway.
Chapter 4.
Safely Back.
Chapter 5.
Secession.
Chapter 6.
Bull Run.
Chapter 7.
The Merrimac and the Monitor.
Chapter 8.
McClellan's Advance.
Chapter 9.
A Prisoner.
Chapter 10.
The Escape.
Chapter 11.
Fugitives.
Chapter 12.

The Bush-Whackers.
Chapter 13.
Laid Up.
Chapter 14.
Across the Border.
Chapter 15.
Fredericksburg.
Chapter 16.
The Search for Dinah.
Chapter 17.
Chancellorsville.
Chapter 18.
A Perilous Undertaking.
Chapter 19.
Free.
Chapter 20.
The End of the Struggle.

WITH LEE IN VIRGINIA: A STORY OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL
WAR

CHAPTER I.
A VIRGINIAN PLANTATION.
"I won't have it, Pearson; so it's no use your talking. If I had my way
you shouldn't touch any of the field hands. And when I get my
way--that won't be so very long--I will take good care you sha'n't. But
you sha'n't hit Dan."
"He is not one of the regular house hands," was the reply; "and I shall
appeal to Mrs. Wingfield as to whether I am to be interfered with in the
discharge of my duties."
"You may appeal to my mother if you like, but I don't think that you
will get much by it. I tell you you are a deal too fond of that whip,
Pearson. It never was heard of on the estate during my father's time,
and it sha'n't be again when it comes to be mine, I can tell you. Come
along, Dan; I want you at the stables."
So saying, Vincent Wingfield turned on his heel, and followed by Dan,
a negro lad of some eighteen years old, he walked off toward the house,
leaving Jonas Pearson, the overseer of the Orangery estate, looking
after him with an evil expression of face.
Vincent Wingfield was the son of an English officer, who, making a
tour in the States, had fallen in love with and won the hand of Winifred
Cornish, a rich Virginian heiress, and one of the belles of Richmond.
After the marriage he had taken her home to visit his family in England;
but she had not been there many weeks before the news arrived of the
sudden death of her father. A month later she and her husband returned
to Virginia, as her presence was required there in reference to business
matters connected with the estate, of which she was now the mistress.
The Orangery, so called from a large conservatory built by Mrs.
Wingfield's grandfather, was the family seat, and the broad lands
around it were tilled by upward of two hundred slaves. There were in
addition three other properties lying in different parts of the State. Here
Vincent, with two sisters, one older and one younger than himself, had

been born. When he was eight years old Major and Mrs. Wingfield had
gone over with their children to England, and had left Vincent there for
four years at school, his holidays being spent at the house of his father's
brother, a country gentleman in Sussex. Then he had been sent for
unexpectedly; his father saying that his health was not good, and that
he should like his son to be with him. A year later his father died.
Vincent was now nearly sixteen years old, and would upon coming of
age assume the reins of power at the Orangery, of which his mother,
however, would be the actual mistress as long as she lived. The four
years Vincent had passed in the English school had done much to
render the institution of slavery repugnant to him, and his father had
had many serious talks with him during the last year of his life, and had
shown him that there was a good deal to be said upon both sides of the
subject.
"There are good plantations and bad plantations, Vincent; and there are
many more good ones than bad ones. There are brutes to be found
everywhere. There are bad masters in the Southern States just as there
are had landlords in every European country. But even from
self-interest alone, a planter has greater reason for caring for the health
and comfort of his slaves than an English farmer has in caring for the
comfort of his laborers. Slaves are valuable property, and if they are
overworked or badly cared for they decrease in value. Whereas if the
laborer falls sick or is unable to do his work the farmer has simply to
hire another hand. It is as much the interest of a planter to keep his
slaves in good health and spirits as it is for a farmer to feed and attend
to his horses properly.
"Of the two, I consider that the slave with a fairly kind master is to