Elizabeth Keckley

“ Davis " I inquired.
"Oh, I cannot tell just now, but it will be soon. You know there is going to be war, Lizzie?"
"No!"
"But I tell you yes."
"Who will go to war?" I asked.
"The North and South," was her ready reply.
"The Southern people will not submit to the humiliating demands of the Abolition party; they will fight first." "And which do you think will whip?"
"The South, of course. The South is impulsive, is in earnest, and the Southern soldiers will fight to conquer. ”

“ A show of war from the South, I felt, would lead to actual war in the North; and with the two sections bitterly arrayed against each other, I preferred to cast my lot among the people of the North.
I parted with Mrs. Davis kindly, half promising to join her in the South if further deliberation should induce me to change my views. A few weeks before she left Washington I made two chintz wrappers for her. She said that she must give up expensive dressing for a while; and that she, with the Southern people, now that war was imminent, must learn to practise lessons of economy. ”

“ Davis occupied a leading position, his house was the resort of politicians and statesmen from the South. Almost every night, as I learned from the servants and other members of the family, secret meetings were held at the house; and some of these meetings were protracted to a very late hour. The prospects of war were freely discussed in my presence by Mr. and Mrs. Davis and their friends. The holidays were approaching, and Mrs. Davis kept me busy in manufacturing articles of dress for herself and children. She desired to present Mr. Davis on Christmas with a handsome dressing-gown. ”