When Nathaniel Greene, one of the best and most trusted of Washington’s Generals, retired to civil life, it was with an estate seriously embarrassed by his patriotic sacrifices. During his brilliant campaign in the Southern Department, the battles of the Cowpens, Guilford Court-House and Eutaw Springs, destroyed the British power in Georgia and the Carolinas. At its close there was only left to Washington the easier task of concentrating all his forces upon Cornwallis in Virginia, and so ending the war. But in carrying on this campaign, General Greene had been compelled to exhaust his private means in his efforts to clothe and feed his army. Congress voted him thanks and medals; North and South Carolina and Georgia voted him waste lands. He died in Georgia. Congress, enlarging its bounty, then voted him a monument. The grateful people whom he saved, had actually forgotten where they buried him; the monument was never built; and to this day “no man knoweth the place of his burial.”

His wife removed to one of the Georgia land grants, a little island on the extreme Southern border of the State, but a few miles from Fernandina. Here she married again, builded, planted olive trees and died; and when they came to put a head-stone to her grave, they inscribed it to the memory of “Catharine Miller,” widow of the late Major-General Nathaniel Greene. Poor Miller was never mentioned, and General Greene, whose grave was not worth a head-stone, had a name good enough to lend special honor to the monument of his re-married and then wealthy wife.

Our last trip along the upper coast of Florida was to steam over to this little island, given by Georgia to Greene, and passed subsequently into the hands of Rebels, who have now deserted it to the negroes.

Landing at a tumble-down dock, and climbing the bluff, we came to a corn-field, cleanly cultivated by the negroes, skirted a little wood, giving wide berth to a black-snake in the path, and then, through some tangled shrubbery, suddenly came out in front of what had been intended for a fine mansion. It was built of shell concrete, and but partly finished, when the family deserted it at the approach of the national forces. Since then the negroes have been too busy supporting themselves to give much thought to house building, and now the mansion of their “masters” is likely to remain unbuilt forever.

But no neglect could destroy the magnificent shrubbery. Beneath the few spreading live-oaks, were superb oleanders, as large as Northern apple-trees, and in full bloom. Great bayonet plants reminded us that we were still in the spiteful land of the Palmetto. Cactus reached above our heads, cloth of gold roses, mimosa and a score of Southern flowering shrubs, to which our Northern amateur florists could give no names, made up a tangled mass of luxuriant loveliness all about the house. Beyond these stretched the rows of olive trees. “Here you can make beaucoup de l’argent,” exclaims our enthusiastic little French Mayor of Fernandina; and straightway whips you out a bottle of oil from his vest pocket to prove it. The happy dreamer imagines olive oil the Philosopher’s stone, and is sure that now, with these olive trees of Dungeness, and the young ones he is planting at Fernandina, the future of Florida is secure. And, indeed, so far as being able to grow olives and make oil is concerned, it is. The orchard here has received no attention since the flight of the Rebel owners, but the olive crop this year, in spite of the neglect, will be good, and the trees look vigorous and hardy.

Through a wilderness of forest trees and dense undergrowth, a blind path led to a little cleared eminence, shut in by a wall of the same shell concrete—the family grave-yard. Conspicuous among the dozen moss-covered monuments is that of Mrs. General Greene, already referred to. Near it is another, inscribed to the foremost of Greene’s Generals, beside whose grave, we may well stop thoughtfully and long:

It is the grave of Henry Lee—“Light-Horse Harry,” of the Revolution—greatest of the partisan leaders of those days, Governor of Virginia, inmate of Spottsylvania jail, and noblest of the “Virginia Lees.” Four years after the wife of his old commander had died here, he returned from the West Indies, poverty stricken, neglected and dying, sought this island, the former home of his chief, and was buried in the burying ground of the Greenes. One gratefully remembers that the injuries of which he is believed to have finally died, were received in a gallant defense of the freedom of the press, against the assault of a Baltimore mob upon a Liberal newspaper office.

Long, coarse grass grows rank over these historic graves; lizards play about the chinks of the dilapidated tombs; the outer wall is partly broken down; but the peaceful solitude of the graves is not disturbed, and the spot is controlled, if by an alien, at least by a loyal people.

While a few of us lingered beside the slab, above the remains of “Legion Harry,” the rest of the party had completed their explorations of the lonely little island; and the boat was whistling loudly for our return. The “last of the Lees” had done nothing to honor the neglected grave of the greatest of them; but Yankee hands still delayed the steamer to arrange lovingly a chaplet of flowers on the rude tombstone.

At Fernandina there was talk among the traders of a large quantity of resin, eighteen hundred barrels, some of them said, which had been bought by a well-known attaché of the State Department, and out of which, if their stories were true, he was likely to make a fortune. He had paid 42 cents a barrel for it, they said, and could sell it in New York for twenty-five dollars. I fancy this must be grossly exaggerated, although a Government official was my informant; but these irregular bargains, made by persons having special facilities, with the distressed holders of produce in the interior, have often disclosed marvelous profits, and the most unscrupulous use, by the buyers, of the advantages of their positions. To drive as hard bargains as the Yankees, is likely to be thought henceforth, in these regions, something more than a good figure of speech.

On the other hand, there are constant dissentions here, and charges against each other of improper practices among the Government officers themselves. The military men abuse the Treasury agents roundly, accuse them of enormous speculations on their own account, and the most unwarranted system of spying into the operations of others.^[24]

^[24]The tax Commissioners, and other civil functionaries, fare little better; while the military men, according to the stories of the civilians, believe the modern substitute for glory to be—“loot.”

All accounts, both here, at Jacksonville and at St. Augustine, agree that the country contains little more than is needed for the sustenance of the inhabitants. Trade may come by and by, when Florida begins to be used again as a grand national sanatarium; but for a year or two, the openings for business with the Floridians are likely to require very little of the capital now looking for Southern investments.

There was a parting tune from the band as we left General Gillmore’s boat, kindly good-byes with General and staff officers. Altogether the pleasantest party met, thus far, on the trip. The “Wayanda” fired a gun as she began hoisting her anchor, and we were off for a sail of five hundred miles, along what used to be considered the most dangerous coast of the United States.