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RICHMOND AND VICINITY
edged by a new box-hedge recently planted to screen the vege¬
table garden.
To the right of the walk, we come to four plots filled with pink,
white, red and yellow roses (called ‘‘Credilla’s roses”), with charm¬
ing narrow grass walks between and around them. To the north
of this, we find eight other large beds of white American Beauty,
Paul Neyron, Hugh Dickson and Soleil d’Or roses. Beyond the
roses we see a curved walk around the “boscage,” or thicket,
formed by a mass of shrubbery—an old-fashioned tangle of lilacs,
syringas, yuccas and evergreens, which crown the garden with joy
at all seasons.
The War Between the States caused desolation in the garden,
but General and Mrs. Wickham strove to keep it up, the General
after his arduous day’s toil standing on a chair and clipping the
box to keep the walks open. It is today recognized as one of the
most characteristic and representative gardens of the Old South.
~ No account of the garden would be complete without a reference
to the escape on the 23rd of June, 1863, of General Lee's youngest
son, Robert, during a raid of the Northern troops. When General
William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, at the time desperately wounded,
was taken prisoner and removed from the office in the yard, as it is
called, so graphically told in Rob Lee’s “Recollections and Letters
of General R. E. Lee,” a clump of box-trees afforded a safe place
for concealment.
Twice each year during the last three years of the war the
contending armies swept over Hickory Hill, its garden, its grounds,
and its plantation. Innumerable raids occurred, and once the Con¬
federate skirmish line fell back in disorder through the yard and
garden, followed by the enemy.
Two incidents especially stand out connected with General
J. E. B. Stuart—the first on the night of the 12th of June, 1862,
when he left the head of his column in the famous “raid around
McClellan” and, accompanied by Colonel William Henry Fitz¬
hugh Lee, came in to grasp the hand and cheer a desperately
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