​

​

​

​

 

War-Time Sketches
Historical and Otherwise​

BY

ADELAIDE STUART DIMITRY

HISTORIAN "STONEWALL JACKSON CHAPTER OF NEW ORLEANS
No. 1135" U. D. C.
(1909-1911 )

​

LOUISIANA PRINTING CO. PRESS,
NEW ORLEANS, LA.

 

Page 41                                                                        

THE CONFEDERATE GIRL.

PART I.

        (Data for this and the two following papers furnished by Mrs. George H. Tichenor, of New Orleans.)​

​

        JUNE 3, 1861, Tennessee severed her connection with the Union. At once "Soldier Serving Societies" were organized by the ladies of Memphis for the purpose of making uniforms and clothing for our troops, and the preparation of bandages, lint, etc., for the hospitals. Old and young, matron and maid were eager to aid in a cause that appealed strongly both to their affection and patriotism. Soon the gatherings outgrew private houses and, when other buildings were not available, the churches were pressed into service for their noble work - a work all untrained, but pursued with a heart and soul that gave it life and energy.​

​

        Among the numbers that daily crowded one of these churches - turned during the week into an immense sewing-room - might be noted a young school girl, Margaret Thurman Drane by name, a golden-haired lass of fourteen with eyes of Scottish blue. Ardently Confederate, each day after school she hastily tripped to church to aid in what warm fancy and a generous heart proclaimed a glorious task - that of making garments for the brave boys already on their way to Manassas, battle field of Virginia. Her eyes must have grown large from wonder and dim from dismay when the grey uniform coat of an officer was put into her untried hands to make. Poor little lass! She knew how to hemstitch, but not how to back-stitch, and it was before the days when sewing machines were made as much a part of the household equipment as beds and chairs. However, her heart was stout and with fingers both willing and diligent, after two days of hard toil and the breakage of a paper of needles, the coat was completed. Alas! when her labor of love was scrutinized at headquarters, no fault could be found with the stitches, but it was discovered that while the front and side pieces had been laboriously sewed together, the back had been innocently left out!

​

Page 42​

        She did not receive the blue ribbon for her work that day, but was assigned the less responsible task of bringing hot smoothing irons from the basement, upstairs, to be used in pressing seams.​

​

        A new hotel that had never been used as a hostelry was converted into a hospital and the city was divided into sections, each section taking its turn at service. The mothers, with a train of household servants nursed the wounded and sick, while the young girls carried flowers, wrote letters for the convalescent soldiers and sometimes - it was told with much glee by the mischievous recipients - they again washed faces that, in the course of a day, had already received due attention by earlier visitors, at least half a dozen times - all equally solicitous of giving aid and comfort to our brave defenders. Here came our lass - most eager to help, but so little knowing how. Timidly threading the long aisle of cots, she was implored by a soldier suffering from a gunshot wound to rub his arm with liniment to cool his fever and ease its throbbing pain. Proud to be called upon, her eyes bright and face aglow from sympathy, she seized a bottle nearby and hastily poured its contents on arm and in wound - bathing, saturating, rubbing it in with all the energy of which her young muscles were capable to make sure it would do good work. "Ah! unfortunate girl!" shrieked the soldier from the cot, his agonizing pain getting the better of his chivalry. At the sound of his wrathful voice there was a sudden flutter of skirts and patter of feet, for the young practitioner fled down the aisle that seemed endless, for fear that she had killed him! We will trust that the remedy was curative - it certainly was heroic and the pungent odors of turpentine were not a sweet, health-distilling fragrance in a ward filled with sick folk.​

​

        The days had now come when the looms of Dixie, hitherto an unknown quantity, were to be busy weaving homespun for its people to wear. But Margaret Drane with her sister and two young friends may claim to be the first of the "Homespun Girls" of Dixie of gentle birth who wore that much derided, homely material. A good-humored merchant of the city, doubtful of their brave, oft-repeated cry to

​

Page 43​

                        "Live and die for Dixie"​

​

resolved to test them on a point where he was confident their girlish vanity would shake their constancy. It was in the first days of the war when Southern maidens still affected what was dainty and becoming. Cynicus challenged them to put aside their pretty, airy, muslin frocks and walk down the fashionable thoroughfare of Main Street clad in humble homespun. While daring them to do this, he offered to make the material a gift. At once the quick pride of the Confederate girl was touched. She gloried in this opportunity for the sacrifice of personal vanity upon the altar of patriotism. The merchant's offer was accepted so soon as made and the girls marched in a bevy to his store. There they selected the unmistakably genuine article, with their own hands made the dresses in the style of the day - ten widths to the skirt, tight waist and low-corded neck. Wearing their homespun, not as housemaids, but as if it were the ermine of royalty, and trying to keep step in their ungainly brogans; with cornshuck hats of their own braiding, bravely trimmed with red-white-and-red ribbons, shading their blushing faces. the appearance of the quartette on Main Street at once set the patriotic fashion and made them the toast of the hour.​

​

        Ah! those early days of a war that had not yet grown cruel and when, to the bounding heart of youth, the drama seemed just enough touched with danger to be wonderfully fascinating and entertaining! In the summer of '61 it was more of a game than a reality. Our girls, from daily visits to the soldiers' target practise, were fired with a spirit of emulation. "Who could tell' - they reasoned - "but what, like the Maid of Saragossa, behind the rampart of cotton bales with which General Pillow has fortified the river front, we, too, may defend our city." True, many of the young maids had learned to handle without fear the pistols coaxed from brothers and friends and, too proud to betray ignorance, after a unique fashion of their own, loaded them. First they carefully rammed in a generous wad of paper, then bullets and all the powder the chambers would hold. But lo! nothing they could do would induce the weapon to go off and the entire contents persisted in rolling out. Again and again the charge was varied, bullets at bottom and paper on top, but of no avail.​

​

Page 44​

        Possibly the cap was omitted. They could not tell, but cheerily looked to the future to remedy their inexperience and crown them with laurels. By no means discouraged, they turned to the target-practise - shooting with guns and cartridges already prepared and about which there could be no perplexing mixture of contents. Their spirits rose, for it seemed so easy. Margaret led her companions in this as in whatever enlisted the sympathies of her adventurous spirit. Ambitious to excel, she flouted the friendly counsel of her wise but over-mischievous escort, and chose for her first essay a sharp-shooter rifle intended to pick off its victim a mile distant. Averting her eyes, she resolutely pulled the trigger. What fatal ease! There was a terrific bang as if earth and heaven had collided. The rifle was dropped - our brave sharpshooter knew not where, for a space she knew nothing! Dazed by the shock of sound, she fell backward and rolled down hill to be picked up a somewhat bruised and aching young rebel, but irrepressible as ever and burning with the desire to fit herself for the service of Dixie.​

​

        If there was one delinquency more than another resolutely frowned upon, and that excited the keenest contempt of a Dixie girl, it was the cowardice of a man that kept him at home in a safe berth and left the fighting to be done by others. The girls looked upon that as a blot which all the power and wealth of the world could not purge away. Those not enrolled and known as "Minute men" - enlisted for the war and ready for the field at a moment's notice - received short shrift at the hands of these young fire-eaters. Margaret bribed a young man, whom she suspected of being unduly slow in entering the ranks, with a promise to mould the bullets he was to fire at the enemy. To do this tardy young Southerner justice it must be said that he was the only stay of his mother and she was both a widow and helpless invalid. But golden hair and eyes of Scottish blue have more than once taken the crook out of the way for a man. It was so in this case. The young man went to an early battle-field taking with him the pledged dozen bullets shining like newly minted dollars. Soon it was his good fortune to return proudly to dangle before Margaret's shining eyes an empty sleeve, and tell her that was her work. And the stouthearted little maiden was glad while she grieved, for the South's true boy had stood General Bragg's grim test of manhood - "To the front to die as a soldier."​

​

Page 45​

        So the memorable year of 1861 passed away and the shadows were fast deepening over the land. A typical girl of the '60's, our Margaret had sewed, wept and sung for the boys in gray through the golden summer months and early autumn days. At this time there was a Thespian temple in Memphis, newly built, but never opened to the player folk. The grand old "Mothers" of the city took possession of it and through local talent gave concerts for the purpose of equipping several companies with uniforms. Memory recalls one of those tuneful evenings, when all the girls who had melody in their voices gathered upon the stage arrayed in whitest muslin, with reddest roses for jewels, to sing the songs of Rebel-land under the waving Stars and Bars. And the rebel girls sang with a warmth and volume of voice that stirred tender old memories, or touched a patriotic chord whose vibrations set the audience wild with enthusiastic cheering and clapping of hands.​

​

        The "Marsellaise," "When this Cruel War is Over," then the sad sweet strains of "Lorena" in clear bird-like notes floated through the hall and a hush, born of its pathos, fell upon all. Who so deservedly proud as Margaret, our Confederate Girl, when one who loved the song told her that she sang it better than a great singer, claiming the fame of an artist! "Lorena" suggested tears and heart-break, so there was a quick transition to lively old favorites - as well known to the audience as the whistlings of their own mocking-bird - such as "Maryland my Maryland," "Hard Times Come No More," "My Mary Ann," with a score of others, but always sliding at the close into the inevitable "Dixie" that was the signal for a shower of bouquets, sonorous hand-claps, pounding of feet, and strong-throated hurrahs.​

​

        In the meantime our Confederate Girl retires from the stage to come forth again with the story of her refugee life and subsequent return from Memphis.

​

Page 46

THE CONFEDERATE GIRL.

PART II.​

        IT WAS late in 1861 before Commodore Montgomery and Commodore Foote tried conclusions as to superiority of their gunboats under the bluffs of Memphis. Fathers of families, who by reasons of age, etc., were honorably exempt from military service and were at home, thought it prudent to remove to points less exposed to invasion by the common enemy. Margaret Thurman Drane's father - a minister who had figured prominently in the Alexander Campbell debates in Kentucky - decided upon Canton, Mississippi, as a retreat and thitherto our Margaret reluctantly went.​

​

        For the active, sunny temperament of our Confederate girl, Canton, a small inland town of Mississippi, proved rather a dull place of residence compared with the constant excitement of the river city, Memphis, in war times. The young girl's madcap energies must needs have a vent and with odd perversity reached their climax in the formation of a Cavalry Company. Among the numerous girls of the neighborhood she soon enlisted sufficient recruits, but, with all its rosebud beauty and grace, in picturesque accoutrements it might have vied with Falstaff's Ragged Regiment. A mixed multitude of mules and broken down army horses bore the joyous, adventurous patriots to the ground where they drilled by Hardee's Tactics. Their bridles were formed of bag ravelings and girths and blankets were made of gunny sacks. There were no privates in this well appointed company - it consisted wholly of officers, the lieutenants alone being seven in number! In her green riding habit Capt. Margaret gaily and fearlessly at the head of troop rode an army horse loaned for the occasion by a young officer at home on furlough. On a certain evening as she rounded a corner on returning from her daily drill, it so chanced that some soldiers were being put through military instruction in the taking of a battery. The drums beat, the trumpets gave forth a blare and the soldiers charged - yells of men and clatter of swords rising above the tumultuous dash and rush of horses.​

​

Page 47​

       At once, Margaret's brave warrior-steed caught the familiar notes and needs must charge along with its army mates. No check of bit or bridle could change its course. Its mettle was up and the frightened girl, borne up the hill, was carried in the onward rush to the very front of the battery. Once there, having led the onset, the old battle horse halted, its ambition was satisfied; but the cavalrymen made the welkin ring with cheer after cheer for the dauntless courage and gallant ride of blushing Captain Margaret Drane.​

​

        Despite her strenuous, open-air life, our girl never lost sight of the practicalities. Confronted by the shoe problem - one that often tried the soul of a Dixie girl to the uttermost - in her own interest she bravely turned cobbler. From an old ministerial coat of her father's she cut out what was known as uppers. Carefully ripping the coat seams apart, she threaded her needle with the silk thus obtained for sewing on the soles, that meanwhile had been soaked in water to make them pliable for stitching. Tiny foldings of the satin lining made strings and lo! her small feet soon twinkled in new comfort and glory as, in pride and gayety of heart, she pirouetted from room to room.​

​

        Only six months of refugee life in Mississippi when the illness of a daughter left behind in Memphis called for the presence of one of the family. It was decided that Margaret should go to her. Fortunately, two old men, Messrs. Horton and King, the first well-known to her father, were about to make one of their periodical trips to Memphis. It was hinted that these old men were a brace of smugglers and spies but, as they were known to be on the right side in the war, loyal to the Confederacy and otherwise trustworthy, such small transgressions of the moral code counted for little in those wild days. Delighting in adventure and laughing at the perils of the trip in prospect, Margaret - confided to the care of these old men and with Miss Horton as companion - set forth in a topless buggy to make the distance between Canton and Memphis. It was just after Grierson's raid had desolated the land. The railroads were torn up, bridges burned and the long stretches of country highways were almost a continuous quagmire from the incessant rains. Seven days over these rough army roads, exposed to every whim of weather, brought them to Hernando, Mississippi.​

​

Page 48​

        In the meantime, Commodore Foote had taken Memphis after a most dramatic naval combat which, from its high bluffs, was witnessed by the citizens. Bragg was in Kentucky and Confederate spies were busy collecting and forwarding him information. The weather was sultry, but, despite the heat the girls had a quilting bee. They made, and wore beneath their hoop-skirts, petticoats, into which were stitched important papers to be delivered to agents in Memphis. Tape loops at the top of these petticoats made easy their quick removal should occasion call for it. Heavy yarn gloves of her own knitting covered Margaret's pretty hands, in the palms of which she concealed dispatches so valuable that she was bidden to contrive their destruction rather than risk discovery.​

​

        After leaving Hernando and reaching Nonconnah - the little stream with melodious Indian name five miles out from Memphis - the girls took out their weapons. Bravely equipped with pistols they made the perilous crossing only to fall into the hands of a group of Yankee soldiery drawn up to guard the bank and fire upon all daring enough to come within range of their guns. They were at once halted by a Colonel - an elderly officer who threatened to have them searched at the barracks hard by. Margaret, having her head in the lion's mouth, was bent on saving it from being bitten off. Young in years, yet she was a true daughter of Eve and resolved upon showing a charming candor to this elderly man of war. Extending her gloved hands, palm downward to conceal the bulky dis-patches, and putting out her shapely feet encased in the cloth boots of her own manufacture, with a laughing look in her eyes of Scottish blue, she quickly retorted, "You had better search me when I go out of the city - that is if you can catch me. In our part of the world we have to wear shoes and gloves like these. And sir, you had better be careful for I have a Yankee sister in town."​

        Her breezy air, perhaps the covert threat implied in her claim to Northern kindred, had the effect intended. The man of war was placated. Bending down, he whispered: "Little girl, I don't believe you have anything contraband. ​

​

Page 49​

         I like and trust you, and will take you at once to your sister's, and besides, I have a fine son you can marry." "Yes," replied saucy Margaret; "provided some good Johnny Reb doesn't shoot him." The daring girl felt the dispatches burn in her hands like coals of fire. Outwardly brave, she practiced her coquettish tactics and the procession drove on, soon to pause in front of her sister's house. Eagerly she begged her escort to stop the horses a moment and, without pausing for his helping hand, so fearful was she that the wad of dispatches might be detected, jumped to the ground and rushed into the house, Miss Horton following. Bewildered by her sudden flight, the deserted officer cried out, "You saucy little piece! I believe I'll have you searched anyhow, for now I think of it, I risk losing my stars if I don't."​

​

        By this time the parlor had been reached. The girls darted through the open door, in breathless haste locked it, then in a trice unlooping their quilted skirts with Bragg's precious dispatches inside, rolled all up into a bundle and thrust it up the chimney - the open fire-place being concealed by a screen. No longer afraid of being searched, Margaret demurely opened the door and was engaged in quite a lively play of accusation and recrimination with the officer when her sister walked in to greet her. Being vouched for by one so high up in Yankee confidence was sufficient. The suspicious Colonel sloped colors and saluted. Henceforth the saucy little rebel was safe.​

​

        Margaret's sister and husband were both staunch Confederates but, through stress of circumstance, posed as friends of the Union. Consequently they were enabled to give much aid to the Southern cause. Mrs. Smith was permitted to visit the Horton House - converted by the Northern invaders into a prison for Confederates - for it was well known that she was a Southern woman who, despite her apparent Union proclivities, must have friends among the prisoners. On the present occasion word had come from Gen. Forrest requesting her aid in behalf of a certain member of his staff recently captured and confined in the Horton House.​

​

        Shortly after, Margaret was privileged to accompany her sister on one of her mysterious prison visits. ​

​

Page 50​

         Before leaving the house, she was instructed to "do as I do." Mrs. Smith presented a pass from Col. Hillyer, the provost-marshal, permitting access to her "cousin," a young captain lately imprisoned. So soon as the guard called him forward she advanced cordially saluting him as "dear cousin" and apparently gave him a cousinly kiss. Margaret remembered her orders and did the same, adding in pity a warm embrace for a kinsman found in so pitiful a plight. "Oh, cousin, you look sick," exclaimed Mrs. Smith, whereupon the Captain staggered as if in severe pain, in tremulous tones announcing that he was "indeed ill, quite ill, but immensely glad to see her." Much mystified, Margaret listened to mutual recollections of a certain old Aunt Sally who made the best cornbread ever eaten, and who always made soup in her cabin and brought it in a broken pitcher to any one who was sick. This last feat of memory seemed particularly pleasing, but the captain's illness now increased so alarmingly that the sisters, after taking a much-concerned leave, hastily withdrew and the guard was summoned to assist him to his cot. The next day there was quite a stir and audible discontent in Mrs. Smith's kitchen. She insisted on compounding and herself baking a cornbread-pone, also pouring some of the family soup into a pitcher with a broken mouth. Bread and soup were arranged on a tray and carried to the prison by a servant, Margaret accompanying her armed with a pass to see her cousin. The Captain, still confined to his cot, was much pleased at sight of the food sent him, but the guard rather rudely called out that "it was queer eating for a sick man." Margaret explained that "he'd like it and get well because it was the same he used to eat at home." Soon she left her cousin to his homely repast.​

​

        The following afternoon, as six by the clock approached, Mrs. Smith proposed a walk in direction of the prison. On this eventful afternoon the sentry paced his usual distance in front of the prison walls. Margaret, while walking briskly and chatting in her own lively way, chanced to look upwards and so dreadful a sight met her eyes she gave a loud piercing scream. She saw a man dropping from one of the upper stories - falling to the ground, as she thought, to meet his death. A rough push from her sister, and an impatient order "to hush her noise" made her aware that she had done something amiss.​

​

Page 51​

        The sentry in alarm drew near and to fix his attention upon herself she fainted dead away. Then, reviving, screamed with all the strength of her lungs and said she had fainted from a sprained ankle. The more the sentry tried to calm her the more unbearable was her pain and the tighter she clasped his knees. With lightning intuition, she realized that it was a Confederate prisoner she had seen coming down his viewless stairway of wire, and that her sister was aiding in the escape of her pseudo cousin the captain. At whatever cost to herself the sentry must not be allowed to give an alarm.​

​

        Providence had worked his deliverance through the medium of a file baked and conveyed in the cornbread, and a coil of wire concealed in the cracked pitcher of soup. After the war, Margaret learned that the prisoner was wholly a stranger to Mrs. Smith, but that Forrest had invoked her aid in freeing this member of his staff. She planned the method and means of his escape and gave the cues which he was quick-witted enough to recognize and follow to his deliverance.​

​

Page 52​

A TRUE STORY.​

        ON Sunday morning, August 21, 1864, Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, with about 1,500 men in command, starting from Oxford, Miss., made his memorable raid upon Memphis, Tenn. For two days and nights his men were in the saddle, riding through blinding rains, in thick darkness, stumbling over roads heavy with mud, and swimming creeks swollen to the limit of their banks. They rode hard, scarcely pausing to eat their scant rations, with their wet, mud-clogged clothes clinging to and impeding their wearied bodies. At Hickhala creek and Coldwater river, it was necessary to build rude pontoon bridges lashed together with grape vines for cables, before it was possible for them to cross. But obstacles made the steel that struck out fire from the flint of this magnificent leader's nature, and from that of the iron-like men who rode with him. Light-hearted and gay as if going to a revel, they pushed on and, while it was yet dark, before the morning fairly broke, rode in silent, steady ranks into the city - taking it completely by surprise.​

​

        Once sure of possession the buglers, as if seized with sudden madness, broke loose, sounding the shrill charge and the men with yells and shouts dashed forward, clattering over the streets and filling the air with so outrageous an uproar it was enough to awake the dead. It woke the living who were asleep, and they sprang from their beds dazed, wondering if the foundations of the world had crumbled and the crash of doom had caught them. Some of the men under Capt. W. B. Forrest, a younger brother of the General, rode their horses into the rotunda of the Gayoso Hotel, in quick search for Generals Hulbert and Washburn. They hunted the building from basement to attic, but the birds were wary and had flown. From dawn until noon, Forrest and his men swept the city like a cyclone - only a bullet carrying death could stop them. Joy was in all the streets. At the corners stood groups frantically cheering and waving hats and handkerchiefs; leaning from windows hastily thrown up were women and children in night deshabille, who fluttered in joyous greeting whatever their hands first grasped, and made the air vocal with cries of welcome to the muddy but ever dear Johnny Rebs.​

​

Page 53​

        One lady, an ardent Confederate, roused from her sick bed by the confusion and din, rushed upon the front gallery. On catching sight of the grand, erect figure of Gen. Forrest as he dashed by, she loosed from earth and trod the air! Clutching her two-day-old infant by the long clothes swathing its feet, she waved it triumphantly in the air as if it had been a scarf or a flag! After dominating Memphis so long as it pleased him - that is for several hours - Gen. Forrest and his troop leisurely rode off in the same direction whence they came, escorting a caravan of several hundred prisoners of war.​

​

        At the time of this raid there were living in Memphis a certain Mr. Smith and his wife - the latter, the lady who figured in the above incident of the baby. Circumstances had imposed upon them the necessity of taking the oath usually exacted of those remaining within the enemy's lines. But the observance of an oath taken under compulsion was rarely considered obligatory by the party compelled, in the lax days of the Civil War. Mr. Smith secretly bought and shipped ammunition, guns, etc., while his wife continually made purchases of small articles - medicines at different drug stores, tea, coffee, pins, needles, etc. - and smuggled them to friends in the Confederacy. Having quilted her purchases into a petticoat, she was ready for a ride. Her husband and herself were fearless on horseback and neither fence nor ditch could stop them. In the early morning or late evening, they would canter down the main road leading out from Memphis in the direction of the little stream Nonconnah. Here the Federals kept a strict patrol and had a guard house - not only for safe-keeping such prisoners as they caught trying to enter the city, but also for searching ladies suspected of dealing in contraband of war. Mrs. Smith's horse had been trained at a given signal to run away. On arriving at the guard house, Mr. Smith would engage the officer in pleasant talk. Presently, his wife's horse becoming more and more restive, would suddenly dash forward, vault the fence and bear its rider away with the speed of the wind. The objective point was an old stump well known to the boys in gray. ​

​

Page 54​

Reaching it, she would quickly dismount, remove from her thick coils of hair small packages of drugs, unloop her quilted skirt stored with good things and a correspondence that might not have passed muster at the city post office. Quickly concealing all within the stump, she would spring into the saddle and on her mad gallop homeward probably meet her husband and an anxious Federal officer coming in search of her.​

​

        Mrs. Smith's young sister, Margaret Drane, after six months' sojourn in Dixie, had returned to make her home for awhile in Memphis. A merry girl of sixteen with a piquant wit, she was intensely Confederate in her patriotism, and her dislike for the blue-coated gentry so frequently found in her sister's parlors was often marked by extreme frankness. Youth, laughing blue eyes and a frolicsome, even though pungent, tongue make a charm that condones all differences of opinion - so thought the Northern General John Morgan, the provost marshal Hillyer, and a score of other prominent Federals who greatly enjoyed provoking her spleen by narrations of Confederate disasters. They felt sure that the recital of these reverses would be sweet music in the ears of so good a Unionist as Mrs. Smith, and it was to them as nuts to a squirrel to tease the saucy, pretty little termagant.​

​

        The Federal officers in making their visits usually were entertained in the front parlor, while other callers assembled in the rear room. Young Margaret's voice was one of rare compass, strength and sweetness. Its exercise gave her a weapon which it was a keen delight to use against the military oppressors whose presence, though odious, she had to endure. She never refused to sing when asked, but gave, with unrepressed fervor, all of the Confederate songs she knew - and her repertoire was a rarely full one! "Maryland," and a version of Dixie, more defiant than rhythmical, were special favorites for such an occasion and never omitted. One verse ran:​

​

                        "Dixie whipped old Yankee Doodle
                       Early in the morning,
                       And Yankee boys better look out
                       And take a timely warning. "​

​

        One afternoon, Mr. Smith, in a low mysterious whisper for fear of listening servants, announced to his wife and Margaret that, through the connivance of their

​

Page 55​

guard, he had obtained​ for eleven Confederate prisoners the privilege of visiting them at a late hour that evening. This guard, of course, had been heavily bribed both with money and champagne. to allow them to leave the prison and remain out until 10:30 that night. Mr. Smith and the eleven prisoners gave their word that the return would be at the stipulated hour. So soon as darkness fell the prisoners came in escorted by their Yankee guard. In making ready for their reception, the shutters of the back parlor had been closed and thick damask curtains dropped to prevent even a glimmer of light from being caught on the outside, but to ensure safety, one window was left open and shielded by heavy drapery. In case of need, it would serve as an exit upon a narrow alley that ran between the house and a high board fence. This alley opened upon the street. All of these precautions taken, wine and cake - luxuries almost forgotten by a Southern soldier - were brought in to cheer both the inner and outer man. As friendly eyes looked into each other there was much quiet, serious talk in low tones - too low for Margaret, or the guard upon whom she was mischievously practicing her witcheries - to catch or understand. Thus, pleasantly occupied, time sped for half an hour when, suddenly, the jangle of the doorbell jarred the quiet. All rose and looked at each other in dismay. Mrs. Smith kept her composure, and with a warning to the young conspirator, Margaret, to "hold the fort," hastened to enquire into the interruption - a premonition of evil made her feel the presence of visitors before seeing them. On opening the door, behold, the Federal Gen. Morgan and his staff bent on passing a social evening!

​

        In the meantime, all was quiet activity in the back parlor, the curtain was lifted from the open window and first the white-faced guard, then, one by one, the prisoners stealthily dropped into the alley below. Margaret's spirits rose to the occasion. At first echo of the bell, she had noiselessly turned the key in the door. The eleven men must get away and to cover their retreat - though her heart was going pit-a-pat for the boys in grey stealing off in the darkness - she lifted her voice in rollicking strains of Jim Crow, Dan Tucker and all the noisy plantation songs she​

​

Page 56​

could recall.  At each remonstrance from her sister in the hall as to her madcap conduct, she would break out into a higher, more jubilant stave and, with a chair for a partner dance a jig or a few capers of the Highland Fling - all to gain time.​

​

        Saucy, courageous, quick-witted Margaret! Her voice had the lilt of a mocking-bird and she executed variations, tremulos, spirited bravuras, extravaganzas of melody that would have won her encores on the stage. At last came the turn of No. 11. He slid out, let the curtain fall, then, crouching with his companions in the darkness of the alley, all waited for the hour of return to the hated prison. Our song-bird relished intensely this outwitting of the Yankee marplots in the hall. Continuing her bravuras and throwing a footstool across the room with a bang to increase the noise, she quickly gathered up the decanter and glasses used in their small banquet and pitched them out of the window - let us hope the crowns of her soldier guests escaped being cut or cracked. Then with a hop, skip and jump and a successful effort to obtain upper "C," she unlocked and threw open the door, her cheeks aflame from exertion, but full of dimpling smiles and arch courtesy of manner. In response to questioning from both sister and wondering Federal visitors as to why she had kept the door locked and created so fearful a racket, she merrily answered that her "old Johnny Reb sweetheart had come to see her, and she was so glad to see him it had turned her head."​

​

        If Gen. Morgan and his splendidly uniformed staff squinted at the sofa as they passed, to see if Johnny Reb was really there or had misgivings that something was below the surface, they gave no sign, but yielded to the fascinations of the charming young rebel, who, while brave, was never more so than in those moments of suspense when eleven lives trembled on the balance of discovery.​

​

        Had the guard been surprised in this escapade, death would have been the penalty as a soldier. True to their oath, the eleven prisoners were in their bunks at the prescribed hour.​

        A week later they escaped. It is not impossible to believe that the ways and means were planned on the night they ran the risk of capture, while a rebel girl sang herself hoarse to protect them.​

​

Page 57​

        * * * * * * * * * * * *

        We take our leave of this true type of the Southern girl of the war period - high spirited, ever loyal, inventive, courageous. It may be of interest to know that our merry young heroine at sixteen was the bride of a gallant officer, who bore in his scarred body the certificate of honorable service, and that before the furling of our flag at Appamattox she cradled a young Confederate in her maternal arms and rejoiced that a man child was born into the world.

​

Page 72

A CONFEDERATE HOOP-SKIRT.​

        ABOUT seven o'clock on a clear pleasant morning in the early autumn of 1863, an odd group assembled in the front yard of Mrs. Smith's pretty cottage in Memphis, Tennessee. Our scene takes place opposite the Armory - then held by Northern invaders, but formerly used by the Confederates as a manufactory and depot for cartridges.​

​

        Our young friend, Margaret Drane, a trifle more sedate than when we last held pleasant converse - her golden hair in a twist or half curl swinging to her waist - came down the stairs gently supporting a tall, serious-faced, elderly lady whose years must have counted half a century. Despite her thin, delicate features, her figure was rotund, on the scale certainly two hundred pounds. Apparently, she needed aid, for in her naturally easy, gliding walk there was a certain queer little halting movement that recalled the slow steps of a minuet, such as in childhood's days a Virginia grandmother described as the dance tripped in stately measure by high-placed belles of the Old Dominion. Recent typhoid had made pallid and torn from the features of this old gentlewoman all claims to physical beauty, but though her appearance was grotesque and every movement marred by that queer little halt, there was about her the dignity and repose of manner which marks the true lady and shows that her life is governed by a purpose. A fervent Baptist in belief, a veritable Dorcas in good works, an ardent lover of the Confederate Cause, her friends asserted that she was never known to laugh, rarely to smile. Under all skies and every circumstance, life to her was stern, hedged in always by the grim word, duty. Peradventure, had the kindly gods Eros and Hymen smiled upon her youth, like the devoted Mrs. Gordon, she would have held her place in the rear of every battle-field on which her soldier husband fought; but the fact that her father languished in a Northern prison and three stalwart brothers were members of that invincible troop known as Forrest's Cavalry, constantly exposed to the bullets of the enemy, made such harsh demands upon her affections as to forbid all smiles and words of levity.​

​

Page 73​

        Arriving in Memphis, a few days previous to the present narrative, Miss Lucy - as she was affectionately called by her numerous friends - upon passing the Federal lines was instantly arrested and subjected to a strict examination. Freed from this indignity, very nervous and much bedraggled, she at once sought Mr. and Mrs. Smith, her city friends. The object of her braving the perils of a visit to Federal-ridden Memphis was to procure medicines for a hospital and clothing for her brothers. They like the majority of Forrest's hard riders, were almost as bare as the wild Irish Kernes when they fought in the Netherland bogs.​

​

        For ten days, Sunday not excepted, our frail, sad-visaged heroine would go out into the by-streets and suburbs of the city with loyal friends to make her purchases at different stores - of drugs, only ten cents worth at a time from each, in order not to attract the attention of Northern spies. Six suits of underclothing, also two pairs of cavalry boots, in addition to socks, handkerchiefs, etc., were gradually laid in. All of this made a large quantity of goods to be transported from within to the outer lines, but there was no limit to the patriotic devotion of our heroine and desire to make warm her three brave, soldier-brothers.​

​

        When the eventful day drew near for her departure, all was quiet activity in Mrs. Smith's cottage. The preceding night no one slept, for all were merrily intent on outwitting the Federals and eagerly interested in making Miss Lucy ready for her journey. Between two strong petticoats were quilted a quantity of medicine and tobacco. That was easy, but when it came to secreting dispatches from General Bragg and other officers in Kentucky sent to Mr. Smith for forwarding, the conference was long and much puzzled. After a night of wakefulness, an idea suggested itself to the inventive brain of Margaret. The hair of Miss Lucy had fallen out as a result of her illness, and she had brought it to Memphis with the intention of having it converted into a braid. Luckily, too much engrossed with her brothers' outfit, she had not given it a thought. Margaret deftly turned this tangle into a graceful "waterfall" - just then introduced to the fashionable world. ​

Page 74​

Its capacious interior was rammed full of what little money was left from shopping and with it went the precious dispatches. 

       At daylight Miss Lucy's toilette began, and never was queen more obsequiously served, though the ceremony was enlivened at intervals by smothered giggles which the youthful Margaret could not always choke off. Over a soft undergarment Mrs. Smith, the first lady-in-waiting, buttoned an under-waist thickly padded with calomel and quinine; then came the skirt quilted with tobacco and divers drugs; the cavalry boots were suspended by a stout string passed through the loops of the boots at top and securely tied round the waist; but the large hoop-skirt concealing all this "contraband of war" might justly be esteemed a triumph of home inventiveness and patient needle. Made of white domestic with casings into which reeds were slipped, it was as unyielding and stiff as the farthingale worn by English court ladies of three centuries agone. Over the hoop fell the voluminous breadths of the homespun dress - standing out with a starched precision that rivalled the jeweled satin robes of coquettish Elizabeth Tudor, when she coyly curtsied to the deferential homage of "sweet Robin." A home-made palm-leaf hat with a bright blue ribbon passing in saucy color over the top, was knotted beneath her chin - thus converting the flat into a jaunty scoop that gave room for the ample waterfall, and afforded a welcome shade from the sun in her long ride beyond Memphis. At last, our heroine - not one of romance, but practical and plain - was ready for her perilous undertaking - as much of a guy as loving hearts and willing hands dared make her.​

​

        A Texas mustang had been purchased for the occasion - beautiful in long mane and flowing tail when it scoured its native plain as was ever a wild horse of the Ukraine. But now, of all ill-fed, gaunt, woeful beasts of burden, none in dolorous aspect could compare with this poor victim of empty corn-bins. But its very woefulness made it the more desirable. The Federals watching at the fords of Nonconnah stream were too sharp to allow a good horse to travel beyond the lines to supply the need of some scout of the pestilent Forrest. Moreover, the rider arrayed "a la Meg Merrilies" ​

​

Page 75​

and mounted on so ill-looking an animal would be less liable to detention if called upon to halt. "Bones" - as the laughing Margaret dubbed him - was led around to the front and stood at the sidewalk, wearily but patiently awaiting the next cuff his hard fate had in store for him.​

​

        To prevent the vigilant Federals in Armory from suspecting that the rebels were up to some disloyalty, it was prudently decided that Miss Lucy should mount her horse outside the gate in full view of all passers by. It was indeed an ordeal for a refined woman, but of what is patriotism and love not capable? Poor Bones - waking from dreams of corn and oats - sniffed the chair that was brought out to aid in the ascent to his back. It was like climbing the hump of a camel for, beneath his saddle, raising it unusually high, had been arranged in neat layers one upon another, the six suits of underwear. All of these were kept in place by a thin blanket. It was odd, but despite Miss Lucy's many excellencies, she generally created a deal of quiet amusement for her friends. Now, after careful adjustment of her hoop-skirt, she attempted lightly to swing herself to the saddle. Bones made his protest against man's inhumanity by falling flat down and bringing her to the ground with him. Here was indeed a contretemps! All set to work to extricate Miss Lucy who, with the unyielding hoop caught on pommel of saddle, was unable to rise. Opposite, the Federals stopped their work of making ammunition and roared with hilarious laughter. The negro house servants gathered at the open windows and looked on in sympathetic dismay. As for Margaret, the comic pitifulness of rider and horse was too much for decorous composure. She discreetly slipped inside the gate and, behind screening fence and under the shade of trees, rolled on the grass in a convulsion of suppressed giggling. "My Gord! Dat chile sure is sick wid de colic!" cried the pitying cook.​

​

        But even the bubbling laughter of sweet sixteen exhausts itself in time. Fearful of wounding the sensibilities of Miss Lucy - to whom though eccentric she was sincerely attached - Margaret finally scrambled to her feet and cheering poor Bones with friendly words and caressing pats of her hand, induced him once more to stand up and receive his rider. Time was passing and the sun gave ​

​

Page 76

warning to be off. Beyond the clear waters of Nonconnah, Confederate scouts had made tryst with the adventurous lady and her much needed wares, and that tryst she must "bide."​

​

        Here on the scene now appeared Mrs. Smith riding a blooded roan - striking contrast to Bones - and accompanied by her husband for a morning ride. In passing, she merely glanced at the group around her door as if they had been so many strangers, but that glance was enough for a cue. Then away in brisk canter sped husband and wife for the "lines," where all suspected persons either coming in or going out of Memphis were taken to be searched. Margaret, as her sister rode off, hurriedly passed up to Miss Lucy a bottle of Mustang Liniment, charging her "to throw its contents into the face of the first Yankee daring enough to try and arrest her." Giving a pat to Bones and urging him to "be off" and "be good," she ran upstairs to hide the light-hearted laughter which respect for Miss Lucy forbade vent in her presence. That charitable, unsuspecting lady ascribed her emotion to tears over the risk she was taking, and rode off in happy ignorance of her mirth-provoking aspect. Bones, stolidly bearing his burden but with many a limp and halt, slowly stumbled along in the wake of Mrs. Smith.​

​

        Mr. and Mrs. Smith passed Miss Lucy on the road without even a nod of recognition, and reached the lines long before she was in sight of them. Here they were soon engaged in a merry interchange of wits with some of the Federal officers, whose good-will they were politic enough to cultivate for the sake of the Cause. As the comical figure of Miss Lucy hove in sight, Mrs. Smith with a ringing laugh cried to the commanding officer: "Do look at that Judy mounted on Rosinante! You surely are not going to arrest that crazy looking creature are you? Better let her pass, she certainly will kill the rebels with fright. I had her for a time in my house and am glad to be rid of her" - and she tapped her forehead significantly. "But goodbye, your pleasant official duties are calling you" - and with another gay laugh and wave of her hand in direction of the approaching "Judy," rode for home. Looking back, she saw that the officers, acting upon the hint that her wits were disordered, had allowed Miss Lucy to pass without question. ​

Page 77​

         Her being sponsored by one so high in Federal esteem as Mrs. Smith, doubtless had much to do with her not being searched.​

​

        Happily rid of Federal patrols and guards, Miss Lucy, not pinning faith to Emerson's dazzling "seraphim of destiny," but serenely trusting in Providence and, maybe, with a soft strain of an old hymn floating musically across her mind, without escort, but also without misgiving, began to cover the long weary miles to the constantly changing headquarters of the ever-flitting Forrest. Unlike those of General Pope, his really were "in the saddle," for rarely did two nights see him in the same place and the Federals were always finding him where they least wanted him! Fortunately, Bones as if conscious that he was working in a good cause, held bravely up until beyond the Federal lines, but once more in Dixie, joy and weakness combined got the better of his good-will. Again he stumbled and fell - this time by good luck on his knees. Miss Lucy, on whose thin ankles the boots had pounded a tattoo at every step, clambered to the ground. She peered eagerly around for her friends the scouts; but Bones' plodding gait had spoiled all hope of meeting them. Those busy men, like the shadows of evening, had quickly come and, the tryst unkept, had quietly gone. With the air of one accustomed to disappointment and without further waste of time, she threw her weary burden of boots and quilted skirt on the pommel of the saddle and, taking the bridle in hand, fearlessly walked the long country road at the side of uncomplaining Bones. Providence soon rewarded her trust, for she overtook a cavalry wagon en route to Forrest's flying headquarters. A lift was gallantly offered her by the honest Confederate wagoner and with cheerful readiness accepted. Of what had she to be afraid? Was she not in Dixie with guardians all around her?​

​

        Finally, without mishap or molestation she reached her journey's end - at some vanishing point between Oxford, Mississippi, and East Tennessee, the famous stamping ground of Forrest's cavalry. In the joy of relieving the necessities of her proud and delighted brothers, our gentle spinster forgot the risks and discomforts of her really perilous trip. An innocent pride was hers as, in person, she ​

​

Page 78​

delivered her military dispatches to the great Cavalryman, and heard the care-ridden hospital surgeon gratefully call her small store of drugs a "perfect God-send."​

​

        Bones, less martial than the fiery "horse without peer" that brought the "good news from Ghent," to whom the grateful burgesses of Aix voted their last bottle of wine, was content for his patient endurance of ills, to receive a good feed of oats. Let us hope - though chronicles are silent on the subject - his last days in Dixie were not without comfort and care and that with food he soon lost the grisly name by which we made his acquaintance.​

        * * * * * *​

        One word more: The uplifting sadness of Miss Lucy Jones was prophetic of future loss. Only one brother survived the war, and her father laid down his life in a Northern prison.

​

Page 83

AN INCIDENT OF THE RECONSTRUCTION.​

        THE State in which our story takes place is Mississippi. To be exact at Wakefield Landing, in Adams County, that looks across the great dividing river upon the parish of Concordia, in its sister Commonwealth, Louisiana. The year was 1873, one of the fatal years in that tragic period of Southern history after the Civil War, known as the "Reconstruction. " It was a time when the negroes, drunk with the new wine of their lately acquired freedom, had abandoned labor in the cane and cotton fields and once more fell to the primitive condition of savagery. Their chief rendezvous was an islet - a spot of greenery known as The Island in Old River, a former channel of the restless, ever-changing Mississippi River. Here they congregated by hundreds and from this place, in prowling bands, roamed the country around, to rob, burn and murder. It was in this turbulent time in early spring that the river, swollen by waters received from its great tributaries above, was becoming an angry flood against its barrier levees. The air was filled with fears of an approaching crevasse, and of wild reports of depredations and crimes committed by the blacks.​

​

        Fertile, by reason of rich alluvial deposits, the section of Adams County bordering on the river was largely given to the cultivation of cotton. The plantations being large were miles apart and their crops of cotton, when grown to maturity, effectually concealed the residence of one planter from his neighbor. With neighbors, however, one was not over-burdened, as there were only three houses in sight of Wakefield Landing.​

​

        The plantation of Doctor Thurman - an ex-Confederate soldier, a practicing physician and an experimental chemist - was a short distance from the landing with only a broad country road between the house and river. On a certain day, there was great excitement at Wakefield, caused by an influx of the wives of planters with their children. These, greatly alarmed by the threats of the negroes, came to the landing to take a boat for Natchez, thirty-five miles distant, where they would be assured of protection. Strange to say, these

​

Page 84​

women were not accompanied by their ​husbands - all had suddenly disappeared from home. It was soon decided that the Doctor must go to Natchez for troops with which to quell the negroes. His wife courageously decided to remain behind. Though young in years, she was a fearless heroine of the Sixties and was unwilling to leave their home to be destroyed.​

​

        That night she sat alone in the small office of the plantation store. The servants had been dismissed and, after making pallets under the beds for greater security, her helpless, crippled brother-in-law had retired and her three babes had been put to sleep. The night was still, save for the thin, ghostly croaking of frogs from a nearby marsh; the cicadas had long ceased their shrill notes; the whipporwill was silent, and over the broad cotton fields, from the dense forest beyond, the usual lonely hoot of the owl called not to its mate. Only the soft swish of a bat's wings - as, attracted by the light of the lamp, it flew in at an open window - ruffled the silence. A deep hush, as if the night awaited something, sure to happen, had fallen upon the woods, and seemed to deaden the sullen undertone of the mighty river rolling onward to the Gulf.​

​

        Suddenly, the loud report of a pistol coming from the road in the front broke the brooding quiet. Darkness swallowed the sinister echoes and all again was still. At the first shock of the report, Mrs. Thurman sprang from her seat and, with the steady nerves of a woman who had been tried on critical occasions, walked to the door. The hour, the darkness, her lonely condition might well have excused a flutter of nervousness at so unusual an occurrence - coming when public feeling was so deeply stirred. The door, usually secured by a wooden button was open, but she did not close it. Raising her voice to a pitch from which it could be thrown to a distance, she cried in clear, even tones: "If that nonsense of firing pistols around my house at this hour of the night is not stopped, I will set off the magazine. That will bring the Ku Klux and you well know what that means." It was well that this threat of firing the magazine was not put to the proof for, apart from the rifle called by the plantation hands "Shoot-all-day," the only weapon in the house was a small pistol. Listening intently for the effect of her brave words, she heard stealthy steps as of a number of men slinking around the corner of the yard and retreating through the woods. ​

​

Page 85​

Their way was down a long country road that led to the Island, three miles off, in a curve of the Mississippi river.​

​

        As the sound of steps lost itself in the woods, Mrs. Thurman, with a look upon her face that told of desperate resolve, turned to the store. Against the wall, back of the counter, were ranged four barrels of liquor - one of alcohol for experiments in the laboratory, another of brandy, one of cordial and one of whiskey for use on the plantation. To these she quickly stepped and deftly removed the bung of each. Conscious that the negroes for miles around knew of the liquor in the storehouse, also that it would be their first demand should they return for attack, she was resolved, as it was a matter of kill or be killed, that their first drink should be their last. Serenely, by the light of her lamp, with a hand that trembled not, cool as Judith when about to cut off the head of Holofernes,, she went about her work preparing for the worst. From a jar in the laboratory, she selected four lumps of arsenic, each about the size of a small marble, and placed the deadly drug by the open bung of each of the four barrels. It was strange to see a woman young, tender, refined who could prepare a death-dealing dose to slaughter by the wholesale; but her three babes soundly asleep in the next room, helpless and unconscious of peril, was her only thought. Between them and midnight butchery - under God who "taught her hands to war" - was only her puny arm to save both herself and them.​

​

        If there were any spies lurking around the house watching her movements, they should see she was not afraid. Entering her bedroom, to give herself an appearance of ease, she picked up some sewing, but, at the same moment, unconsciously glanced at the lowered window. Pressed against the pane of glass, she saw the hideous face of her negro washerwoman, Barbara, peering into the room; and heard her frightened voice exclaiming: "For Gawd's sake, Miss, do open de door and let me in. Dey say de Ku Kluxes is out to-night, and I'se scairt to death."​

​

        Mrs. Thurman had too much at stake to be opening her doors at midnight to admit a negro woman who might be an emissary of the prowling, ​

​

Page 86​

murderous, savage negro horde of the Island. Too gentle of heart to deny sympathy where she could not give help, she rapped on the window and called out: "Go at once to the quarters, Barbara, and if you are all quiet and well-behaved, I will see that you are protected from the Ku Klux should they come." With a half-choked moan of fear and the cry: "Oh, Gawd! dere comes de Ku Kluxes," the negroes threw up her arms and vanished. In the thick darkness, Mrs. Thurman saw nothing, but it flashed upon her like an illumination that the singular disappearance of the planters was explained - they were members of the Ku Klux Klan, suddenly called out. In those days, a man's oath to the Order allowed him not to tell the secret even to the wife of his bosom. Not until years after the Klan was dissolved did many find it out.​

​

        Mrs. Thurman was now assured that a band of the remarkable organization, formed for the purpose of keeping the negro and carpet-bagger element in order, could not be far distant. By their sudden, mysterious appearances after nightfall, apparently from nowhere, the noiseless tread of their horses' muffled feet, fierce grips, ghostly utterances, but above all by their swift, judicial punishment for crimes committed, they kept the half-savage, excitable freedmen from making of the South a second St. Domingo or Hayti.​

​

        Mrs. Thurman turned from the window in peace to await the dawn. The peril had passed, her vigil ended. Her heart bounded with joy, for, with the Klan as guardian of peace and order abroad, she knew that her home and babes were in safety. The next day Doctor Thurman arrived with troops from Natchez, but the negroes had left the Island and, with rapine, fire and slaughter attendant upon their steps, had gone in the direction of Fort Adams, twelve miles distant.

​

​