Chapter II: Part 2

One Saturday night a lady arrived, and the next morning took her sewing and descended to the parlor, where she occupied herself with her work until some one reminded her that it was Sunday.

Another day two ladies from New Orleans, both young and fair, dressed in deep mourning, stopped for dinner and to await a train. They had with them a beautiful boy, about my own age, with long, yellow curls. They called him Percy. They remained but a few hours, but Percy and I played together on the veranda, and as they left, he cried for me to kiss him goodbye, and after he was gone, I cried because I wouldn’t.

FEEDING THE “BOYS” FROM HOME

ONE dark, dreary morning, when the rain was pouring down in torrents, a lot of soldiers took refuge in the lower hall of the Manassas House. I soon learned that there were four “boys” from home among them, that they had been out all night, were cold, wet, and hungry, and to my mind, hunger was the worst of all. To me, in those days, a soldier was greater than a king, and is yet for that matter, and I felt that something must be done. I went to my mother, that never-failing refuge in all my childish sorrows and perplexities, and with tearful eyes appealed to her for advice and help. With a smile she said, “Can you not go to Brown, and ask him for something for ‘our boys?’” For it was useless to think of feeding them all, in the then depleted state of the hotel larder. Brown was the steward, and the one being among all the hotel people of whom I stood in awe. But to Brown I went, and, to my delight, he gave me all that was left from breakfast. To the best of my recollection, that lunch consisted of bread, meat and cheese.

I divided it as best I could among the four, whose names I herewith give: George Harmon, V. K. Kelley, Wesley Jackman and J. A. Tulleys. A sorry picture they made, with the water dripping from their faded blue overcoats in little puddles on the floor, the little girl standing in their midst, with sorrow in her heart, because she could not obtain food for the other poor men looking wistfully on. Perhaps not one of the living members of the quartet will remember this little episode in his army life, but that rainy morning’s scene has never faded from my memory. George Harmon has been “mustered out” and lies, awaiting the “bugle call” to the “General Assembly,” in a country graveyard a few miles from town. James A. Tulleys[1] is a prominent citizen of Red Cloud, Nebraska. The other two are citizens of this place and I see them almost every day.

Footnote 1:

Mr. Tulleys answered the “roll call” January 21, 1901.

A DAY AT THE CITY HOTEL

OUR friends the De Forests, after boarding for a time at the Manassas, removed their quarters to the City Hotel.

They had taken under their protecting wing a little yellow girl by the name of “Mandy.” She was sent one day to invite my mother and another lady to spend the day at the City Hotel. Mandy and I had traveled the road many times, and we put our heads together and determined to take them by way of the long line of cotton defences, instead of the open street, as we could just as well have done. Imagine their discomfiture and our glee as they faced the frowning wall over which they had to climb as best they could. How we laughed and shouted as we scaled the “works” with the agility of young monkeys.

The low-ceiled parlor of the City Hotel, with its dark, large-figured Brussels carpet, is yet a familiar feature to me, as we gathered in it after dinner and listened to Mrs. Dr. Mitchell relate how they used to go to church in a wagon drawn by an ox team, at her girlhood’s home in Illinois.

VAGRANT MEMORIES

I OFTEN think of how recklessly I wandered around alone at Jackson. I became familiar with its streets, and if the years have not made too many changes in its appearance, were I there today, I could go right to the Manassas House and Hospital No. 1. No. 2 I did not become so familiar with, as I was there but once. There was a little white house in the cut some distance up the Memphis & Charleston railroad, where lived a family by the name of Clark. I went there many times to play with the children. We would walk the railroad ties until we saw the trains coming, when we would leap upon the porch and wave our handkerchiefs and hats at the soldiers as they passed rapidly by, the track being but a few feet from the house. The trains were mostly made up of box cars, which were literally alive with soldiers inside and out, who would wave their caps and give us cheer upon cheer in return for our salute, doubtless taking us for little “rebels.”

As I recall and write these trivial events, those old, sweet days seem very near, and I have but to close my eyes to fancy that as a little child I am again running through the long hall of the Manassas to the upper piazza, watching for George, the hotel clerk, as he came from the postoffice, it having been prearranged between us that whenever there was a letter for us from Ohio, he was to hold it up so I could see it, otherwise I was to know there was none. The postoffice, now in charge of the military, was in the depot and in full view of the hotel, and the railroad ran parallel with both. I almost lived on the veranda and saw every train that passed.

There was a large encampment in the open space across the railroad, and opposite the hotel. Lieutenant Pease, one of the boarders, had a telescope, which he would adjust properly for me and I would spend hours looking through it, watching the soldiers, as they performed their daily camp duties. I could see them cooking, washing and hanging their clothes to dry. Many times we have witnessed drill and dress parade from the veranda. Lieutenant Pease was a tall, dark, quiet gentleman, a great reader and a great friend of mine. The first copies of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Magazine and Ballou’s Monthly I ever saw were given me by him, and I can yet recall some of the stories I read in them.

CORINTH WAR EAGLE

THERE was published in Corinth a paper called _The Corinth War Eagle_. Its editor and publisher was a patriotic young man from the North, whose name was Elbridge Dwight Fenn. I remember him distinctly, although I did not see him while at Corinth, but later on at Jackson, where he was largely in evidence. His name and handsome physique would have fitted him to figure as the hero in a two-volume novel. I saw him frequently at the City Hotel. He was full of life and spirits. I saw him one day dancing about the upper corridor with a looking glass under his arm, the lady boarders and chambermaids looking on in great glee. On the day of the expected battle, Fenn was seemingly everywhere. While a number of us were standing on the balcony at the Manassas viewing the troops as they stood in battle array, he came dashing up with a red sash tied about him from shoulder to waist, mounted on a coal-black horse. One of the ladies called to him, saying, “When are the rebels coming, Fenn?” Raising his arm high in air, he shouted, “Never!” and rode away as rapidly as he had come. We brought a copy of the _War Eagle_ home with us, and after many years, when it was almost worn out, I cut the least worn articles from its columns, and they adorn the pages of my war scrapbook. The issue I have bears the date of September 18, 1862. There is a flag at the head of the editorial column, and the motto is, “Be just and fear not.”

Among the articles I have preserved is an account of a visit to the hospital, written by the editor himself; also complimentary references to the 17th and 7th Ill. regiments; Harmony Among Regimental Officers, Flag Presentation to the 17th Wisconsin, an Irish regiment, with speeches by the Chaplain and Captain. The paper also contains several poems.

THE SUTLERS

THE Sutler was an institution of the army. It is useless to describe him. Every old soldier knows him. There were two of “him” here, Patrick and Keene by name, who kept a store in a small room adjoining the hotel; in fact, it was built against it and a step from the veranda led into the store. How clear and familiar it all is to me today, the counter on one side of the room, the little stove and bench on the other. I made many visits to the little store and was always kindly received by its gentlemanly proprietors. Mr. Patrick wore a cap and always had it on whether indoors or out, and when not busy, mostly sat on the counter. On New Year’s Day, 1863, Mr. Keene gave me a pocket handkerchief. I have owned since then many dainty creations of lace and embroidery, called by courtesy handkerchiefs, but none that ever gave me such real pleasure as did that large square of coarse cotton cloth, with a border of blue stars all around it, and in each corner an eagle with shield and stars. But in coming home I left it on the train, much to my regret. While in Jackson we secured a 64-pound cannon ball which we were very anxious to bring home with us, but finding it impossible to do so my mother left it in care of Messrs. Patrick and Keene, expecting my father to send it another time, but after leaving Jackson he never returned, and thus we lost our much prized relic.

DAN

WHILE at the Tishomingo in Corinth we acquired a boy 17 years old, black and raw-boned. His name was Dan Weaver. I do not know how we got him, but having once gotten him we had him. Having learned that where we were he was always sure of something to eat, he was determined to stay with us. We took him to Jackson and he became a part of us. He made himself useful about the hotel, and assisted my mother in taking care of the baby. He would sit with her in his arms and sing by the hour, and sometimes in his earnestness the big tears would flow down his black, shiny cheeks. His favorite song was “Dixie” and over and over and again he would sing,

Away down south in the land of cotton,
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom,
Look away, away, away.
In Dixie’s land
I’ll take my stand.
And live and die a “secesh” man.

But the “secesh” part of it was a huge joke with Dan, and was but a bit of ironical humor on his part. There was nothing Dan wouldn’t do for “Little Missy,” as he always called me. I had developed a mania for collecting empty cigar boxes, and he would scour the town and camp to secure them for me. I was very proud of my collection, and I had them of every size and shape, stacked up on either side of the bureau until they reached the top of the looking-glass. I fully expected to bring them home with me, and was bitterly disappointed when emphatically informed that I could not do so. Since then an empty cigar box has always had a peculiar charm for me, and I never see one or inhale the pungent odor of cedar and tobacco combined but the interior of No. 19 appears before me, and I wonder who fell heir to my beloved boxes.

Dan was a good boy in the main, but in an evil hour he learned to play cards. He came home one day very angry with a colored comrade, who had not played fair with him, as he thought. He took “Little Rosebud” up and began to sing to her as usual, when suddenly the song ceased, his anger was too much for him, and he almost hissed forth the words, “I’ll eat him up blood raw widout a bit o’ salt.”

Poor, ignorant, black Dan’s roaming about town and card-playing were suddenly cut short. He was attacked with inflammatory rheumatism, and lay helpless and suffering on a cot in our room many days and nights, my dear, patient mother caring for him as best she could, until so worn out that she was compelled to have him removed to the negro quarters. His groans were piteous to hear, and sleep was almost unknown while he remained in our room.

CLOSING INCIDENTS AND HOMEWARD BOUND

FAREWELL to Jackson, sunny Jackson—that is it was sunny when the sun shone, but as dark and dreary as can be imagined when it rained—the very name is dear to me yet, and the memories that cluster around it are dearer still. When I review my four months’ experience in the Sunny South I feel that the memory of it is something to be proud of. I saw no fighting, but there were skirmishes all around us, and many prisoners were brought in. Some of the saddest sights I saw were prisoners being marched through the streets in the rain, wading through the mud, the water dripping from their faded butternut suits. Many days we heard heavy cannonading which indicated that battles were being fought in close proximity.

The time came when we must return to our home in the North. My father having recovered sufficiently to rejoin his regiment at Bolivar, left some days before we did. On the last Sunday of our stay a young soldier by the name of Frank Moss, whose home was in Aberdeen, Ohio, whither we were going, called on my mother and sent messages of love by her to his mother.

One morning in February we bade farewell to the scenes that had become so dear to us, and turned our faces homeward. On the train with us was a wounded officer. His hurt was in the leg, and he was on a cot in one corner of the car. His wound was very painful, and as the train jolted he seemed to suffer much and was very cross and irritable. His wife was with him. When we reached the bridge which had been burned a few weeks before, we had to stop and transfer mail and passengers. We crossed the Obion on the ties of the new and unfinished bridge. A soldier carried me, another carried “Little Rosebud,” while still another led my mother. The bridge was very high, and they told us the water was many feet deep at this point. A few days previous the man who led my mother had told a lady while crossing, just how deep it was (eighty feet) and she became so faint and frightened at the knowledge, that he found it almost impossible to convey her safely over. While crossing I asked the man who carried me, in a whisper, how much he thought I weighed. “Oh, about a ton,” was his laughing reply, and the next time I spoke after clearing the bridge, my voice had returned and I spoke aloud for the first time since my recovery from the measles.

When we arrived at Columbus we found there would be no boat until the next day. We remained all night at the hotel, trying in vain to sleep on a hard, relentless bed. The boat came in next day, but the wind was blowing a gale, and the Captain refused to go further. The boat was a small, box-like affair, called the Rob Roy, top-heavy and in danger of capsizing in a high wind. All day we remained at the hotel, and all day the boat remained tied up at the landing. I read Ruth Hall within while the wind raged without, and the huge waves washed the shore. At nightfall the captain sent word to the hotel for the passengers to come on board, and should the wind lull through the night, he would start. But the wind didn’t lull, and we remained tied up all night.

I lay on a narrow wooden bench with our carpet bag for a pillow, while my poor, tired mother passed another sleepless night sitting on a hard, uncomfortable chair, with the baby in her arms. All the large boats had gone north, and the Rob Roy was the only one plying between Columbus and Cairo. It had no conveniences whatever, neither ladies’ cabin nor staterooms, and no facilities for cooking and eating. How well I remember that comfortless night, how one of the boat’s crew dropped a heavy wooden bucket of water on the bare floor, making a terrific crash. I thought the boiler had burst, and we were on our way to the bottom. Then anon, the blaze of the lamp, hung high on the side of the little square cabin, shot out at the top of the dingy chimney, and I sat up on my bench bed and screamed out, “Take it down, take it down.”

Morning dawned at last, calm and clear, and we were soon plowing the yellow Mississippi, with the dark Missouri forests on our right. As we neared Cairo my mother called me on deck to view the “meeting of the waters.” To me, as I recall it now, it resembled a bias seam running across from shore to shore. At Cairo my mother debated long whether to continue the homeward journey by river or rail, having a presentiment of an accident in either case, but finally decided in favor of the latter.

We had nothing to eat since our lunch on the Rob Roy, brought from the hotel, until we reached Centralia, Ill. Just after nightfall the train stopped in front of an eating house, my mother called for coffee and lunch, which were handed through the car window. We ate and drank hurriedly, and even then the train was moving as the empty dishes were handed back to the waiter, and we settled down for a night’s steady traveling.

Throughout this journey there had always been some one to arrange a seat for my comfort, and this part of it was no exception to the rule. I was soon sound asleep and knew no more until rudely awakened by a loud crash, and by being thrown violently to the floor. My mother was thrown forward on her knees, while the baby struck the seat in front. The accident had happened. Consternation and excitement prevailed, but it was soon learned that the track had been torn up and our train wrecked. It was 4 o’clock in the morning, but was yet quite dark. Examination by the light of lanterns showed that the engine, baggage, mail and express cars had plunged down an embankment 40 feet deep. Our car became uncoupled from the one in front, which was all that saved it from a like fate. Even then it was so tilted toward the edge of the precipice that it was with difficulty we could get out.

We sat on a log and waited for dawn and the righting up of our car. The engine caught fire and burned up. The engineer was killed outright, and the fireman so badly hurt that he died a few days later. “Little Rosebud” came home with blood on her dress that dripped from his wounds as he was carried through our car. We were in Indiana when the accident happened, and it was supposed to have been the work of “copperheads” or rebel sympathizers. We were about seventy-five miles from Cincinnati, and four miles from the nearest station, to which the conductor walked and telegraphed to the city for help. We sat for hours in the coach with nothing to eat. The train men, with bandaged heads, and arms in slings, passed in and out rehearsing the accident and trying to cheer us as best they could. Late in the afternoon an engine came out from the city, and we were soon speeding along, getting hungrier each mile.

There was a gentleman on the train who was very kind to us. He, too, had been south, speculating in cotton and was now returning to his family in Cincinnati. He tried at every station where we stopped to get something for us to eat, but strangely enough, nothing could be obtained, not even a cup of coffee, which my mother so much needed, she being nearly exhausted from loss of sleep and lack of food. The gentleman at last secured some small cakes of maple sugar, some of which he gave to me, keeping the others for his two little girls, whose home, he said, was at the Burnett House, and who had never even heard of maple sugar. He laughingly told me to read the signs on the restaurants as we passed, and try to think I was having something good to eat.

As we rolled into the great city, the lights were gleaming everywhere, and the newsboys were crying the accident on the streets. We went immediately to the Henrie House. It was Saturday evening, and we feared we would have to stay until Monday, but were informed by the clerk that the steamer Marmora would start in a very few moments. There was no time for supper, and we hurried down to the boat. A lunch was hastily prepared for us, of which we partook sparingly, and at the regular supper we did ample justice to the meal. We traveled all night without knowing it, so soundly did we sleep, and on Sunday morning, February 22, 1863, we walked up the snow-clad banks of the Ohio, shivering with the cold, and wishing ourselves back in the sunny clime of the beautiful Southland.

CONCLUSION

YEARS after these events, when white-winged peace hovered o’er all the land, while conning my geography lesson at school, and trying to fix in my mind that the city of Constantinople is situated on the Sea of Marmora, that night of hunger came back to me vividly, and the stern-wheel steamer Marmora, with her lights reflected in the broad bosom of the Ohio, loomed up before me with a reality never to be forgotten.

The dear mother who made that long, and in those days perilous, journey, with the care of two little children, has gone to her reward, borne to her last resting place by six honored and respected soldiers of the community. The father for whose sake the journey was made still lingers on the shores of Time. “Little Rosebud,” the pet of the hospital, is a happy wife and mother, while the writer fills an humble sphere at home, and writes her name today just as she did thirty-seven years ago.

My little story is done. It is but a faint and feeble outline of those far off-days, and but a slender thread that connects me with The Great Rebellion. But such as it is, I dedicate it to the G. A. R. in general and the “boys” of Corinth in particular, and to my dear sister who as an infant in arms, could know nothing of this period in her life and mine.

Boys who wore the blue, you have long been gray. Many of your ranks have already “crossed the river, and are resting under the trees,” not in wall tents or Sibleys, but

“In those low green tents
Whose curtain never outward swings.”

And when for them and you the “long roll” is sounded, commanding all the vast armies to “turn out” and “fall in” for the last Grand Review, and you stand in serried ranks before the Great Commander, Oh! may you all be able to sing as in one grand chorus,

“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me
And that Thou bidds’t me come to Thee,
Oh! Lamb of God! I come, I come.”

Nathan W. Crooks, prominently identified with the early portion of this history, died at Washington C. H., O., on May 6, 1900.

Wesley Jackman, one of the four hungry “boys from home” whom I fed at the Manassas House, Jackson, answered the final call on August 6, 1901, just three days before the last pages of this book went to press.

Transcriber’s Note

Some corrections have been made to the original text, including normalization of the punctuation. Further corrections are listed below:

prounoun -> pronoun
magnificen tfloating -> magnificent floating
nade -> made
the the rebels -> the rebels
cummunication -> communication
famaliar -> familiar
throuh -> through
editoral -> editorial

End of Project Gutenberg's Recollections of the Civil War, by Maud E. Morrow