Chapter IV · THEIR PLUCK (continued 2)

They [the women of Petersburg] carried their efforts to cheer and help the troops into every act of their lives. When they could, they visited camp. Along the lines of march they came out with water or coffee or tea—the best they had, whatever it might be; with flowers, or garlands of green when their flowers were gone. A bevy of girls stood under a sharp fire from the enemy’s lines at Petersburg one day, while they sang Bayard Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” responding to an encore with the stanza:

Indeed, the coolness of women under fire was always a matter of surprise to me. A young girl, not more than 16 years of age, acted as guide to a scouting party during the early years of the war, and when we urged her to go back after the enemy had opened a vigorous fire upon us, she declined, on the plea that she believed we were “going to charge those fellows,” and she “wanted to see the fun.” At Petersburg women did their shopping and went about their duties under a most uncomfortable bombardment, without evincing the slightest fear or showing any nervousness whatever.

A WOMAN’S LAST WORD

[Eggleston, in Southern Soldier Stories, pages 225-227.]

The city of Richmond was in flames. We were beginning that last terrible retreat which ended the war. Fire had been set to the arsenal as a military possession, which must on no account fall into the enemy’s hands. As the flames spread, because of a turn of the wind, other buildings caught. The whole business part of the city was on fire. To make things worse, some idiot had ordered that all the liquor in the city should be poured into the gutters. The rivers of alcohol had been ignited from the burning buildings. It was a time and scene of unutterable terror.

As we marched up the fire-lined street, with the flames scorching the very hair off our horses, George Goodsmith—the best cannoneer that ever wielded a rammer—came up to the headquarters squad, and said: “Captain, my wife’s in Richmond. We’ve been married less than a year. She is soon to become a mother. I beg permission to bid her good-bye. I’ll join the battery later.”

The permission was granted readily, and George Goodsmith put spurs to his horse. He had just been made a sergeant, and was therefore mounted. It was in the gray of the morning that he hurriedly met his wife. With caresses of the tenderest kind, he bade her farewell. Realizing for a moment the utter hopelessness of our making another stand on the Roanoke, or any other line, he said in the bitterness of his soul: “Why shouldn’t I stay here and take care of you?”

The woman straightened herself and replied: “I would rather be the widow of a brave man than the wife of a coward.”

That was their parting, for the time was very short. Mayo’s bridge across the James River was already in flames when Goodsmith perilously galloped across it.

Three or four days later—for I never could keep tab on time at that period of the war—we went into the battle at Farmville. Goodsmith was in his place in command of the piece. Just before fire opened he beckoned to me, and I rode up to hear what he had to say.

“I’m going to be killed, I think,” he said. “If I am, I want my wife to know that she is the widow of a—brave man. I want her to know that I did my duty to the last. And—and if you live long enough and this thing don’t kill Mary—I want you to tell the little one about his father.”

Goodsmith’s premonition of his death was one of many that were fulfilled during the war. A moment later a fearful struggle began. At the first fire George Goodsmith’s wife became the “widow of a brave man.” His body was heavy with lead.

His son, then unborn, is now a successful broker in a great city. There is nothing particularly knightly or heroic about him, for this is not a knightly or heroic age. But he takes very tender care of his mother—that “widow of a brave man.”

TWO MISSISSIPPI GIRLS HOLD YANKEES AT PISTOL POINT

[In Richmond Enquirer, July 22, 1862, page 3.]

A Memphis correspondent of the Appeal, in referring to the bad treatment of citizens by the Federal soldiers, related the following:

The most unmanly and brutal act that I know of is their treatment of two Misses Coe. Levin Coe, their brother, was at home, discharged from the army. They surrounded the house before the family knew they were on the place. Fortunately young Coe had gone fishing, and two of his sisters escaped to the garden and ran to warn him not to come home. The Yankees saw the way they went, and followed them, but the sisters outran them and gave their brother the information of their coming. They came up with the ladies at a house in the vicinity of the creek, and attempted to arrest them, but they were both armed and dared the six big, strapping Yankees to lay their hands on them. One would say to another, “She’s got a pistol; take it away from her.” And she, a weak woman, stood at bay and told them to touch her at their peril. And the craven wretches dared not do it. At last, to get them from the neighborhood of their brother, they agreed to go to headquarters with them. It was then noon, and these girls had run two miles, and then these scoundrels marched them off on foot four miles to town. At every step they tried to get their pistols from them, threatening them with instant death if they did not give them up. Three times they placed their pistols at the girls’ hearts with them cocked and their fingers on the trigger, telling them they would kill them. Each time the girls replied, “Shoot; I can shoot as quick as you can.” And they never did give them up until their brother-in-law came up with them and told them to do so, and he gave himself up in their place. Levin Coe escaped.

“WAR WOMEN” OF PETERSBURG

[Southern Soldier Stories, pages 72-73.]

During all those weary months the good women of Petersburg went about their household affairs with fifteen-inch shells dropping occasionally into their boudoirs or uncomfortably near to their kitchen ranges. Yet they paid no attention to any danger that threatened themselves. Their deeds of mercy will never be adequately recorded until the angels report. But this much I want to say of them—they were “war women” of the most daring and devoted type. When there was need of their ministrations on the line, they were sure to be promptly there; and once, as I have recorded elsewhere in print, a bevy of them came out to the lines only to encourage us, and, under a fearful fire, sang Bayard Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” giving as an encore the lines:

With inspiration such as these women gave us, it was no wonder that, as I heard General Sherman say soon after the war: “It took us four years, with all our enormous superiority in resources, to overcome the stubborn resistance of those men.”

JOHN ALLEN’S COW

While General Milroy was in possession of Winchester he was extremely harsh and vindictive towards the people. A great many of them were reduced to the borders of starvation. Miss Allen, a 15-year-old Southern girl, was a member of a family almost absolutely dependent on a good cow’s milk for sustenance. In a short time the cow’s food was exhausted and the prospect looked dark indeed. There was a good pasturage just outside the town, beyond the guard lines of the Federal troops. The brave girl volunteered to lead the cow out and attend her while grazing. A permit to pass the lines from General Milroy was necessary. She went to the general and laid her case before him and asked for a permit. He flatly refused her request and rudely insulted the poor girl.

“I can’t do anything for you rebels and I will not let you pass. The rebellion has got to be crushed,” said he.

“Well,” answered the girl, “if you think you can crush the rebellion by starving John Allen’s old cow, just crush away.”

THE FAMILY THAT HAD NO LUCK

[Eggleston, in Southern Soldier Stories, pages 23-24.]

At the battle of Fredericksburg, as we tumbled into the sunken road, an old man came in bearing an Enfield rifle and wearing an old pot hat of the date of 1857 or thereabouts. With a gentle courtesy that was unusual in war, he apologized to the two men between whom he placed himself, saying: “I hope I don’t crowd you, but I must find a place somewhere from which I can shoot.”

At that moment one of the great assaults occurred. The old man used his gun like an expert. He wasted no bullet. He took aim every time and fired only when he knew his aim to be effective. Yet he fired rapidly.

Tom Booker, who stood next to him, said as the advancing column was swept away: “You must have shot birds on the wing in your time.”

The old man answered: “I did up to twenty years ago; but then I sort o’ lost my sight, you know, and my interest in shootin’.”

“Well, you’ve got ’em both back again,” called out Billy Goodwin, from down the line.

“Yes,” said the old man. “You see I had to. It’s this way: I had six boys and six gells. When the war broke out I thought the six boys could do my family’s share o’ the fightin’. Well, they did their best, but they didn’t have no luck. One of ’em was killed at Manassas, two others in a cavalry raid, and the other three fell in different actions—’long the road, as you might say. We ain’t seemed to a had no luck. But it’s just come to this, that if the family is to be represented, the old man must git up his shootin’ agin, or else one o’ the gells would have to take a hand. So here I am.”

Just then the third advance was made. A tremendous column of heroic fellows was hurled upon us, only to be swept away as its predecessors had been. Two or three minutes did the work, but at the end of that time the old man fell backward, and Tom Booker caught him in his arms.

“You’re shot,” he said.

“Yes. The family don’t seem to have no luck. If one of my gells comes to you, you’ll give her a fair chance to shoot straight, won’t you, boys?”

BRAVE WOMEN AT RESACA, GA.

[By J. L. Underwood.]

In a letter to Mrs. E. J. Simmons, of Calhoun, Ga., dated June 7, 1896, Rev. Jno. C. Portis, of Union, Miss., formerly of the Eighteenth Mississippi Regiment, and now a Congregational Methodist minister, writes:

“My good right arm lies about a mile south of Resaca, Ga., just north of a church at the root of a large oak or chestnut tree. It was put in a board box and buried by a comrade. Hence you see I feel an interest in the wild hills of Resaca. I was a private in Company B, Eighth Mississippi Volunteer Inf., and was wounded in right shoulder and throat about dark in a charge on the enemy’s works, May 14, 1864, on the side of a hill just west of the village on the north side of the river. I was carried back to the bluff below the bridge, where about three or four hundred poor fellows were lying torn, bleeding, and some dying. After a time I crossed the bridge, and, faint and sick, I was trying to make my way to Cheatham’s Division Hospital, which was in the church. A man came into the road with an ox wagon loaded in part with beds which appeared to be very white. Some one called him Motes and asked him about his family (Motes’s family), and he said they had gone on to Calhoun. Mr. Motes insisted that I should ride, and said his wife would not care if all her beds were dyed with rebel blood. He carried me to the old church. I would like to know what became of Mr. Motes; I could not see his face. The night was dark. Sunday morning, May 15, about eight o’clock, my right arm was amputated at the shoulder joint. Thirty-two years have passed since then, and strange it may seem that a boy soldier, that few thought could live, is writing this reminiscence of those two days of carnage. Never shall I forget the morning of that fateful 14th of May, when at early dawn the signal guns told us in tones of thunder that both armies were ready for the work of death. Bright rose the sun, tipping mountain peak with blooming rays of silver and bathing valley and woodland in a flood of golden light, a scene never to be witnessed again by hundreds of the boys who wore the blue and the gray. In the streets of Resaca that day I saw enacted a deed of heroism which challenged the admiration of all who witnessed it. A wagon occupied by several ladies was passing along north of the river and just west of the railroad, when a Yankee battery opened fire on it and, until it had passed over the bridge, poured a storm of shells around it. A young woman stood erect in the wagon waving her hat, which was dressed with red or had a red ribbon or plume on it, seemingly to defy the cowards who would make war on defenceless women. I felt then, as I do to-day, for that woman a man could freely die. Many a rebel boy felt as I did that day. I was taken from the church to a bush-arbor on the west side of the railroad, where I expected to die. A middle-aged woman dressed in black came with nourishment and (God forever bless her) fed me, and during that awful day ministered to the wants of the wounded and dying. If I remember correctly she came often to me with food and drink. Who she was I may never know, but she was a noble woman.”

The fearlessness of the Southern women under cannon and rifle fire mentioned in the above incident was exhibited time and again during the war. The women seemed to have their souls and bodies keyed up for any and all emergencies. There may be something of an explanation in the fact that they belonged to a race of marksmen and expected bullets and cannon balls to hit what they were aimed to hit, and as they didn’t think anybody was trying to kill them, they apprehended no danger.

A WOMAN’S HAIR

[Southern Soldier Stories, pages 82-84.]

About 10 o’clock in the morning the sharpshooters began. Our captain instantly divided us into two squads, and without military formalities said: “Now, boys, ride to the right and left and corner ’em.”

That was the only command we received, but we obeyed it with a will. The two sharpshooting citizens who were there that morning escaped on good horses, but we captured the pickets.

Among them was a woman—a Juno in appearance, with a wealth of raven black hair twisted carelessly into a loose knot under the jockey cap she wore. She was mounted on a superb chestnut mare, and she knew how to ride. She might easily have escaped, and at one time seemed to do so, but at the critical moment she seemed to lose her head and so fell into our hands.

When we brought her to Charlie Irving she was all smiles and graciousness, and Charlie was all blushes.

“You’d hang me to a tree, if I were a man, I suppose,” she said. “And serve me right, too. As I’m only a woman, you’d better send me to General Stuart, instead.”

This seemed so obviously the right way out of it Charlie ordered Ham Seay and me to escort her to Stuart’s headquarters, which were under a tree some miles in the rear.

When we got there Stuart seemed to recognize the young woman. Or perhaps it was only his habitual and constitutional gallantry that made him come forward with every manifestation of welcome, and himself help her off her horse, taking her by the waist for that purpose.

Ham Seay and I, being mere privates, were ordered to another tree. But we could not help seeing that cordial relations were quickly established between our commander and this young woman. We saw her presently take down her magnificent black hair and remove from it some papers. They were not “curl papers,” or that sort of stuffing which women call “rats.” Stuart was a very gallant man, and he received the papers with much fervor. He spread them out carefully on the ground, and seemed to be reading what was written or drawn upon them. Then he talked long and earnestly with the young woman and seemed to be coming to some definite sort of understanding with her. Then she dined with him on some fried salt pork and some hopelessly indigestible fried paste. Then he mounted her on her mare again and summoned Ham Seay and me.

“Escort this young lady back to Captain Irving,” he said. “Tell him to send her to the Federal lines under flag of truce, with the message that she was inadvertently captured in a picket charge, and that as General Stuart does not make war on women and children, he begs to return her to her home and friends.”

We did all this.

The next day, Stuart with a strong force advanced to Mason’s and Munson’s mills. From there we could clearly see a certain house in Washington. It had many windows, and each had a dark Holland shade. When we stood guard we were ordered to observe minutely and report accurately the slidings up and down of those Holland shades. We never knew what three shades up, two half up, and five down might signify. But we had to report it, nevertheless, and Stuart seemed from that time to have an almost preternatural advance perception of the enemy’s movements. That young woman certainly had a superb shock of hair.

A BREACH OF ETIQUETTE

[Eggleston, in Southern Soldier Stories, pages 121-123.]

Finally we went near to Martinsburg, and came upon a farm-house. The farm gave no appearance of being a large one, or one more than ordinarily prosperous, yet we saw through the open door a dozen or fifteen “farm hands” eating dinner, all of them in their shirt-sleeves. Stuart rode up, with a few of us at his back, to make inquiries, and we dismounted. Just then a slip of a girl,—not over 14, I should say—accompanied by a thickset young bull-dog, with an abnormal development of teeth, ran up to meet us.

She distinctly and unmistakably “sicked” that dog upon us. But as the beast assailed us, the young girl ran after him and restrained his ardor by throwing her arms around his neck. As she did so, she kept repeating in a low but very insistent tone to us: “Make ’em put their coats on! Make ’em put their coats on! Make ’em put their coats on!”

Stuart was a peculiarly ready person. He said not one word to the young girl as she led her dog away, but with a word or two he directed a dozen or so of us to follow him with cocked carbines into the dining-room. There he said to the “farm hands:” “Don’t you know that a gentleman never dines without his coat? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? And ladies present, too! Get up and put on your coats, every man jack of you, or I’ll riddle you with bullets in five seconds.”

They sprang first of all into the hallway, where they had left their arms; but either the bull-dog or the 14-year-old girl had taken care of that. The arms were gone. Then seeing the carbines levelled, they made a hasty search of the hiding-places in which they had bestowed their coats. A minute later they appeared as fully uniformed but helplessly unarmed Pennsylvania volunteers.

They were prisoners of war at once, without even an opportunity to finish that good dinner. As we left the house the young girl came up to Stuart and said: “Don’t say anything about it, but the dog wouldn’t have bit you. He knows which side we’re on in this war.”

As we rode away this young girl—she of the bull-dog—cried out: “To think the wretches made us give ’em dinner; and in their shirt-sleeves, too.”

LOLA SANCHEZ’S RIDE

[Women in The War.]

During the war for Southern independence there lived just opposite Palatka, on the east bank of the St. Johns River, Florida, a Cuban gentleman, Mauritia Sanchez by name, who early in life had left the West Indies to seek a home in the State of Florida. Many years had passed since then and Mr. Sanchez was at the time of the following incident an old man, infirm and in wretched health. The family consisted of an invalid wife, one son, who was in the service of the Confederacy, and three daughters, Panchita, Lola, and Eugenia.

Suspicion had long fastened upon Mr. Sanchez as a spy for the Confederates, and at the time of this incident, the old man had been torn from his home and family and was a prisoner in the old Spanish Fort San Marcos (now Fort Marion), at St. Augustine. The girls occupied the old home with their mother and were entirely unprotected. Many times at night their house was surrounded by white and negro soldiers expecting to surprise them and find Confederates about the place, for the Yankees knew some one was giving information, but thought it was Mr. Sanchez. The Southern soldiers were higher up the St. Johns, on the west side. It was usual for the Yankee officers to visit frequently at the Sanchez home, and the girls, for policy, (and information) were cordial in their reception of them, and thereby gained some protection from the thieving soldiery.

One warm summer’s night three Yankee officers came to the Sanchez home to spend the evening. After a short time the three sisters left the officers and went to the dining room to prepare supper. The soldiers, thinking themselves safe, entered into the discussion of a plan to surprise the Confederates on Sunday morning by sending the gunboats up the river, and also by planning that a foraging party should go out from St. Augustine.

On hearing this Lola Sanchez stopped her work and listened. After hearing of the road the foraging party would take and gaining all necessary information, she told Panchita to entertain them until she returned. Stealing softly from the house, she sped to the horse lot, and throwing a saddle on her horse rode for life to the ferry, a mile distant; there the ferryman took her horse, and gave her a boat. She rowed herself across the St. Johns, met one Confederate picket, who knew her and gave her his horse. Out into the night through the woods she rode like the wind to Camp Davis, a mile and a half away. Reaching the camp, she asked for Captain Dickinson, (afterwards General Dickinson) and told him the Yankees were coming up the river Sunday morning and that the troop from St. Augustine would go out foraging in a southerly direction. Then leaving the camp, Lola Sanchez rode for her life indeed. She knew she must not be missed from home. Giving the picket his horse, she recrossed the ferry, then mounting her waiting animal she struck out for home. Dismounting some distance from the house, she turned her horse loose, and reached home in time for supper and pleasantly entertained her guests until a late hour.

That night Captain Dickinson marched his men to intercept the Yankees. He crossed from the west to the east side and surprised them on Sunday. A severe fight ensued. The Yankee General Chatfield was killed and Colonel Nobles wounded and captured. On that same Sunday morning the Yankee gunboats went up the St. Johns to surprise the Confederates. They were very much surprised in turn. The Confederates were ready for them, disabled a gunboat and captured a transport; also many prisoners were taken by the Confederates.

The foraging party lost all their wagons, and everything they had stolen, and again many prisoners were taken, and Captain Dickinson sent for the three sisters to be at the ferry (the one Lola Sanchez crossed) to see the prisoners and wagons that had been taken.

Time and again this daughter of the Confederacy aided and abetted the Southern cause. Some time after a pontoon was captured, and renamed “The Three Sisters” in compliment to these brave young women. The pontoon was coming from Picolata to Orange Mills. Mr. Sanchez still languished in Fort San Marco, however, and Panchita grieved continuously over her father’s unjust incarceration. The old man was truly innocent, his daughters were the informers, but he did not know this. Panchita determined to obtain his release if possible. After some time spent in applying, she got a pass to go through the Yankee lines, and boarding one of their transports, this young woman went alone to St. Augustine, and gained her father’s freedom, taking him with her back to the old homestead.

There is the “Emily Geiger Ride,” and “Lill Servosse’s Ride,” but none more daring than that of Lola Sanchez, the young Floridian of the Southern Confederacy. The U. D. C. should look to it that one chapter at least should be Lola Sanchez Chapter.

Lola Sanchez married Emanuel Lopez, a Confederate soldier of the St. Augustine Blues; Eugenia married Albert Rogers, another soldier of the St. Augustine Blues; Panchita is the widow of the late John R. Miot, of Columbia, S. C. Lola Sanchez died about seven years ago. May the memory of this Southern woman never fade.

These facts were recently related to me by Mrs. Eugenia Rogers, of St. Augustine.

Elizabeth W. Mullings.

THE REBEL SOCK A TRUE EPISODE IN SEWARD’S RAIDS ON THE OLD LADIES OF MARYLAND

By Tenella.

[The Gray Jacket, pages 510-513.]