Page 117 - Arkansas Confederate Women

102 Confederate Women" of Arkansas

few words of advice from my husband to persuade my mother,

then a widow, her husband having died in the army in Missis-
sippi/ at Corinth, to send all of her negroes who would go
willingly with wagons and horses with myself and children to

Texas.

We started within a few hours with the most valuable of

our possessions. The scout of fifteen men met Lieut. James just

—off the old military road from Little Eock to Eockport on a
—circuitous one leading to the Magnet Cove, about seven miles

from old Eockport. We were so heavily loaded it took us a day
and a half to get there. We camped out' one night and often

during the night thought we heard the sound of whispering
voices and horses' feet, and as often Lieut. James went with his
men to reconnoiter but found it was only the whispering wind
or the cautious step of some wild animal. It was about sun-
down when we reached the Magnet Cove, a lonesome, isolated

place, where already the hooting of the owl and scream of the
wild beast could be heard, echoing through the dense forest that
surrounded it. Only one house could be seen, that of S. Cloud,

who married a half sister of my father. To this house we
drove up and after greetings with my aunt heard from her

the astuonding news that the Federal soldiers were all around
us hunting forage and horses and Confederates, too. It took
Lieut. James only a few minutes to bid us good-bye and gallop

down the lane to where his men had pitched tents for the night.
As I watched his form die away in the' gathering gloom I

felt that life was indeed a hard problem, and that fate had de-
creed a dark future for me, yet but a child of sixteen years who
had always been shielded from all of life's responsibilities and

wants. As I stood there thinking of my husband, brother and

relatives, for all I had were in the Confederate service, great

tears fell from my eyes to the ground. While I thus stood a

party of about 35 Federals, the first I had ever seen, came dash-
ing down the road in the direction of Eockport, and rode up
to the gate where I yet stood. With white face and nervous
voice I answered their first question (telling a falsehood point
blank). I said there had been no rebels around there. Fortu-