Page 128 - Arkansas Confederate Women

Narrow Escape From Federal Prison 111

English, where she was guarded until, by the repeated efforts

of those chivalric and patriotic friends, she was released and

after repeated efforts had been made to administer to her the

Myoath of allegiance. sisters and brothers were all kindly

cared for by friends in Benton, after the home was burned,

until her release.

It would take pages to tell all of our experiences during

that sad war. Memory takes me back to those days, moves me,

possesses me until I again live in the days that are dead. I

hear again the murmur of Saline river and the low roll of

drums from the surrounding forest, where camps of infantry

and cavalry are aroused' by the "reveille." In the breeze I

seem to hear the bugles, and thundering roar of artillery as we

breathlessly wait for news of our loved ones. At Shiloh I see

again our loved ones who used to wear the gray and march under

the red flag of the South to die on a couch of blood, and whose

only requiem was the swell and moan of the autumnal winds,

whose shroud only the variegated autumn leaves. I hear again

—like the burst of thunder "Old Tige is advancing" a quick

throb of the heart and exclamation of joy as we clasp our arms

about a phantom form. Alas ! to find that it was only a dream.

On a cold winter day, when Lee's army was marching

through one of the lower sections of Virginia, some of the vet-
erans were completely barefooted, and the Sixth Georgia regi-

ment was passing. A plain country woman was standing in the

group by the road side. "Lord, a mercy," she said, "there's a
poor soldier ain't got no shoes," and off came her's in a jiffy

and she ordered her negro woman standing by to give hers up,
too. The good woman wore number threes, and the soldier who
got them was Jake Quarles, of Company B, Dade county, Geor-
gia, who wore number twelves.