Page 147 - Arkansas Confederate Women

128 Confederate Women of Arkansas

alarming tocsin of war. Our beautiful homes resting on the

peaceful landscape like children in the sheltered havens of a

well appointed nursery dreamed not of danger or wreckage. At

sunset that cold winter day the hurried message came. Smith

and Wallace's army, 5,000 strong, are marching through from

Mayfield to Fort Donaldson on Tennessee river. They are

sweeping everything in their course. We had scarcely heard the

news, when the shrill bugle call and the drum's thunderous

alarm confirmed the truth. With fire and sword they came.

Leisurely they passed on taking everything that could be con-

sumed or destroyed. In four days and nights, (the terror of

which will never be forgotten) they had swept like a cyclone

out beautiful country. My own loved home, magnificent in

proportions and restful as a dream of Eden was literally devast-

ated. Our negro houses with their entire contents were burned

to the ground turning the poor creatures out in the deluge of

rain and sleet with nothing but their usual wearing apparel.

The dwelling was wrecked, my aged parents and myself were

left shelterless and bedless. Not a living animal or fowl, or

morsel of food of the bountiful year's provisions laid in was

Aleft, when Smith and Wallace's army had gone. girl of

eighteen summers untouched by any rough wind or torrid sun,

the petted child of luxury, filled with high and holy ambitions,

in this brief space found herself without resource, yet, the

caretaker of her aged and afflicted parents and the supervisor of

a multitude of dependent negroes who had never known a want

of comfort nor ever felt a responsibility. God only knows how'

we lived through it! Gen. Lew Wallace would have to write
many "Ben Hurs," many tales founded upon the Christ, be-
fore my deadened sense of his goodness would be resuscitated.

My experience is only a prototype of many others in dear old

Kentucky, which was unfortunately the foraging ground for

both armies. In July, 1863, a skirmish between Confederate

and Federal cavalry occurred at Lashers, a church near my

home. Col. Hawkins commanding five hundred Federal cav-

alry, stopping at the noon hour, had placed his pickets and they

were resting nicely. When Capt. Ward, who with a small squad

of men dashed from a thick covert of woods through their lines