Page 171 - Arkansas Confederate Women

SUFFERINGS OF ELLIS FAMILY AT BAILY

SPRINGS, ALA.

By Mrs. Cora Williamson Rodgers, of Nashville.

My grandfather, Albert Gallatin Ellis, a proud son of Vir-
ginia, and my grandmother, Mary Llewellyn Hewlott Ellis,

owned and resided at Bailey Springs, Ala., a summer resort,
nine miles from Florence, a thriving town. Their son, William

P., a lad at college, two daughters, Virginia and Mattie, and a

Mygrandson, six or seven years old, comprised the family.

grandfather being too old for active military service and feeble
in health, besides, could be at home very little on account of
the villainous tories, who persecuted him.1 and all other repu-

table Southerners. When the Yankee invaders came they soon

decided that Bailey Springs with its ample buildings and
grounds was an ideal place for winter quarters and rendezvous
generally. Here they would camp for months at a time.

The officers were usually well behaved, though the privates
were thieving, impudent and often tyrannical, plundering and
pillaging everything that could be found. The cattle, farm
stock and sometimes the slaves were sent some distance across
Shoal Creek for safe keeping. The supplies, hogshead of sugar,
molasses, etc., were rolled under the house, which was high at
one end and then covered with brush and rubbish.

The jewelry, silver and such valuables were hid numbers of
times and at last, Jennie, the daughter, a nervous girl, hur-
riedly buried the jewelry on approach of the Yankees and in her
fright could never remember where. It was never found unless

the raiders got it.

A large number of faithful slaves, houses, land and stock,

were to be looked after and cared for. Grandmother and her
daughters managed all this, besides always finding time to sew,
knit and look after our "dear boys in gray," of which they

never tired. Many a wounded soldier sick and discouraged

found succor under their hospitable roof, and was sent away