Page 29 - Arkansas Confederate Women

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF 1863.

By Mrs. Emily 8. Reed, of Batesville.

After a lapse of more than forty years, events that happened
so long ago must have been of a very startling nature to retain
still a vivid place in memory. It has been said, that there

are three things that leave ineffaceable impressions, excessive

joy, grief and fright; and the last certainly did for awhile
prevail over all other feelings on the occasion I now recall.

The winter of eighteen hundred and sixty-three was unus-
ually severe at Batesville, Ark., and people were in no condition
to face the hardships and privations that steadily grew worse,
as first one army and then the other held this country. They
consumed what little was raised on the farms by women and
small boys, (all able-bodied men being in the army), and the
question of daily rations for the family was growing to be a
very serious one. I have known girls to ride horseback ten
and often twenty miles to get a peck of meal and a few pounds
of flour, and they considered themselves lucky indeed to find a
little dried fruit. Early in February, I forget the exact date,
the weather grew much colder, and ended in a heavy snow,
which added greatly to the discomfort already prevailing.

GERMAN FEDERAL RAIDERS SUDDENLY APPEAR.

One of my brothers- was at home sick in bed. One even-
ing, mother, my younger brothers and myself were in the sit-
ting room with him, when mother asked me to go out in the

dining room and get a glass of water to mix some medicine.
To reach the dining room, I had to go down two steps on the
back porch on which both it and the kitchen opened. I went
through the door of the former, got the glass and water, and
turned to go back when happening to glance toward the window,

I saw what literally paralyzed me with fright, and instant death

seemed before me, for there at the window were crowded a lot
of hideous, grinning "feds," jabbering in Dutch and pointing at