Page 56 - Arkansas Confederate Women

RECOLLECTIONS OF MRS. M. C. HINES,
OF CAMDEN.

When I look back through the lapse of some forty-odd years,

back through the dark days that looked then like ruin and disas-

ter, back through the days of pilfering and plundering, back
through the events of the bloody, unjust strife, when this South-

land was filled with guerrillas, jayhawkers, carpetbaggers

and bloodsucking vampires, I feel almost appalled at the

circumstances and conditions existing in those passing events

of that just and nobly fought cause. I am seventy-four years

my Myold and can't say that I feel health is fairly
infirmities.

good. My hearing and eyesight is almost as good as it was thirty
years ago. I enjoy life yet, enjoy church going and visiting my

neighbors. My scope in this life has been one of broad meas-

ure, and when I view the lost cause in its original latitude and

longitude "so to speak," I feel that I won as great a battle as
any, or almost any of the sons of our Southland. Being deprived
of the care, comfort and support of my husband, whose name

was Wm. Lafayette Hines, who died in July, 1863, being left

with three little children to care for, to be mother and father

too, I kept my vigil as does the good angels on the death watch
of an infant child. I lost my home, which in its true sense means
a great deal. Lost my kindred relatives and friends, lost every-
thing, but clung to my little ones. I was mother, wife and land-

lord; had to chop wood, make fires, cook, plow, hoe, card, spin

and weave, running the whole gauntlet, filling all the life's
offices, dreading nightfall with all its hideous affliction, and I

almost feel the chilly sensations yet. Expecting to be disturbed
by some prowling marauder or listening for the clatter of some
Yankee's horses feet or probably listening to the welcome "hoo

hoo" of a friendly owl; singing a cradle lullaby to my children
until tired and worn out. When I would lay me down to sleep,

knowing not whether I would wake or be murdered or burned

alive. It was about this wise that I spent that never-to-be-for-

gotten period which is as fresh in my memory today as the living

sun.