Page 66 - Arkansas Confederate Women

BLOODY WORK OF BUSHWHACKERS IN YELL

COUNTY AND NEAR POCAHONTAS.

By Mrs. L. C. Hall, of Dardanelle.

Situated between two armies and being frequently overrun
by the raiding and scouting parties of each, Yell county suffered

much from the horrors of war; but worse than either Federal or

Confederate troops, were the depredations and atrocities of bands
of marauders belonging to neither side, known as bushwhackers
or jawhawkers, who preyed impartially on secessionist and

unionist alike.

From Mrs. Hart, an aged lady now well on between eighty
and ninety years of age. and her daughter, Mrs. McCray and Miss
Lizzie Hart, I heard many incidents of those perilous times, in
which they were active. All men able to bear arms were in the
field, only the aged and infirm, and the very young boys being
left at home as protectors. Many of these were murdered in cold

blood by the bushwhackers and at times it was necessary to pre-
serve their lives, or that they hide from these lawless bands,
whose watchword seemed to be "Kill ! Kill ! Kill !" and whose
lust for blood seemed well nigh insatiable.

During one of these seasons of special peril, a young man
named Underwood, belonging to Capt. HollswelFs command,
was fatally wounded by Jake Graves, a bushwhacker. Under

cover of night, he was carried on a stretcher several miles to the
banks of Harris Creek, at <a point near the Hart home, where
he was placed in a tent, concealed by the heavy woods and under-
growth. Here he was nursed, night and day, by six heroic girls,
two at a time, for several days until death relieved him of his

sufferings. His grave was made on the spot where he died, and
he was buried by three old men, Messrs. Toomer, Harrington,
and Pendergrass. They dared not mark his grave, but concealed
it as well as they could, being 'assisted by these six young heroines,
his faithful nurses, Mrs. McCray, then Miss Anne Hart, her sis-