Page 67 - Arkansas Confederate Women

60 Confederate Women of Arkansas

ter, Miss Lally, afterwards Mrs. Leonard Cotton, Miss Pender-
grass, now Mrs. Berry, Misses Harrington and Hoovis, and Miss
Ferguson of Pope county; whether or not these three last are
living, or whether married or single I know not.

The Hart home was known as Confederate headquarters,
and one dark night, word was received that the Federals were
coming. There being no other way to warn the small Confederate
command of their approach, Miss Lally Hart, a young girl of

seventeen, rode through the midnight woods, three or four miles,
alone, to give the alarm.

Mrs. Hart, whose mind is wonderfully clear and alert, told
of her many experiences, some humorous, as when she became a

sort of peripatetic postoffice, using her hose, already fulfilling

their lawful function, as mailbags, many otherwise, as when she
rode horse-back many perilous miles, with the fear of death in

her heart, to carry relief, in the shape of a sack of meal, to a

starving family. On one occasion, she accompanied the ox wagon,

driven by one of her faithful negroes, ten or twelve miles with a
load of corn and wheat to be ground at Wood's mill. Part of
the load belonged to neighbors, and she hoped by her presence

to protect it from thieves. The wheat had been ground and
sacked, and was in the upper story of the mill. While the corn
was being ground, the Federals rode up to the mill, and imme-
diately confiscated the meal. In vain the lady pleaded for at
least a portion of it, to take back to her neighbors who had con-
fided the corn to her care. Not one peck would they allow her.
So off they went with the entire amount, including the miller's

toll, "but," she added, with a little chuckle of satisfaction, in

telling me of it, a few days ago, "they didn't know a thing about
the flour upstairs, and you may be sure I didn't tell them."

In an old scrap book belonging to Mrs. Dora Shinn, nee
Lemoyne, I find the following taken from "The Pocahontas Her-

ald :"

"Miss Williams, a daughter of Isaac Williams, living in
Black River swamp, about seven miles from this place, heard
the report that troops were approaching this place .on Sunday