The Women of the Confederacy by J. L. Underwood

Author:J. L. Underwood [Underwood, J. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781456455408
Google: x7ZIAQAAMAAJ
Publisher: Neale publishing Company
Published: 1906-01-15T00:23:07+00:00

163

REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR TIMES—A LETTER

Table of Contents

[B. Winston, in Confederate Scrap-Book.]

Signal Hill, February 27th.

My Dear ——:

Your very kind letter received. I delayed perhaps too long replying. I have hunted up a few little things. We are so unfortunate as to have nearly all our war relics burnt in an outhouse, so I have little left unless I took what I remember. We were left so bare of everything at that time. Our only pokers and tongs were pokers and ramrods; old canteens came into domestic service; we made our shoes of parts of old canvas tents, and blackened them with elderberry juice (the only ink we could command was elderberry juice); we plaited our hats of straw (I have a straw-splinter now, for which I gave $13; it did good service); the inside corn-shuck made dainty bonnets; sycamore balls, saturated with grease, made excellent tapers, though nothing superseded the time-honored lightwood knots.

The Confederate army was camped around us for months together. We often had brilliant assemblages of officers. On one occasion, when all went merry as a marriage-bell, and uniformed officers and lovely girls wound in and out in the dance, a sudden stillness fell—few words, sudden departures. The enemy were in full force, trying to effect a crossing at a strategic point. We were left at daybreak in the Federal camp, a sharp engagement around us—the beginning of the seven days’ fight around Richmond. It was a bright, warm day in May. An unusual stillness brooded over everything. A few officers came and went, looking grave and important. In a short time, from a dense body of pines near us, curled the blue smoke, and volley after volley of musketry succeeded in sharp succession, the sharp, shrill scream of flying shells falling in the soft green of the growing wheat. Not long, and each opposing army emerged from ambush and stood in the battle’s awful array. Our own forces (mostly North Carolinians) fell back into a railroad cut. The tide of battle swept past us, but the day was lost to us. At evening they brought our dead 164 and wounded and made a hospital of our house. Then came the amputating surgeon to finish what the bullet had failed to do. Arms and legs lay in a promiscuous heap on our back piazza.

On another occasion I saw a sudden surprise in front of our house. A regiment of soldiers, under General Rosser’s command, were camped around us. It was high, blazing noon. The soldiers, suspecting nothing, were in undress, lying down under every available shadow, when a sudden volley and shout made every man spring to his feet. The enemy were all around them, and panic was amongst our men; they were running, but as they rose a little knoll every man turned, formed, and fired. I saw some poor fellows fall.

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