GENERAL GRANT’S KINDNESS.
ONE morning during the war, coming down on the packet boat that plied between Cairo, Ill., and Columbus, Ky., I noticed a woman weeping as though her heart would break. Her calico dress and coarse blanket-shawl betokened abject poverty, and her face was hidden; and she sobbed out her anguish in a coarse bandanna handkerchief.
Laying my hand gently on her shoulder, I said,—
“My dear woman, what is the matter?”
“It’s my boy I’m crying about; he’s awful sick down in Tennessee, and he has writ for me to come down an’ nus him up, but the men as keeps the passes at Cairo says I can’t go.
“They say there’s plenty to take care uv my boy, and maybe there is; but I reckon that his muther what took care uv him when he was a baby could do it better nor any of them.
“My boy wus a very smart boy. You never seen a smarter boy nor a better boy than mine wuz. Well, if they won’t let me go down on the railroad I reckon I can walk. My boy’s sick an’ I’m bound to go. They tried to skeer me by tellin’ me the guards would arrest me if I tried to get through the lines. But I can dodge the guards, an’ creep under the lines. Anyway, I s’pose them guards ar’ human cre’turs, an’ if I tell ’em my boy is a solger, an’ awful sick, an’ wants his mother to come down an’ nus him, they’ll let me go through.”
“Have you his letter with you?”
“Yes, I have.”
And out of the depth of a capacious pocket she drew forth a package, and carefully unrolling it, she handed me a letter. It was short, but full of tender pathos. The boy was sick and homesick, and wanted his mother. Among other things, he said:—
“You could nus me better than the boys. I hain’t got no apertite and can’t eat nothin’; the boys hain’t much on cookin’, but you could cook something that I could eat, and maybe I’d get well.”
Satisfied that she was a true woman, and not a spy, I said:—
“General Grant, the highest officer in the army, is on this boat. He can give you a pass; he was sitting here by this table a few minutes ago; as he has left his paper and writing material there, he will no doubt return in a few minutes. Go to him and show him your boy’s letter, and ask him for a pass. He will give it to you.”
She was almost dismayed at the thought of speaking to such a great man. When the General came in and took a seat at the table, I whispered to her,—
“Now go,—don’t be afraid.”
The meeting of the two was a picture for an artist.
With sun-bonnet pushed back, and her coarse shawl drawn closely about her, she timidly approached him, holding out the letter.
General Grant looked up kindly.
“Are you Gineral Grant?” she questioned.
“Yes.”
“Well, my boy’s awful sick down in Tennessee, an’ he’s writ me this letter to cum an’ nus him up; but them men at Cairo what gives passes said I might be a spy, and they wouldn’t give me a pass.
“But, Gineral, I hain’t no spy; I’m a good Union woman as ever lived; and there’s a lady here as allowed that if I’d ask you maybe you’d give me a pass.”
In the meantime, General Grant had looked over the letter and scrutinized the woman, and handing the letter back to her, he said, “Yes, I’ll give you a pass; what is your name?”
The woman gave her name; but she was so delighted that she talked all the while he was writing the pass:—
“It’s awful unhandy for me to leave home now, cos I hain’t nobody to take care of nothing. Bill Spence’s wife, she agreed to milk the cow, but I had a beautiful pig, and I had to turn that out to root for itself, and I’m awful feared that it will get lost while I’m gone. But I told Mis’ Spence that I’d ruther risk the pig than to risk my boy, for he’s an awful good boy, Gineral.”
“This pass will take you down and bring you back,” said General Grant, handing her the precious document.
“How much do you s’pose it’ll cost me to go down?”
“It will cost you nothing, madam; the pass will take you free.”
“Don’t they charge nuthen on them roads?”
“They will not charge you. A mother who has given her son to the government, the government can afford to carry free.”
Just then I got her attention and beckoned her away.
“I’m very much obliged to you, Gineral,” she said, and made an old-fashioned courtesy.
Years afterward, while he was an occupant of the White House, and I was there on a friendly visit, I reminded him of the circumstance, which he had almost forgotten, and expressed the hope that the boy had recovered, and that she had found her pig on her return. He smiled, and said,—
“I always let the mothers pass if their boys were sick, and they seemed to be good loyal women.”
I had noticed that General Grant did not judge by appearance or dress. Often the lady in her silks was turned back, while a woman arrayed in calico would go through the lines.