FALSE TEETH
[In Richmond During the War, pages 165-166.]
In connection with the battle of the Cross Keys, we are just here reminded of an amusing stratagem of a rebel lady to conceal her age and charms from the enemy, who held possession of her house. She says: “Mr. K., you know, was compelled to evacuate his premises when the Federals took possession, and succeeding in making good their escape, left me here, with my three children, to encounter the consequences of their intrusion upon my premises. Not wishing to appear quite as youthful as I really am, and desiring to destroy, if possible, any remains of my former beauty, I took from my mouth a set of false teeth, (which I was compelled to have put in before I was 20 years old,) tied a handkerchief around my head, donned my most sloven apparel, and in every way made myself as hideous as possible. The disguise was perfect. I was sullen, morose, sententious. You could not have believed I could so long have kept up a manner so disagreeable; but it had the desired effect. The Yankees called me ‘old woman.’ They took little thought I was not 30 years of age. They took my house for a hospital for their sick and wounded, and allowed me only the use of a single room, and required of me many acts of assistance in nursing their men, which under any circumstances my own heart-promptings would have made a pleasure to me. But I did not feel disposed to be compelled to prepare food for those who had driven from me my husband, and afterwards robbed me of all my food and bed-furniture, with the exception of what they allowed me to have in my room. But they were not insulting in their language to the ‘old woman,’ and I endured all the inconveniences and unhappiness of my situation with as much fortitude as I could bring into operation, feeling that my dear husband, at least, was safe from harm. After they left,” she continued, “I was forced to go into the woods, near by, and with my two little boys pick up fagots to cook the scanty food left to me.” This is the story of one of the most luxuriously 213 reared women of Virginia, and is scarcely the faintest shadow of what many endured under similar circumstances.