THE WOMEN OF NEW ORLEANS AND VICKSBURG PRISONERS
[By J. L. Underwood.]
General Pemberton’s army at Vicksburg surrendered on the 4th of July, 1863. According to the liberal terms, the thirty thousand Confederates were paroled and allowed to march to their homes across the country. It was about a month before the sick and wounded could be removed. They were sent on Federal transports down the Mississippi River by the way of New Orleans and thence across the Gulf of Mexico by Fort Morgan to Mobile.
The first boatload consisted of the sick in the hospital, which was under the charge of Dr. Richard Whitfield, of Alabama. I went to Vicksburg as sergeant major of the Twentieth Alabama Regiment, but, at the request of the Thirtieth Alabama, had been commissioned captain and appointed chaplain of that command a few months before the surrender. On the very evening of the surrender I was taken very sick and for some days lay at the point 145 of death. Under the kind nursing of friends in Vicksburg, and by the good medicines provided by the noble Chaplain Porter, of Illinois, of the Federal army, I began to rally in time to be moved to Dr. Whitfield’s hospital and be put aboard the first boat for home. By the time we reached New Orleans I had nearly recovered my usual strength. At New Orleans we were transferred to a gulf steamer, which lay at the wharf for nearly two days. Soon after our arrival it looked as if the whole population of the Crescent City had crowded down to look at us and they stood there all day to comfort us with their smiles during our stay.
General Banks allowed Dr. Stone and five other physicians to come on our steamer and look after the sick, to furnish coffins for the dead and remove them for burial. No other citizens could pass the sentinels or a rope guard extending about thirty yards from the boat. A detail of Federal soldiers kept all our private Confederates on the boat. There were only three or four Confederate officers and we were allowed full liberty to go to the guard line and talk to the citizens. Very soon the people began to bring such supplies and refreshments as General Banks would allow, and they literally loaded the steamer with all sorts of good things, from hams and pickles down to fans, pipes, and tobacco. Every soldier had enough for his wants and as much as he could take home. Dr. Stone told me that General Banks would not allow his people to do half of what they were anxious to do. He said the people wanted to keep us a while and clothe us in new outfits.
I must just here put on record one of the most touching instances of soldierly generosity and kindness that ever occurred in war. Lieutenant Winslow, of Massachusetts, was in command of the Federal guard on our steamer, and Captain —— in charge of the guard on the wharf. These two gallant young Federal officers, although in full dress uniform, worked like beavers all day under a hot sun, in assisting me to get the refreshments and provisions from the hands of the ladies or 146 servants at the guard line and take them to the boat, there to be handed to our men. The good women thought, of course, we had wounded men among us, but there was not one. An amazing quantity of lint and bandages was sent aboard. In the linen furnished for this purpose were whole garments of the finest fibre of female underwear, most of it all bright and new. Many a rusty Vicksburg soldier that night decked himself in a fine nightrobe with amazingly short sleeves, and many a soldier’s wife accepted for her own use the dainty peace-offering when we reached home. None of these good people, men nor women, were allowed to cheer us. All that they could do was to give us sympathy by their presence and their smiles. I saw the police or the soldiers arrest man after man for some disloyal utterance.
The day we left the throng of beautiful women seemed to extend up and down the levee as far as the eye could reach. As the boat pushed off for Mobile our poor fellows crowded the deck and the excitement on shore grew intense. Neither side could cheer and the tension was painful. Finally the awfully trying stillness was broken by the waving of a little white handkerchief, in a fair woman’s hand.
In a moment thousands of others were to be seen, silently telling us “Good-bye and God bless you.” In a few moments we could see excitement in every face, and presently a little tender woman’s voice screamed out “Hurrah! hurrah!” and then a thousand sweet throats took up the shout. That “Hurrah” from Southern women and those handkerchiefs waved under the point of hostile bayonets told with pathos of a world of patriotism in the breasts of those noble women. We old Confederates were overcome. One grim old North Carolinian, standing by my side, with Federal guards all around us, and the tears streaming down his sun-hardened cheeks, cried out at the top of his voice: “Men, they may kill me, but I tell you I am willing to die a hundred times for such women as them.” We all felt so, and the living veterans feel that way yet.