THE TISHOMINGO HOTEL. MY SCHOOL AND OTHER INCIDENTS
THE scene changes. We were now ordered to turn. We “moved” in an ambulance, my father being taken on a cot, and were given quarters in the Tishomingo Hotel. The old Tishomingo House! Can I ever forget it? The historic, dilapidated old hotel through which a cannon ball passed during the progress of battle. We were given a large, cheerless room in the second story; the floor was bare, the four large windows were each guiltless of blind or curtain.
Our bed consisted of two cots placed together, with an army blanket to each for covering. The nights were cold, and we would have suffered had not my mother arisen through the night and replenished the fire. There was a large stove in the room and we had a plentiful supply of wood. The hotel was used as a hospital, although it was not full at this time, there being a number of vacant rooms. I remember but one nurse here, a Miss Johnson. We were great friends, and I spent as much time in her room as in our own. I frequently took walks with her about town. I went with her one morning to call on Dr. Norman Gay and family, of Columbus, O., who had roomed for a time at the hotel, but who afterward rented furnished rooms in a private house in another part of the town. On our way we passed the Iuka House and several sutlers’ stores. I had not been long in the Tishomingo House until I made the acquaintance of the cook, a curly-headed young fellow whose name was John Storms, of Ohio.
Part of the time we took our meals in the dining room with the doctors and officers. By “we” I mean my mother and myself; my father not being able to leave the room his meals were carried to him. At other times we all took our meals in our own room. Those who ate in the dining-room were: Dr. Gay, wife and son, Dr. Spicer, Dr. Huntington, Captain Pemberton, Chaplain Estabrook, Miss Johnson, ourselves and many others, comers and goers, whose names I can not now recall.
Across the railroad and directly opposite the hotel was another encampment, and reveille and lights out were again daily and nightly sounds. Gen. Hunter had his headquarters in a large white house not far away, and night after night I have sat on the upper porch listening entranced to the regimental band, as it played Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner, Red, White and Blue, Rally round the Flag, and America. Each night this band would play from dark until bedtime, and I could not be induced to leave my post until the last note died away in silence. Many events come to my mind as I write of this time. One day a man was brought in who had been accidentally shot through both thighs. While sitting on the floor of a box car a jolt dislodged a musket from where it was standing. As it fell, it was discharged, and the man being in direct range, the ball passed through both limbs. Amputation was decided upon as a forlorn hope of saving his life. Not knowing the time fixed upon for the operation, I passed down the stairway leading through the Medical Director’s room, which was also the operating room, and there, on the operating table, under the influence of chloroform, white and lifeless-looking, surrounded by the doctors, lay the poor fellow undergoing the awful ordeal of having both legs taken off. Sick at heart, I hurried on and delayed my return until I felt sure the operation was well over with. But alas! the hope of saving his life was a vain one, as he died a few days later.
While here we one day received a visit from our old friend Frank Williams, of the Seminary Hospital.
He came to tell us goodby, as he expected to leave with Mother Bickerdyke in a few days for La Grange, Mississippi.
A few days later he sent a friend to have my picture taken at the little gallery built up against one end of the hotel, and authorized him to spare no expense in securing it. Photography was not then the fine art it is today and this picture was an excellent sample of the old time ambrotype and was placed in the handsomest case the establishment afforded at a cost of $4.00. By this time the agent of my friend had fallen in love with me, and wished a picture for himself, which with the consent of my parents, he secured at a cost of $2.50. Some months later both these pictures were given my father at Memphis, but were one night stolen from his tent with all the contents of his satchel.
Should the thief ever see these lines, repent, and return the pictures, he will receive my full and free forgiveness and everlasting gratitude.
I never saw my old friend after the day he called to bid us goodby, but received several letters from him after returning home, and then all knowledge of him ceased. He has doubtless passed into the Great Beyond long ago.
There were a great many refugees or contrabands in Corinth. President Lincoln’s proclamation of Emancipation had not yet been issued; yet the slaves were practically free. Some of them had quarters near the hotel. Among them was a quaint old couple known as Uncle Sandy and Aunt Katy with whom we became well acquainted. Aunt Katy did washing for us and was frequently in our room.
My mother bought a large piece of homespun cotton cloth of her such as was used by the slave women for dresses and aprons. After Aunt Katy had tasted of freedom, she thought “Massa Linkum” a grand man, and the best friend the slave had.
My mother one day asked her what she thought the “Yankees” looked like before she saw them. “Well, hunny,” said she, “I thought they was some kind of wild animals with ho’ns on their heads and they would eat me up,” and then she laughed until her fat sides shook as she realized what kind of an animal the Yankee really was.
Uncle Sandy told us that when he first entered within the Union lines he ate so much he became very sick and thought he was going to die, and that the only reason he hated to die was because he could never eat any more.
From among the children of the refugees I organized and taught a school on the upper veranda of the Tishomingo, which was situated at the crossing of the Memphis & Charleston and the Mobile & Ohio railroads. The pupils were all girls, some older and some younger than myself, and so far as I have ever been able to learn to the contrary, this was the first crude, little contraband school organized in the great state of Mississippi, and humble though it was, I feel very proud of my share in it. I taught them the alphabet, and how to make a few figures. Our text books were the heads of newspapers, and cards with figures numbering the rooms, which we tore off the doors. Many trains passed our open air schoolroom daily, and each whistle that pierced the air was a signal to suspend lessons, and teacher and pupils alike would scramble to the front, and leaning far over the rotten railing, would wave and cheer at the blue-coated soldiers being borne onward to victory or defeat, life or death, God alone knew.
But the time came all too soon when the Tishomingo House was ordered evacuated, as it was to be again used for hotel purposes. We received instructions to go to Jackson, Tennessee, sixty miles north, and one sunny Sabbath morn we boarded the train for that place, and it was many a day before I ceased to regret my dusky pupils and playmates.
It was with sad hearts we left Corinth. We had been here so long it had become like home to us, and we were much attached to the place, the nurses, and our soldier friends. But the fortunes of war are many and varied, and there is no sure abiding place in the army.