An old citizen, who had been imprisoned for Union sentiments, was overcome with joy at the sight of our troops. He mounted a great rock by the roadside, and extemporized a speech, in which thanks to the Union army and the Lord curiously intermingled.
Women, with tears in their eyes, told us how anxiously they had waited for the flag; how their houses had been robbed, their husbands hunted, imprisoned, and impressed. Negroes joined extravagantly in the huzzaing, swinging flags as a woodman swings his ax, bending themselves almost double with shouts of laughter, and exclamations of "Hurrah for Mass'r Lincoln!"
Thirteen miles above Charleston, at the head of navigation, we left behind what we grandiloquently called "the fleet." It consisted of exactly four little stern-wheel steamboats.
The people of these mountain regions use the old currency of New England, and talk of "fourpence ha'pennies" and "ninepences."
Our road continued along the river-bank, where the ranges of overhanging hills began to break into regular, densely timbered, pyramidal spurs. The weather was very sultry. How the sun smote us in that close, narrow valley! The accoutrement's of each soldier weighed about thirty pounds, and made a day's march of twenty miles an arduous task.
A Woman in Disguise.
A private who had served in the First Kentucky Infantry[13] for three months, proved to be of the wrong sex. She performed camp duties with great fortitude, and never fell out of the ranks during the severest marches. She was small in stature, and kept her coat buttoned to her chin. She first excited suspicion by her feminine method of putting on her stockings; and when handed over to the surgeon proved to be a woman, about twenty years old. She was discharged from the regiment, but sent to Columbus upon suspicion, excited by some of her remarks, that she was a spy of the Rebels.
Extravagant Joy of the Negroes.
At Cannelton, a hundred slaves were employed in the coal-oil works—two long, begrimed, dilapidated buildings, with a few wretched houses hard by. Nobody was visible, except the negroes. When I asked one of them—"Where are all the white people?" he replied, with a broad grin—
"Done gone, mass'r."