A Yankee Girl at Antietam

by Alice Turner Curtis

Roxy was glad to rest in the scanty shade of the little oak tree. Sitting there she could look over the peaceful countryside and the quiet Antietam as it flowed under its arched bridges and made its way to the Potomac.

Turning her glance to the highway she could see the road like a gray ribbon in the distance, and realized that no horsemen could approach without her seeing them when they were yet miles distant, and Roxy smiled happily to think how well she was carrying out her plan.

But after she had rested from her scramble up the ledge, she began to look about for something to amuse her, and to realize that an entire day by herself on the top of this ledge was a very long time. She wished that she had brought the big rag doll, “Dinah,” that she had had ever since she could remember, for company; and she wondered what little Indian girls did for toys.

“I’ll bring Dinah to-morrow,” she resolved, and just then a gray squirrel poked his head over a near-by rock and fixed his bright, startled glance on Roxy, and an instant later another gray head appeared beside the first squirrel and they watched her for a brief moment and then vanished.

“Oh!” Roxy whispered softly, and noiselessly opening her lunch basket she drew out a fat molasses cooky dotted with raisins and tiny nuts, and breaking off little bits she threw them toward the place where the squirrels had appeared, and it was not long before the little creatures again ventured out and seized upon these unexpected dainties.

Very softly Roxy began to speak to them, at the same time tossing bits of the cooky in their direction.

“You must be Confederates because you wear gray clothes,” she said. “Lee and Jackson, I’ll call you, because Father says they are as brave as any Yankee soldier, and you are brave to come so near,” and Roxy held the last crumbs of the cooky in her outstretched hand tempting her new friends.

All the morning she found amusement in watching the squirrels and trying to make friends with them, although she did not forget to keep a sharp outlook toward the distant road; and when she saw the sun in mid-heaven she ate a part of the contents of her lunch basket, and again fed the squirrels with scraps of food, and was delighted when one of them boldly perched himself on her foot.

This first day that Roxy spent on the pasture ledge was September 6th, 1862, the very day on which the Confederates, under General Jackson, made their entry into the town of Frederick, Maryland. They had expected to be welcomed, but they were disappointed in this.

Jackson’s army of shoeless soldiers clad in tattered uniforms were not received as “liberators,” as Lee had expected. There was but little secessionist element in Western Maryland; and loyal women in Frederick dared to throw out the flag of the Union from their windows. McClellan’s army was marching to meet the invading foe, and a few days later the Confederates left Frederick, moving westward beyond the mountains, and McClellan’s troops riding into town on a bright Sunday morning were warmly welcomed.