A Yankee Girl at Antietam

by Alice Turner Curtis

“No use, Miss Yankee girl; we’d catch you,” he said, and at this Roxy began to be really frightened, and to feel herself a prisoner.

The men paid no further attention to her, lighting their pipes, and talking eagerly of the movements of Confederate troops. Roxy heard them say that General Jackson was moving toward Harper’s Ferry, where he would drive the Yanks from the place and move on to Hagerstown. And this was really accomplished on the following day, as McClellan’s troops did not arrive in time to prevent the surrender of the Union garrison of eleven thousand men who became prisoners of war of the Confederates.

Once again the soldiers turned to Roxy and endeavored to persuade her to tell to whom she signalled, and why; but the little girl kept silent. One of the men threatened that they would take her so far from home that she would never find her way back, and at this Roxy’s eyes filled with tears; but she remembered the Yankee soldier boy, and what he had said of prison, and again she resolved that she must not let these men discover that her father was a Union soldier or they would surely take him prisoner.

At last one of the men declared that he did not believe Roxy really knew anything of the real meaning of her signals. “And if she does, we’ve stopped it. Whoever put her there knows by this time that we’ve been on the watch. It’s getting late. I’ll take the girl over to that cabin in the field and tell them to keep her until morning and then carry her back to the second bridge above here; she can see the ledge from there and find her way home. We must move on,” he said, and the man who had brought Roxy now led her across a shadowy field to a tumble-down cabin where an evidently frightened negro woman opened the sagging door, and promised to take care of the little girl and to obey the directions of the soldier.

“Good-bye, Miss Yankee girl,” the man said as he turned to go. “Reckon I’ve put a stop to any good your signals could do. Do you hear that?” And Roxy heard a dull booming sound, the echo of far-off artillery; the little girl did not know this, but the soldier knew it was the far-off guns of an attacking army, and with another warning to the negro woman he hastened away.

Roxy was so tired that she was glad to lie down on the rough cot in the corner of the room, and, in spite of all her troubling thoughts, the little girl realized that she was free and in a short time would be safely at home, and was soon asleep.

Before sunrise the next morning the negro woman awoke Roxy. “We’s got ter be up an’ doin’, Missy,” she said anxiously. “Yo’ jes’ drink some milk, an’ I’s got some co’n pone h’ar fer yo’, an’ we’ll be off. I ain’ gwine ter come back h’ar, I ain’!” she continued. “Dar’s too many sojers comin’ dis way. I reckon yo’ fo’ks’ll let me stay at yo’ place, Missy, if I fetch yo’ safe back?” and the anxious, frightened negro fixed her pleading glance on Roxy, who at once declared that she was sure her grandmother would let Etta-Belle, as the negro woman called herself, stay at the Miller farm. Roxy ate her breakfast hungrily, and was eager to start for home, and at an early hour they were on their way.

But Roxy was not to reach home that day; a new adventure was close at hand, and before they had reached the highway Etta-Belle stopped suddenly.

“Look dar, Missy!” she exclaimed in a frightened whisper pointing toward a distant slope. “Dar’s an army marchin’. Boun’ to Sharpsburg, shuh’s yo’ born, Missy!” and Roxy’s glance followed Etta’s pointing finger and she saw a long shining column of mounted soldiers, soldiers in blue uniforms, coming on at a rapid pace; without waiting for Etta-Belle, Roxy raced across the field into the highway and ran toward the advancing soldiers. If she heard the negro woman’s frenzied cries she paid no attention to them; here were men wearing the same uniform that her father wore; she would, she quickly resolved, tell them about her father, about the Confederate scouts and what she had heard them say, and they would take her safely home.

She stood in the road waving her arms and shouted: “Union soldiers! Union soldiers!” and the two officers riding in advance of the troops drew rein within a few feet of where she stood and gazed at her sternly, in evident amazement that a ten-year-old girl should dare to halt a regiment of soldiers.