“It’s my boy I’m crying about; he’s awful sick down in Tennessee, and he has writ for me to come down an’ nus him up, but the men as keeps the passes at Cairo says I can’t go.
“They say there’s plenty to take care uv my boy, and maybe there is; but I reckon that his muther what took care uv him when he was a baby could do it better nor any of them.
“My boy wus a very smart boy. You never seen a smarter boy nor a better boy than mine wuz. Well, if they won’t let me go down on the railroad I reckon I can walk. My boy’s sick an’ I’m bound to go. They tried to skeer me by tellin’ me the guards would arrest me if I tried to get through the lines. But I can dodge the guards, an’ creep under the lines. Anyway, I s’pose them guards ar’ human cre’turs, an’ if I tell ’em my boy is a solger, an’ awful sick, an’ wants his mother to come down an’ nus him, they’ll let me go through.”
“Have you his letter with you?”
“Yes, I have.”
And out of the depth of a capacious pocket she drew forth a package, and carefully unrolling it, she handed me a letter. It was short, but full of tender pathos. The boy was sick and homesick, and wanted his mother. Among other things, he said:—
“You could nus me better than the boys. I hain’t got no apertite and can’t eat nothin’; the boys hain’t much on cookin’, but you could cook something that I could eat, and maybe I’d get well.”
Satisfied that she was a true woman, and not a spy, I said:—
“General Grant, the highest officer in the army, is on this boat. He can give you a pass; he was sitting here by this table a few minutes ago; as he has left his paper and writing material there, he will no doubt return in a few minutes. Go to him and show him your boy’s letter, and ask him for a pass. He will give it to you.”
She was almost dismayed at the thought of speaking to such a great man. When the General came in and took a seat at the table, I whispered to her,—