Among the rest, letters from Mrs. Anglesea, who wrote:
“You had better pack right up and come right home. ‘The devil is to pay, and no pitch hot!’ The people have riz up ag’in’ one another like mad. Ned Grandiere has gone into the Confederate Army. Sam sticks at home. He says war is bad for the crops, and somebody must plow and sow.
“William Elk has gone into the Union Army.
“Thanks be to goodness, Old Beever and Old Barnes and Old Copp are all past sixty, and too old to fight, or they’d turn fools with the rest; but, as it is, they’re ’bliged to stay home and ’tend to their business, and take care of Mondreer and Greenbushes.
“But they do say, hereabouts, as old Capt. Grandiere—and he over seventy years old—has turned pirate, or privateer, or something of the sort, and is making war on all Uncle Sam’s ships; but I can’t believe it for one. And young Roland Bayard is with him—first mate—and is as deep in the mud as the captain is in the mire, and is tarred with the same brush—which I mean to say as they are both a pirating on the high seas, or a privateering, or whatever their deviltry is, together. So they say hereabouts.
“Anyway, the ship is overdue for months, and neither ship, officers nor crew has been heard of with any sort of certain sureness.
“And what I said in the beginning, old ‘oman, I say in the end—as you and the ole man had better pack right up and come right home.
“But still, if it would ill convenience you at the present time to do so, you needn’t come, nor likewise fret about your home. To be sure, the devil is let loose all over the country, but he hasn’t entered into Mondreer or Greenbushes yet. Me and the three old men, Copp, and Beever, and Barnes, and the old niggers, take the very best of care of everything. You bet your pile on that. So do just as you think proper.”
This letter filled the Forces with dismay, as it told them that their old friends and neighbors had risen, so to speak, in arms against each other.
But the most disturbing part of the news was that which referred to old Capt. Grandiere and his mate, young Roland Bayard.