Give us back our poor Dixie,
Do, captain, please do.
Just say we may have him, that welcome word say,
And your petitioners will evermore pray.
“Mary Barr.
“Cynthia Barr.
“Polly Hassell.
“Mary L. G., a sympathiser.
“Vernon, Tennessee,
“July 1865.
“To Captain Le Caron.”
I naturally pursued the only course which a soldier could, and surrendered the horse. Strange to say, one of my lieutenants afterwards surrendered his affections and future happiness to one of these fair damsels, and still lives with her as his wife, surrounded by a charming family, away out in central Kansas.
III.
In the midst of all my soldiering, I wooed and won my wife. She is the principal legacy left me of those old campaigning days of mine, as bonny a wife and as sympathetic and valuable a helpmate as ever husband was blessed with in this world. Many years have gone by since we first met away in Tennessee, where she, a bright-eyed daring horsewoman, and I, a happy-go-lucky cavalry officer, scampered the plains together in pleasant company. Little thought either of us then what the future years held in store. Yet when these years came, and with them the anxious moments, the uncertain intervals, and the perilous hours, none was more brave, more sympathetic than she. Carrying the secret of my life close locked up in that courageous heart of hers, helping me when need be, silent when nought could be done, she proved as faithful an ally and as perfect a foil as ever man placed like me could have been given by Heaven. A look, a gasp, a frightened movement, an uncertain turn might have betrayed me, and all would have been lost; a jealous action, a curious impulse, and she might have wrecked my life; a letter misplaced, a drawer left open, a communication miscarried, and my end was certain. But those things were not to be. Brave, affectionate, and fearless, frequently beseeching me to end this terrible career in which each moment of the coming hours was charged with danger if not death, she tended her family lovingly, and faced the world with a countenance which gave no sign, but a caution which never slumbered.