The Women of the Confederacy

by J. L. Underwood

[Women in The War.]

During the war for Southern independence there lived just opposite Palatka, on the east bank of the St. Johns River, Florida, a Cuban gentleman, Mauritia Sanchez by name, who early in life had left the West Indies to seek 242 a home in the State of Florida. Many years had passed since then and Mr. Sanchez was at the time of the following incident an old man, infirm and in wretched health. The family consisted of an invalid wife, one son, who was in the service of the Confederacy, and three daughters, Panchita, Lola, and Eugenia.

Suspicion had long fastened upon Mr. Sanchez as a spy for the Confederates, and at the time of this incident, the old man had been torn from his home and family and was a prisoner in the old Spanish Fort San Marcos (now Fort Marion), at St. Augustine. The girls occupied the old home with their mother and were entirely unprotected. Many times at night their house was surrounded by white and negro soldiers expecting to surprise them and find Confederates about the place, for the Yankees knew some one was giving information, but thought it was Mr. Sanchez. The Southern soldiers were higher up the St. Johns, on the west side. It was usual for the Yankee officers to visit frequently at the Sanchez home, and the girls, for policy, (and information) were cordial in their reception of them, and thereby gained some protection from the thieving soldiery.

One warm summer’s night three Yankee officers came to the Sanchez home to spend the evening. After a short time the three sisters left the officers and went to the dining room to prepare supper. The soldiers, thinking themselves safe, entered into the discussion of a plan to surprise the Confederates on Sunday morning by sending the gunboats up the river, and also by planning that a foraging party should go out from St. Augustine.

On hearing this Lola Sanchez stopped her work and listened. After hearing of the road the foraging party would take and gaining all necessary information, she told Panchita to entertain them until she returned. Stealing softly from the house, she sped to the horse lot, and throwing a saddle on her horse rode for life to the ferry, a mile distant; there the ferryman took her horse, and gave her a boat. She rowed herself across the St. Johns, met one Confederate picket, who knew her and gave her his horse. Out into the night through the 243 woods she rode like the wind to Camp Davis, a mile and a half away. Reaching the camp, she asked for Captain Dickinson, (afterwards General Dickinson) and told him the Yankees were coming up the river Sunday morning and that the troop from St. Augustine would go out foraging in a southerly direction. Then leaving the camp, Lola Sanchez rode for her life indeed. She knew she must not be missed from home. Giving the picket his horse, she recrossed the ferry, then mounting her waiting animal she struck out for home. Dismounting some distance from the house, she turned her horse loose, and reached home in time for supper and pleasantly entertained her guests until a late hour.

That night Captain Dickinson marched his men to intercept the Yankees. He crossed from the west to the east side and surprised them on Sunday. A severe fight ensued. The Yankee General Chatfield was killed and Colonel Nobles wounded and captured. On that same Sunday morning the Yankee gunboats went up the St. Johns to surprise the Confederates. They were very much surprised in turn. The Confederates were ready for them, disabled a gunboat and captured a transport; also many prisoners were taken by the Confederates.

The foraging party lost all their wagons, and everything they had stolen, and again many prisoners were taken, and Captain Dickinson sent for the three sisters to be at the ferry (the one Lola Sanchez crossed) to see the prisoners and wagons that had been taken.

Time and again this daughter of the Confederacy aided and abetted the Southern cause. Some time after a pontoon was captured, and renamed “The Three Sisters” in compliment to these brave young women. The pontoon was coming from Picolata to Orange Mills. Mr. Sanchez still languished in Fort San Marco, however, and Panchita grieved continuously over her father’s unjust incarceration. The old man was truly innocent, his daughters were the informers, but he did not know this. Panchita determined to obtain his release if possible. After some time spent in applying, she got a pass to go through the Yankee lines, and boarding one of their 244 transports, this young woman went alone to St. Augustine, and gained her father’s freedom, taking him with her back to the old homestead.

There is the “Emily Geiger Ride,” and “Lill Servosse’s Ride,” but none more daring than that of Lola Sanchez, the young Floridian of the Southern Confederacy. The U. D. C. should look to it that one chapter at least should be Lola Sanchez Chapter.

Lola Sanchez married Emanuel Lopez, a Confederate soldier of the St. Augustine Blues; Eugenia married Albert Rogers, another soldier of the St. Augustine Blues; Panchita is the widow of the late John R. Miot, of Columbia, S. C. Lola Sanchez died about seven years ago. May the memory of this Southern woman never fade.