Very respectfully your obedient servant,
J. W. Campbell.
“To Colonel J. C. Parkhurst, Pro. Mar. Gen., Army of the Cumberland.”
Thus recommended by one high in army ranks, Colonel Parkhurst granted me the privilege of going to see my young sister, then in Augusta, and carrying anything I might have saved from the ravages of the war, “unmolested.” Fortified by these letters I went to the Provost Marshal in Decatur and told him I would be ready to go to Atlanta to-morrow morning at 8 o’clock, and I wanted to carry some old bed-clothing and other things to my sister, and would be grateful for an ambulance, or an army wagon all to myself, and an Irish driver. He promised that both should be at my service at the time indicated—not, however, without the sarcastic remark that “if the Yankees had been as bad as I had said they were, they would not have left anything for me to carry.”
I ran to my mother and imparted to her the glad tidings of success, and in a whispered conversation we soon had definite plans arranged for the consummation of the perilous duty before me. I went to the Federal camp and asked for some crocus sacks such as are used in the transportation of grain, and quite a number were given to me. I shook them thoroughly inside and out, and put them by. A ball of twine and some large needles had found their way into the house. The needles were threaded and placed in convenient proximity to the sacks. Telitha watched every movement with interest and intuitively divined its import. The wardrobe was empty and my very first touch moved it at least one inch in the desired direction, and a helping hand from her soon placed it in favorable position. This much being accomplished, I took a seat by my mother on the front door-steps and engaged in a pleasant conversation with a group of young Federal soldiers, who seemed much attached to us, and with whom I conversed with unreserved candor, and often expressed regret that they were in hostile array towards a people who had been goaded to desperation by infringement upon constitutional rights by those who had pronounced the only ligament that bound the two sections of the country together, “a league with hell, and a covenant with the devil.” This I proved to them by documents published at the North, and by many other things of which they were ignorant.
While thus engaged, Captain Woodbury approached and said: “I learn that you are going out into Dixie, Miss Gay.”
“Yes, for a few days,” I replied.
“I am prepared to furnish a more pleasant conveyance to Atlanta than the one you have secured,” said he, and continued, “I have a handsome new buggy and a fine trotter, and it will take only a few minutes to reach there. Will you accept a seat with me?”
If all the blood within me had overflowed its proper channels, and rushed to the surface, I could not have flushed more. I felt it in the commotion of my hair, and in the nervous twitching of my feet. The indignation and contempt that I felt for the man! That one who was aiding and abetting in the devastation of my country and the spoliation of my home, should ask me to take a seat with him in a buggy which he doubtless had taken, without leave or license, from my countrymen, was presumptuous indeed, and deserved a severe rebuke. But “prudence being the better part of valor,” I repressed all that would have been offensive in word and act, and replied with suavity, “Thank you, Captain Woodbury, for the honor you would have conferred upon me, but I cannot accept it.” Receiving no reply, I added:
“Let me in candor make a statement to you, and I think you will approve the motive that prompts my decision. I have not sought to conceal the fact that my only brother is in the Confederate army; he is there from motives purely patriotic, and not as a mercenary hireling. He is fighting for the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, a constitution so sacred that our people have never violated it in any particular, and of which we have shown our highest appreciation by adopting it verbatim, as the guiding star of the Southern Confederacy. You are in an army claiming to be fighting for the Union, and yet the government that sent you out on this glorious mission ignores every principle of fraternal relation between the North and the South, and would subvert every fundamental principle of self-government and establish upon the wreck a centralized despotism. Could I, while you and I are so antagonistic, accept your offer and retain your good opinion? I think not, and I prefer to go in the conveyance already stipulated.”
Silence, without the slightest manifestation of anger, assured me that my argument against taking a buggy drive with him to Atlanta had not been lost on Captain Woodbury, of Ohio, a member of Garrard’s Cavalry.