Free at last, prisoner! Peace to thy soul! God grant his peace!
My friend, do you dread death? I have seen it come so often as a relief from pain and distress, that I could not but bless it. Do not forget that you asked for these details; and believe, as I wish you always to, in my affection,
Yours.
It is long since I have heard from you, dear J——; long since I have written. You will notice that I am again at O——. Soon after writing my last, the Federal troops took possession of Holly Springs and threatened O——. The hospital patients were removed; and I crossed the country to meet my husband, who was at Tupelo. After spending some time in Pontotoc, I continued on to Tupelo, and for some time remained on a plantation six miles distant. Meantime the battle of Iuka occurred; and the loss of the brave General Little was deeply felt by the Missourians. The troops returned in dejection. Shortly, they were marched across to Ripley, where a junction was formed with the troops under General V—— D——; and an attack was made on Corinth, in which the troops behaved gallantly, but all to no purpose: a complete repulse it proved; and the army under the two generals narrowly escaped capture.
The wives and families of the officers were, of course, distressed and anxious. Couriers daily came galloping into the town, with the most conflicting reports.
At one time we heard that the Missourians were completely cut to pieces; again, that they were all captured. One of the couriers said he had seen my husband lying in an ambulance as he passed. How much distressed I was, you can imagine. Yet, two days passed wearily along; and still no tidings. The evening of the second day, as I sat in the moonlight on the portico, I heard a vehicle coming down the road with great speed; as it neared the house, I saw that it was an ambulance. My worst fears now took shape and form: M—— wounded, perhaps mortally wounded, I thought; and I ran swiftly down the walk. The driver met me at the gate, telling me that he had been sent with all speed after me—that Tupelo would be evacuated during the night, and my husband had written to the post quartermaster, placing me in his charge. I also had a letter. The quartermaster would take me over the country with the wagon train at daylight in the morning. My husband was well, he answered to my first, earnest inquiry.
It was now nine o’clock; my little daughter was in bed sleeping soundly. The man, a sergeant, who was well known to my husband, had, as yet, not supped; so, while he ate, I gathered my baggage together, wrapped a shawl around my sleeping child, and then, with a hurried good by, we drove off, six miles through the woods, through what had been an impassable swamp. Now the gloom of the huge trees brought to my mind all the thrilling tales I had heard of travellers being waylaid in swamps and dense woods. I looked at the shadows on the trunks of trees, and imagined a man skulked in the darkness behind them. The owls were crying mournfully, and the plaintive song of the whippoorwill came to us from the dense recesses of the forest.
My servant crept closely to my side, for negroes, in their vivid imaginations, fill the woods at night with phantoms and ghosts of the departed. Frequently, after detailing the events of the recent battle to us, our driver, in the full moonlight, would break the silence with one of the stirring camp airs, whistling loud and shrilly; then my martial and political hopes would rise; but as we would again plunge into the darkness of the rugged cypress trees, where the owl and whippoorwill vied with each other, a silence would again come over us, and I again become a timid, fearful woman.
Soon we saw lights through the trees, then the rows of camp fires, and noise and bustle became the prominent features of the town: cattle were driven through, with many a shout and halloo; wagons were passing rapidly; soldiers were cooking rations at the camp fires—a scene of busy preparation.