Should the thief ever see these lines, repent, and return the pictures, he will receive my full and free forgiveness and everlasting gratitude.
I never saw my old friend after the day he called to bid us goodby, but received several letters from him after returning home, and then all knowledge of him ceased. He has doubtless passed into the Great Beyond long ago.
There were a great many refugees or contrabands in Corinth. President Lincoln’s proclamation of Emancipation had not yet been issued; yet the slaves were practically free. Some of them had quarters near the hotel. Among them was a quaint old couple known as Uncle Sandy and Aunt Katy with whom we became well acquainted. Aunt Katy did washing for us and was frequently in our room.
My mother bought a large piece of homespun cotton cloth of her such as was used by the slave women for dresses and aprons. After Aunt Katy had tasted of freedom, she thought “Massa Linkum” a grand man, and the best friend the slave had.
My mother one day asked her what she thought the “Yankees” looked like before she saw them. “Well, hunny,” said she, “I thought they was some kind of wild animals with ho’ns on their heads and they would eat me up,” and then she laughed until her fat sides shook as she realized what kind of an animal the Yankee really was.
Uncle Sandy told us that when he first entered within the Union lines he ate so much he became very sick and thought he was going to die, and that the only reason he hated to die was because he could never eat any more.
From among the children of the refugees I organized and taught a school on the upper veranda of the Tishomingo, which was situated at the crossing of the Memphis & Charleston and the Mobile & Ohio railroads. The pupils were all girls, some older and some younger than myself, and so far as I have ever been able to learn to the contrary, this was the first crude, little contraband school organized in the great state of Mississippi, and humble though it was, I feel very proud of my share in it. I taught them the alphabet, and how to make a few figures. Our text books were the heads of newspapers, and cards with figures numbering the rooms, which we tore off the doors. Many trains passed our open air schoolroom daily, and each whistle that pierced the air was a signal to suspend lessons, and teacher and pupils alike would scramble to the front, and leaning far over the rotten railing, would wave and cheer at the blue-coated soldiers being borne onward to victory or defeat, life or death, God alone knew.
But the time came all too soon when the Tishomingo House was ordered evacuated, as it was to be again used for hotel purposes. We received instructions to go to Jackson, Tennessee, sixty miles north, and one sunny Sabbath morn we boarded the train for that place, and it was many a day before I ceased to regret my dusky pupils and playmates.
It was with sad hearts we left Corinth. We had been here so long it had become like home to us, and we were much attached to the place, the nurses, and our soldier friends. But the fortunes of war are many and varied, and there is no sure abiding place in the army.