“Tell us how we can get sent on,” I asked.
“Just step out there in the street and holler for Jeff Davis, and you’ll get sent on quick enough!”
We withered him with a stare, and then turned our backs on him, and at the same moment two ladies entered the room whom we recognized. They were Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby, whose acquaintance we had made in Baltimore, and they, too, were going south. They explained that they had been in this wretched place since yesterday, and that they were not allowed to return to Baltimore and were unable to go home. They had been out trying to find a conveyance of some sort, but had been able to secure only the promise of an ox-cart, and hearing that we were here had come in to consult with us. During all this time the orderly, whom I had detained, was waiting impatiently. We decided to go with him and make another appeal to General Kelly. Accordingly the whole party filed into General Kelly’s office again.
“What are we to do, general?” I cried out in desperation. “We can’t go back, we can’t go on, and we can’t stay here!”
The kindly general did honor to the stars he wore—he was a gentleman, every inch of him. It happened later that he was captured and held in Libby Prison in Richmond, and I was in Richmond and didn’t know it. I have held a grudge against fate ever since. If I had only known, he would have been reminded by every courtesy that a Southern woman could render of how gratefully his kindness was remembered.
“I hardly hoped for a different answer from General Fish, ladies. The regulations on this point are very stringent. And I can not return you to Baltimore unless you take the oath of allegiance.”
“What?” we asked eagerly.
“If you take the oath of allegiance, I can send you back.”
We decided to do this.
We didn’t know exactly what the oath was, but we thought we could take anything to get us out of our scrape. We told General Kelly we would take it, and we were conducted into another room, which I can only remember as being full of Federal soldiers. We were marched up to a desk where a man began reading the oath to us. It was the famous “ironclad.” We did not wait for him to get through. Without a word each of us turned and marched back into General Kelly’s office, as indignant a set of women as could be found.