“If I had a sweetheart down South I couldn’t see him when I got back home, for he would be in the field.”
“So, your sweetheart is a Southern soldier?” wistfully.
“I wouldn’t have a sweetheart who wasn’t a soldier—a Southern soldier.”
In the other side of my watch I had pasted a small picture of Dan in uniform. I opened this side and held it out to my companion.
“That’s my sweetheart’s picture.”
He looked at it long and hard. “A good-looking fellow,” he said, “and I have no doubt a gallant soldier. If I ever meet him in battle—he will be safe from my bullet.”
Behind our wagon all the way from Harper’s Ferry had come a party equipped like ourselves. They were Jews, and, as we were informed, were prisoners of the United States. They had an ambulance like ours, a baggage wagon like ours, and a similar escort of five infantry perched on trunks. Their escort who rode inside, however, was not so attractive as ours. We felt and expressed much commiseration for them because they were prisoners—“those poor Jews,” we called them.
We were all suffering the consequences of late and early hours, and of the worry and excitement at Harper’s Ferry. I felt almost ill, and when Miss Oglesby, whose home was in Winchester, invited us to spend a week with her, we concluded that we would accept her hospitality until better able to continue our journey.
Winchester was the most difficult of all places for Southerners to pass through at this time, and we could not possibly have gotten through if we had been left to our own resources. Milroy was commandant, and his name was a terror. He belonged to the Ben Butler of New Orleans type. Some time near the middle of the day we drew up in front of Milroy’s headquarters. Immediately behind us came the Jews and their belongings. They did not go in with us, and I supposed they were awaiting their turn. General Milroy was absent, off on a fight, and we fell into the hands of his adjutant, a dapper little fellow. We heard him talking to Goldsborough of the recent fight and victory, and heard him making arrangements for our transportation.
Here we thought it proper to inform him that we were going to remain a week in Winchester.