A married daughter of Mr. G——’s was living in a small cottage near her father’s, built so that he might have his daughter under his care while her husband was away in our army. The married daughter did not feel disposed to leave her house exposed, but was too much alarmed to remain alone that night with her two small children. So she urged me to stay with her, as her mother would have the cousin and two older daughters. As I was going down the colonnade steps, with the two young girls, aged between nine and eleven, Mrs. G—— called to me, “Miss A——, if the Yankees come, I shall be sure to send Martha (the colored nurse girl) to tell you.” “All right,” I replied, “you’ll see how fast I shall get to you.”
In painful apprehension we sat long on the porch. It was one of those half-moonlit nights, so calm that the stillness was oppressive. But exhausted nature demanded her tribute, and finally we sought rest from the day’s worry and suspense in sleep, uneasy though it might be. God only knows how fervent and plaintive was the prayer that ascended that April night in southern Alabama, from hundreds of dwellings peopled only by women, children, and negro slaves. As I pillowed my head, I called up soul-comforting passages from the Bible, none bringing greater solace than, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him.” The ninety-first Psalm, that I had committed to memory in Sabbath-school, now came to mind like a great wave of consolation.
I was just bordering upon the edge of sleep, when I was suddenly startled by a loud and hurried knocking on the door, and immediately recognized the voice of the negro girl, who was excitedly crying out, “Miss A——, missis say come down dar quick, de Yankees coming.” I sprang with a sudden bound into the middle of the room, gathered up shoes and stockings in one hand, dress and other garments in the other, and dashed out in the shadowy night, with the two little girls, who had just as hastily left their bed, and now clung on either side of me in their long white night-robes. A dark cloud skurried across the moon and obscured its light for a moment, making the night darkish, but in another instant all the clouds had rolled by, and left the moon clear, so that the shadows of the great oaks were distinctly outlined, quivering beneath our feet as we flew past. One of the little girls tripped, but managed to gather herself up quickly, without ever letting go of me, to whom she clung with the grip of the Old Man of the Sea.
As we reached the side entrance of the main yard, and passed through the gate, we found the yard swarming with the negro slaves; passing the kitchen, which was detached from the main dwelling-house (as at all Southern homes in those days), Uncle Ben and Aunt Phillis were standing in the doorway. They craned their necks, shaded their eyes with their hands, and peered forth at us in the darkness, as we passed swiftly by. “Well I’clare fore God”—The rest of the sentence was lost in our hurried flight. We jammed against Aunt Jemimah, the regular washerwoman, who held in her hands a pair of cotton-cards, and on whose arm was hanging a wisp of white cotton rolls. She threw up her arms at sight of us, the wisp of rolls floating lightly away on the night breeze. When she recognized us, she exclaimed, “Lors, chilluns, I did just tink you was ghosses.”
We entered the house by the back door, just in time to find all in great confusion, caused by a false alarm. The home guards, composed of old men and young boys of the county, had that afternoon disbanded in the city of Eufaula, knowing that General Grierson would arrive that night or the next morning, and that resistance would be useless. So they deemed discretion just then the better part of valor, and here they were, returning home by the road on which my employer’s plantation lay, their expectation being that the Federal commander would march his column into Eufaula by a road on the other side of our settlement.
When the horses’ hoofs struck the bridge that spanned a large creek, three or four hundred yards from Mr. G——’s mansion, the sounds, borne on the still night air with startling distinctness, were naturally mistaken by lone women and children for the advance of the terrible Yankees. When the Babel-like confusion had ceased we presented a droll tableau, for, acting on the impulse of the moment, no one had paused to think of personal appearance.
When asked what she was going to do with the cotton-cards and wisp of rolls, Aunt Jemimah’s reply was, “Oh, lor bless yer, honeys, I didn’t know I had ’em.” It had been usual to allow the negroes the use of the wheels and cotton-cards, and cotton was given them, in case they wished to spin their own stocking-yarn or sewing-thread at night.
The negroes, too, had been expecting the Yankee army, and hearing a great clashing of horses’ hoofs on the bridge, thought with the rest of us, “They are coming now.” So large and small left the “quarter” and came over to “Marster’s,” as they called the dwelling-house and yard, to see the Federal troops. Perhaps some may have come with the design of going with the Yankees. The cottage of the married daughter and the negroes’ quarter were about equally distant from my employer’s residence, but in opposite directions, so that by the time I had reached the yard of the dwelling, I found myself in a surging mass of black humanity.
In calling to mind the scenes of that night, I have often thought that had the Federal army really come, and the two little girls and I dashed into view in our long white robes, fleeing as if on the wings of the wind, we should have caused the moving host to halt. And oft as memory recalls those scenes I rub my eyes and ask, “Can it be that on that long April night in 1865, while the Federal army was marching into Eufaula by another road, we women and children, surrounded by negro slaves, were the sole occupants of that exposed house?” Yet so in truth it was. We felt no fear of the slaves. The idea of any harm happening through them never for one instant entered our minds.
But now, not for my right hand would I be situated as I was that April night of 1865. Now it would by no means be safe, for experience is showing us that in any section where the negro forms any very great part of the population, white men or women are in danger of murder, robbery, and violence.