My reverie was broken when the ferry-boat reached her landing; but things all still seemed so strange that I could scarcely believe I was not dreaming. I realized everything better when I saw soldiers in blue moving hither and thither. I had heard while on the train, how General Willson had ravaged, pillaged, and burnt, as he passed through Alabama. Here were his soldiers who had laid Columbus in ruins; here were they of whom I had been told that their route from Columbus to the city of Macon, one hundred miles, could be plainly traced by the curling smoke arising from burning dwellings, gin-houses, barns, bridges, and railroad ties.
I was not long in getting to my father’s after I had left the city of Columbus. And there was a joyous surprise in every respect, for nothing had been disturbed at his residence save some corn, fodder, and other food, which had been appropriated by raiding soldiers. I found both of my brothers home. The one who had been carried to Point Lookout had arrived only two days before. The one who had been taken prisoner about three months before the surrender managed to make his escape the night following the day he was captured. It was a dark, sleety night, my brother said, and he had found it quite easy to elude the sentinel. First he went, as he supposed, about a mile from the camp; then he lay down on the frozen ground with his army blanket, not daring to light a fire, for fear of recapture. When the sun rose he took his bearings, and began his long tramp for home. This journey had occupied many weeks, as all traveling had to be done at night, and often he was in imminent danger of being recaptured, as the whole country through which he was passing was filled with Federal cavalrymen. Creeks and rivers had to be waded or swum; deep and almost impenetrable swamps had to be passed. Once in the thick woods he had come near running into what he supposed to be a deserters’ camp, from the surroundings he descried by the pale glare of the pine-knot camp-fire, but what really was a camp of Northern soldiers. He subsisted on roots and leaves, sometimes calling at a house after dark to beg a few ears of corn, which he parched and ate; sometimes he enjoyed a rare dessert in the berries of the hawthorn bush.
One blustering March night, just as the clock had told the hour of two, the watch-dog at my father’s was heard baying furiously at the front gate. There was some one at the gate speaking to the dog, as if trying to quiet him. My father arose, opened the door, and when he could make his voice heard, he called out, “What’s wanting?” “It’s N——, ‘Drive’ (the dog’s name) won’t let me come in.” At the name “N——,” our mother sprang from the bed with a loud and joyful shout that he who had been mourned as dead was alive and home again. My sisters, who were sleeping up-stairs, were also aroused by the furious barking of the dog. They arose and raised the window-sash just in time to hear, “It’s N——.” Their window dropped like a flash of lightning, and then such a getting down-stairs as there was! One or two chairs were knocked over in the scramble for the head of the staircase, and one toppled the whole flight of steps, making a great racket, in the middle of the night, as it thumped the steps one by one. The candle, which some one had managed to light while the sash was being raised, was let fall when about in the middle of the flight of steps, and in the then utter darkness one of my sisters stumbled over the chair that had preceded her to the bottom of the stairs, and all came pell-mell into the dark hall. My brother told me afterward that he could not move for some time, he was so tightly pinioned when finally taken to his mother’s heart.
What a change from 1861, when all were so buoyant and full of fiery patriotism, with never a thought of being overcome! Now our cause was lost, all our homes more or less despoiled, the whole South seemingly almost hopelessly ruined, every little town and village garrisoned by the troops who had overcome us by great odds.
Yet after all our great and sore afflictions, I found only cheerfulness and Christian resignation at the end of these troublous war times, and the hope that we might yet rise above our misfortunes.
In closing, I must say that I know that the people of the Southern States are now loyal to the Union; their reverence for the stars and stripes is strong and pure; and it pierces like a sword, our ever being taunted and distrusted. Accepting all the decisions of the war, we have built and planted anew amid the ruins left by the army who were the conquerors. We are still poor; but we believe firmly that in our new life, under God, we are destined to a brilliant career of prosperity and glory. Come, happy day!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE