Services not Required.
Another two hours’ travel on to Opelika the next day, and another detention for half-a-dozen hours. At Columbus, a rumor that the cars had been seized for government transportation made me anxious concerning the nature of my ticket, which I found to my dismay was not suited to meet the emergency through some inadvertence; so long before starting-time I was waiting at the depot seated on my trunk, half amused and half mortified at the resemblance thus offered to an emigrant Irish servant woman. The place was crowded with invalided soldiers, for the government was moving the hospitals to the lower part of the State, and idle spectators seeing my evident alarm offered all kinds of irrational advice. A suggestion was sensibly made by some one that by seeking one of the most helpless of the wounded and requesting him to allow me to pass as his nurse my object might be effected; but every man to whom I opened my proposals seemed alarmed at and opposed to this idea. Towards the last the confusion became distracting—everybody calling for the conductor, who possessing no power, the cars being under military control, first denied his identity and then hid himself.
Friend to the “Faymales.”
Help came at the last moment in the form of a red-faced, half-tipsy Irish porter who had been cheering me on with winks of encouragement at my frantic efforts for some time. “Lit me put yer trunks on,” he said, and “thin go to Col. Frankland at the rare of the cars—sure he’s the man to help the faymales.”
My forlorn hope, Col. Frankland, was standing on the platform at the extreme rear of the cars, surrounded by a semi-circle below, about twenty-five feet deep, all pressing on to get to seats already too full. He was gesticulating and shouting like a madman. The lame, the halt, and the blind stood around. Crutches, splints, and huge sticks represented a small wood. Green blinds over eyes, raw faces peeled from erysipelas, and still showing variegated hues of iodine, gave picturesqueness to the scene. Had he borne Cæsar and his fortunes he could not have been more interested. For two hours he had been stemming this living tide.
A Bold Attempt.
I had met and fraternized with a lady and gentleman, old acquaintances, encountered at the depot, who appeared as anxious to get Northward as myself; so telling her not to move until I had either achieved my object or failed, and if I made her a sign to join me, I took my position at the fag end of the crowd below the colonel, and undeterred by distance and uproar I essayed a faint call for notice. The sound died away in my throat, but my Irish friend (I am sure he took me for one of his cousins from the “ould counthrie”), was by my side in an instant and repeated the call. A hundred voices took up the refrain, “A lady wants to speak to the colonel,” and universal curiosity regarding the private nature of my business being exhibited by a profound silence I raised my voice as Mause Headrigg said, “like a pelican in the wilderness:”
“Col. Frankland, I must get forward on this train to-night. Government business requires me to be in Richmond by the 1st November.”
“Can’t do it, Madam. Would like to oblige you, but can’t go against my orders. The cars are for the use of sick and wounded soldiers alone.”
None but the fair deserve the brave.