The rapidly rising river was another element of danger menacing us. It is a fearful sight to see the relentless flood plunging by, bearing great trees and logs of drift-wood on its muddy surface many feet above the ground on which you stand, an embankment of earth your only defense, and the waves of passing steamboats dashing over that frail barrier and falling in spray at your feet. It is startling to realize that busy craw-fish, the dread enemy of every man whose “lines are laid” behind a Mississippi levee, are constantly boring holes through the earthworks, and invading the ditches carefully constructed to receive and bear away to the rear swamps and drains the seepage that exudes all the time from the pressure on the outer side; and terrible to know that one malicious cut of a spade would make an insidious fissure through which those battling waters would in a few hours rush in an overwhelming torrent, destroying property worth thousands of dollars—a calamity greatly dreaded, and guarded against day and night by trusty men with shovels and lanterns.
My husband, whose duty it was as levee inspector, notified our neighbors of a dangerously “weak spot” on an adjoining plantation front, but so fearful were all planters at that time of negro assemblages, so apprehensive lest they communicate from plantation to plantation, and a stray spark enkindle the fires of sedition and rebellion, that the responses to his call were not adequate, and the result was a crevasse between Baton Rouge and Arlington, four miles south, that cut a broad chasm directly across the road, and through our cane-fields far back for miles to bayous and draining canals, leaving a wide ravine with a rush of roaring water that poured millions of gallons a minute, plowing a deep canal through roads and fields, spreading and widening over the rear swamps in its destructive errand, until it reached the river again in a bend twenty-five miles away.
But the terrors and subsequent losses by such a calamity were forgotten in the greater alarm and the foreshadowing of untold disaster to the panic-stricken planters’ wives, who were in many instances left by their soldier husbands in charge of threatened homes. The negroes, already seeing the dawning rays of liberty, which at that time meant plenty to eat and nothing to do,“jist like marster,” were becoming lazy and impudent. So the crevasse and the injury it was destined to inflict were of small moment to us when the prospect of cultivating the growing crop, grew beautifully less day by day.
One magnificent morning in early summer the whole river, the silence on whose surface had remained now many weeks undisturbed, was suddenly, as if by magic, ablaze with the grandeur of Federal gunboats and transports with flags and bright-colored streamers flying from every peak, their decks thronged with brilliantly uniformed officers. We stood upon the veranda, with streaming eyes and bursting hearts, the gay strains of “Yankee Doodle” as they floated o’er the waters filling our souls with bitterness unspeakable, and watched the victorious pageant, until, with a mighty sweep to avoid the boiling and surging currents of the crevasse, it anchored amid blare of trumpet and beat of drum beside the deserted landing of our dear little city. The enemy was there! But there was a barrier between us that cut off all communication by land, and, though they could forage above and back of the town, as is the way with hungry soldiers, we had the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that access to Arlington was not feasible.
By and by the old Mississippi began to subside; the tributary streams had well-nigh exhausted their superfluous floods. Water began slowly and steadily to recede from the fields; day by day we could see from the windows and verandas new bits of green here and there; places where bridges that spanned ditches had been swept away; and deep ridges cut by the action of rushing torrents where were once smooth, level fields of waving cane.
But the big gully at the mouth of the crevasse was still there, deep, muddy, and unutterably foul with the odor of dead fish lying stranded all about. The road was cut in two by an impassable barrier, a fathomless mud-hole. So the crevasse was a blessing, and we were at least thankful that, if we did not have a crop, we were safe from unwelcome visitors.
My little baby was two weeks old, and I was reposing quietly in bed, early one morning, when, lo and behold! not a cloud of dust, but a splash of mud; and a company of soldiers made their unwonted appearance on the hither side of our defenses. Before Charlotte could run up-stairs with the spoons and forks, hastily gathered from the breakfast-table, to hide under my pillow—for the darkies had been carefully taught that the whole war was a thieving expedition to steal our homes and property—before Charlotte could tell the news and tuck the spoons away, the clatter of hoofs on the lawn and the voices of strange men revealed the fact that the Federal soldiers were upon us!
My husband, whose disability, from the loss of an eye, relieved him from active service, was equal to the occasion, and met the party at the door; explained the invalid condition of his wife till one might have thought that nothing less than a miracle could save her delicate life; requested the officers not to permit their men to dismount, offered them milk, the only refreshment we had that they would accept, and it was handed around by William, in a pail; after every man was refreshed, they quietly and decorously rode away. I was up and peeped through a hole in the curtain at the only company of Federal soldiers I saw during the war.
Their gentlemanly deportment quite disarmed Charlotte of her fears for the safety of the silver; as she took it from under my pillow, she said, “I don’t believe them men would ’onderscend to steal spoons.”
They went on, though, those very men, to a plantation five miles beyond. The poor, old gentleman had all his sons in the Confederate service; he kept a horse tied at his back gate, day and night: it seems he did not share our confidence in the protection of the muddy gully, so he was always in retreating order. When the soldiers rode into his front yard, the tip of his horse’s tail could be seen vanishing in the distance; in Southern parlance he “took to the woods.” Finding no one to represent the host but a very young and bashful daughter-in-law, they soon disposed of her in a safe place—a bedroom with locked doors—and for twenty-four hours remained on the premises, engaged in collecting all they could find for food and forage. Cattle, corn, molasses, and hay were shipped to town by the ferry-boat sent to their assistance. In due course of time, finding the coast was clear and the whole place “cleaned out,” the old gentleman ambled home. The bashful lady of the castle had been released from her confinement, and order somewhat restored, so there was little left to do but estimate the damage.
Charlotte told me the story as she had it from the sable “cloud of witnesses” that pervaded every Southern household, ending the recital with the wise remark, “We didn’t hide them spoons none too soon.”
“Bombs bursting in air” every few days gave assurance that the “guerrillas,” as a hastily organized band of rowdies and bullies, that hovered on the outskirts of the town, chose to style themselves, had “run in and fired off and run out again,” making just enough demonstration to call a return fire from the gunboats and scare everybody in town. These occurrences became so frequent that scarce a day passed that we did not hear, either of an intended raid by the “guerillas,” or the hissing and explosion of bombs, with shudders of unutterable agony for the safety of aged and defenseless friends.
The towns-people actually made excavations in their yards and covered them with planks for refuge in a bombardment. Some of the plank coverings were struck and shattered by fiery missiles, so the wretched inhabitants had to dig tunnels by which they could obtain shelter beyond the covered entrance. Plans and diagrams for these were passed around, and neighbor helped neighbor in the life-saving work. It was a terrible state of things, no military organization at hand to control the rowdy element on the Confederate side, and the Federals claiming to have no other way of putting a stop to these senseless raids except by firing from their gunboats.
In the midst of these occurrences, which we viewed from a safe distance, I was startled one day by seeing a man dressed in the striped and numbered garb of a convict enter the gates. He hurriedly explained to my husband that the doors of the penitentiary at Baton Rouge had been thrown open by military order, and the convicts freed, with injunctions to report at headquarters and enlist.
I do not know how many inmates there were, but the people of the town were terrified to find the whole criminal gang of the State turned loose upon their streets. The man who sought to escape the Federal service as well as the jurisdiction of the prison was a South Carolinian, who in a sudden burst of passion had made himself amenable to the law. He begged to be supplied with citizen’s clothing and transportation beyond the limits of the State, so that he could reach his home. We opened trunk after trunk that had been left at Arlington for safe-keeping, by men long gone to the front, to find a suit that would fit the slender, under-sized man. At last we succeeded, and gave him my little boy’s only hat, as the one that best fitted, and with its broad brim somewhat concealed his face, bleached from long confinement in the cotton-factory. A slight change of clothing was also provided in an improvised traveling-bag. My husband advanced him the needful funds, loaned him a pony, and gave minute directions as to the safest road to Camp Moore, where he could leave the animal and board the train that would quickly carry him toward his old home. When warned to be very cautious lest he be apprehended on the road, and not to carry anything on his person that could betray him, with moistened eyes and quivering lip he drew from his pocket and handed me a package of photographs of his little children and a bundle of letters the only things he turned back for when the portals of the prison were opened. “I can not tell you what a gift you are sending to my wife when you put me on the road to home; read these, they will tell you.” We stood on the back piazza at early dawn and watched the retreating form of that happy man until it disappeared from sight—then burned the unread letters and the thumbed and worn photographs.
Twenty years after, we heard from him as quietly and peacefully living in Carolina, surrounded by his family.