News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1902-07-16


| plantation. To this day their ways are
| as mysterious to me as the traditional
Underground railway" was to the
| slave hunters of old.
The special delight of picket service
| however, was the privilege of visiting
| the few white natives who lived near
| by. All of them professed to be Union
| ists{ all. | believe, were earnest Con-
| federates, but it was policy for them
ito allow any harm to befalI a
| Union soldier who visited them. So
we never feared that we would be cap
| tured by skulking Confederates. much
less shot while in a natives house. To
tell the truth. | think most of US were
about as welcome as we would have
been IN any farming community at the
north. We could generally tell them
about much that was going on in the
world, thanks to our steady supply of
! NEWSPAPERS; we could give them an
occasional book or magazine, but had
We only our presence to offer it was
gratifying to the people, nearly all of
whose own men were in the Confed-
crate army and whose women did not
dare to exchange visits over roads
where they might at any time en-
counter marching troops.
At most of the native houses there
were girls, and each girl had about 500
adorerS in our regiment alone, as we'll
as an equal number in other cavalry
regiments at our post. There was little
or no lovemaking. No man dared alb
sent himself long enough from the
picket reserve to attend to business Of
so serious a nature, nor could he easily
find opportunity to speak to damsel
alone. Ii father or mother or grand
parents Glanced to be out Of the room
for aAmoment, some other trooper was
almost sure to be present. This was
misery for sentimental young men of
the class that regards lovemaking as
an absolute necessity of daily life.
1t was great fun, however, for the
girls. Not one Of them would have
married a Yankee had he been Apollo
and Cr9sus combined, but it wasn't
unpleasing to get an adoring, heart
broken glance from one not unhand-
some fellow after another and to real
ize that all the sufferers were from the
enemy'S ranks. | used to imagine,
probably correctly. that the southern
girls looked prettier and more vivacious
when we appeared than they possibly
could do at the humdrum routine of
homework. Most of them had lost
their slaves in the usual manner, be-
fore our town became a military post,
and they would remind us OF this when
anything in the house seemed to them
to lack proper attention or when they
invited us to sit down with the family
to a dinner or supper, which they as
sured us was not what they would
have given US in other days. They got
SO many compliments, however-SOme
awkward, but all honest-on the skill
of pretty hands and heads that | don't
doubt one of them told the truth when
she said to me in a burst of confidence
that she was more than half glad that
the house servants had run away and
given her and her mother a chance to
have things just as they wanted them.
Some of these southern girls asked in
Vulnerable questions about the duties
and di<ersons of our mothers and sis
tiers, and they heard enough to make
them open their pretty eyes in wonder.
But an this had nothing to do with
love. AS was natural to suppose, and as
we afterward learned, each of the girls
was already engaged to some good or
bad fellow in the Confederate army.
Their hearts were already disposed of,
so they could laugh at all would be
suitors and break hearts cheerly with
the sublime consolation that they were
weakening the enemy in one of his
most vulnerable points. Their manner
was as proper as that of any northern
girl, as the more impudent of our fell
lows discovered when they proposed a
kiss at the door. The experience of
one of these fellows was quite inter
esting to every one but himself. He
was So handsome that he had made
great havoc among feminine hearts at
home and had Gene to regard himself