"ALLOWS ME TO BE AT LARGE!"

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"Stop!" I interrupted; "stop! I won't hear such calumny. I know just what sort of gentlemen' your soldiers are; for we have had seven thousand of them at Camp Douglas in Chicago, taken prisoners at Fort Donelson; and if they were the 'flower of your youth,' you are worse off for men in the South than I had supposed."

"And I have seen your soldiers, too, to my sorrow and horror. They are barbarians, I tell you. They came to my husband's villa after he had gone to Congress, and I was left alone, with my servants in charge, and they destroyed everything — everything! My plate, china, pictures, carpets, even my furniture, were imported; and the wretches! they burned up everything!"

"If your manners were as unbearable as they have been during the two weeks I have seen you in this house, I only wonder you escaped cremation with your villa and furniture. It is astonishing clemency that allows you to be at large in this city, plotting against the government and insulting loyal people." "Allows me to be at large!" she fiercely screamed, almost purple with rage. "Who dares imprison me, I'd like to know. You would like to put me in jail, and shut me up with murderers, and niggers, and thieves, would you? The tables will be turned by and by. England is going to help us; and we will have our feet on your accursed Yankee necks, before you are a year older or wickeder."

She was standing at her fullest height, her face aflame, her eyes on fire, her voice at its highest pitch. It was useless to talk further, so I rose and left the room, saying at the door, with a low bow, "Until that time, madam, I bid you farewell."

294

A COMPLAINT LODGED AGAINST ME.

I learned afterwards that she went to the provostmarshal, and lodged a complaint against me, declaring that she had reason to believe I was taking contraband goods down the river to smuggle within the rebel lines, like morphine, quinine, chloroform, medicines in the package, and cotton cloth in the piece. Afterwards, at the dinner-table, she offered to lay a wager of a dozen pairs of gloves that not one of our party would go below Memphis, but that we would be sent North by the first boat. She would have lost her bet had any one taken it, as we left Memphis for Vicksburg that very night, on the Tigress.

I learned afterwards that this woman, with her friends and companions, was passed within the Confederate lines at Vicksburg a few days later, where they remained until the surrender of the city to General Grant, on the Fourth of July. They were as heroic in their endurance of the horrors of the long siege as the Confederate men, and evinced courage as unyielding, and tenacity of purpose as unflinching, as any officer who wore the Confederate gray.

CHAPTER XIII.

ALONG THE DREARY RIVER-SAD SIGHTS IN A REGIMENTAL HOSPITAL-JOLLY BATTERY BOYS-I AM WELCOMED TO CAMP BY OLD FRIENDS.

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Perils of the lower River-The Tigress and its disloyal Officers-The Stewardess a Virago - "I could throw you overboard as if you were a Cat!"-Lake Providence and its fathomless Mud - "The Sanitary Commission's got mired!"- Go down to Milliken's Bend - Distribute Supplies to Hospitals-Sorry Plight of a Wisconsin Regimental Hospital -Surgeon-General Wolcott, of Wisconsin, breaks it up-In the Camp of the Chicago Mercantile Battery--"What a Hubbub! What a Jubilee!" - Evening Prayers in Camp - The Boys get Breakfast" The Victuals will taste better if you don't see the Cooking!" - Leave for Young's Point-General Grant's Despatch Boat Fanny Ogden gives me Passage.

HE lower Mississippi was "on the rampage," and was all over its banks. It was shoreless in some places, and stretched its dull, turbid waste of waters as far as the eye could reach. No river is as dreary as the lower Mississippi. Day after day, there was but the swollen, rushing stream before us. And when the banks could be seen, only the skeleton cottonwood trees greeted our eyes, hung with the funereal moss, that shrouded them as in mourning drapery. The swollen river was in our favor; for the enemy could not plant batteries on the banks and fire into the passing boats until it subsided, especially as the steamers kept very near the centre of the stream. The

296

A QUADROON VIRAGO.

pilot-house of the Tigress was battened with thick oak plank, to protect the helmsman from the shots of the guerillas. Dozens of bullets were imbedded in it, which had been fired from the shore on the last trip up the river. And a six-pound shot had crashed through the steamer, not two months before, killing two or three passengers in the saloon, and badly shattering the boat.

The Tigress was a large, well-appointed boat, and had been handsome before it entered army service. The officers were understood to be disloyal at heart, but willing to work for the government because of its magnificent, prompt, and sure pay. The stewardess was a beautiful quadroon of thirty-five, with a catlike grace and suppleness of figure, and was wonderfully attractive in her manners to those whom she liked. I have never seen a handsomer woman. But what a virulent, vulgar, foul-mouthed rebel she was! There was not a half-hour of the day that she did not grossly insult some one of our party. There was no redress; for we saw that she bore some relationship to the clerk, that she was a great favorite with all the officers, and that they enjoyed our discomfort under her insolence, which they abetted. She hung her mocking-bird, named "Jeffy Davis," at our door, and then talked to him by the hour, but at us, calling us by names with which I cannot befoul this page, and charging us with the vilest purposes in coming down to the army.

One day, while we were negotiating with the laundress of the boat concerning some work we wished done, Louisa, the stewardess, came along.

"Can I wash for these ladies to-day?" inquired the laundress of the quadroon virago.

INSOLENT MANNERS.

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"Ladies!" scornfully echoed the insolent creature. "Ladies! What's yer talkin' about, gal? Yer hasn't seen no ladies sence yer lef' N'Orleans. If yer means this 'white trash," "— with a contemptuous toss of the head towards where we stood, - "yer may wash for 'em or the debil, if yer likes. But mind yer gits yer pay, gal, for Yankees are mighty mean cusses."

That day, after dinner, I went into the stern of our boat to read. We were opposite the mouth of the Yazoo, where a gunboat was standing guard, the river being miles wide, and rolling like a sea. Louisa followed, to hang up some wet linen to dry, and, as usual, commenced talking at me.

"Dere's dat Yankee gunboat agin! 'Pears like ebery Yankee dere 's done dead; for yer neber sees nobody. Bress de Lord if dey be! I'd like to see ebery boat gwine Norf, piled way up wid dead Yanks. Ki! Ebery boatload would make dis yere nigger grow one inch fat on de ribs."

She had approached very near, and was standing behind me, and we were alone. I turned sharply round, laid my hand heavily on her shoulder, and looked as terrible as possible. I spoke low, but in a very determined tone.

"You will please stop all this talk about 'dead Yankees,' and 'white trash,' and cease your insolent manners towards my friends and myself! We have had enough of it. If it is not stopped immediately, I will take the matter into my own hands. I shall not enter any complaints against you to the captain or clerk, but I will put you where we shall have no more of your impudence." I brought my other hand down heavily on her other shoulder, and spoke