RICHMOND. – Yesterday morning my sister M., J. W., and
myself, drove up from W. to the depot, seven miles, in a wagon, with four
mules. It was a charming morning, and we had a delightful ride; took the
accommodation cars at twelve and arrived here at two. We drove to the Exchange,
and were delighted to find there our dear J. McI. and her little Bessie, on her
way to W. to spend the winter. Poor thing, her lot is a sad one! She was
excited by seeing us, and was more cheerful than I expected to see her; though
she spoke constantly of her husband, and dwelt on her last days with him. She
was in Memphis; her little Jemmie was excessively ill; she telegraphed for her
husband in Arkansas. He came at once, and determined that it would be better to
take the little boy to the house of his aunt in Louisiana, that J. might be
with her sister. They took the boat, and after a few hours arrived at Mr. K's
house. The child grew gradually worse, and was dying, when a telegram came to
General Mcintosh from General Price, “Come at once — a battle is imminent.” He
did not hesitate; the next steamer bore him from his dying child and sorrowing
wife to the field of battle, Pea Ridge. He wrote to her, immediately on his
arrival at camp, the most beautifully resigned letter, full of sorrow for her
and for his child, but expressing the most noble, Christian sentiments. Oh, how
she treasures it! The lovely boy died the day after his father left him! The
mother said, “For a week H. and myself did nothing but decorate my little
grave, and I took a melancholy pleasure in it; but darker days came, and I could
not go even to that spot.” She dreamed, a few nights after little Jemmie's
death, of being at Fort Smith, her home before the war; standing on the balcony
of her husband's quarters, her attention was arrested by a procession — an
officer's funeral. As it passed under the balcony she called to a passer-by: “Whose
funeral is that?” “General McIntosh's, madam.” She was at once aroused, and ran
to her sister's room in agony. She did what she could to comfort her, but the
dream haunted her imagination. A few days afterwards she saw a servant ride
into the yard, with a note for Mrs. K. Though no circumstance was more common,
she at once exclaimed, “It is about my husband.” She did not know that the
battle had taken place; but it was the fatal telegram. The soldiers carried his
body to Fort Smith, and buried it there. To-morrow she returns, with her aunt,
to W. She wishes to get to her mother's home in Kentucky, but it is impossible
for her to run the blockade with her baby, and there is no other way open to
her.
SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 166-8
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