I left Shelbyville at 6 A.M., after having been shaken hands
with affectionately by “Aaron,” and arrived at Chattanooga at 4 P.M. As I was
thus far under the protection of Lieutenant Donnelson, of General Polk's staff,
I made this journey under more agreeable auspices than the last time. The
scenery was really quite beautiful.
East Tennessee is said to contain many people who are more
favourable to the North than to the South, and its inhabitants are now being
conscripted by the Confederates; but they sometimes object to this operation,
and, taking to the hills and woods, commence bushwhacking there.
I left Chattanooga for Atlanta at 4.30 P.M. The train was
much crowded with wounded and sick soldiers returning on leave to their homes.
A goodish-looking woman was pointed out to me in the cars as having served as a
private soldier in the battles of Perryville and Murfreesborough. Several men
in my car had served with her in a Louisianian regiment, and they said she had
been turned out a short time since for her bad and immoral conduct. They told
me that her sex was notorious to all the regiment, but no notice had been taken
of it so long as she conducted herself properly. They also said that she was
not the only representative of the female sex in the ranks. When I saw her she
wore a soldier's hat and coat, but had resumed her petticoats.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 173-4
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