Have had many experiences since yesterday morning. Our guard
has been very kind, and we have done everything for them as if they were our
own men, because we feel that our safety rests with them. Yesterday the best
one came and said, “An officer has just been at the gate, demanding to know if
this house has been searched; I told him it had been; has it?” Phoebe said “No.”
He said the officer asked if there were not anything suspicious about us; the
guard assured him there was not. “Now,” said he, “you must assure me there is
nothing contraband in your house, or I may compromise myself greatly by what I
have done.” We told him of the cadets who had left their trunks here; he said
they must be examined, but that it would not do to send them at this late hour
down to the Provost Marshal, after he had pledged himself that the house had
been searched. He evidently was nonplussed, and so were we. He begged us to be
in haste and have the trunks opened. We furnished a hatchet; he hewed them
open, and there were the uniforms! He said they must be destroyed somehow, and
that we had better burn them. We kindled a big fire in the ironing room,
and piled it up with nice cloth clothes; but the smell of the burning cloth
went all over the house, and the guard said we would be betrayed. Then, in our
alarm, we poured water on the charred clothes, and by his directions, tore them
to pieces. I suppose what we destroyed had cost two thousand dollars. Oh! what
a consternation seized us as the guards bade us hurry. We were in despair about
concealing the remnants, but he bade us shun concealment; to leave the remnants
out upon the floor, and tell the officers, if they should come, that we had
been searched, and he would confirm what we said. “All this is out of order,”
he said, “but I want to keep your house from being plundered, which it
certainly will be if they find all these clothes.” Such a pile as they amounted
to! We were frightened at it; so I crept into the loft above the porch, and
stowed away under the rafters quantities of the rags. We tore to strips all
Frank's outside clothes, and how my heart did revolt at it, and my fingers
refuse to do their office: we cut up Mr. P.'s new coat, which he had just
gotten at a cost of something like $300. We were afraid to let the guard know
what an amount of uniform there was, lest he should think we were deceiving
him. These officers and cadets (there were seven trunks besides Frank's and Mr.
P.'s) had just sent their trunks here by the V. M. I. servants, and we did not
know some of the young men even by name or sight. Just as I was descending from
the loft, candle in hand, the guard's head appeared above the stairs! One of
the servants had just time to wave me back, and then I crouched at the open
trap door, the guard talking a few feet from me; I expecting every instant that
he would advance and put his head up to see if there was anything suspicious up
there. I never was placed in such circumstances of danger in my life. I called
on God to aid me. After a little, the guard turned away, having ordered the
buttons all to be given to him. Such a relief as I experienced! After coming
down, I found another cadet's suit, which had never been worn, of nice English
cloth, which in Confederate money would have cost $500. — I took a penknife and
slit it to pieces, and added it to the pile. Going out into the passage I
encountered the guard coming down from the third story where the clothes lay,
with a pair of new shoes in his hand; he said his comrade had an old pair on,
and he might as well take this cadet's, as they were contraband. He took
Frank's cap, vest, and pants, and this morning the other fellow rode away with
them on. I had become so alarmed that I thought it time he should know the wounded
man was here, so I said, “Come in and see this wounded cadet!” He seemed
surprised, but came in, and talked very civilly; the cadet lay pale and
motionless, never opening his eyes. The guard asked if we did not need help in
sitting up with him at night, and talked so kindly that quiet tears began to
steal down the poor wounded boy's face — for he is only seventeen. Phoebe began
to weep too; the guard looked on a moment, and then said, “Well, in the other
world there will surely be somebody made to suffer for all this!” I take time
to note this; it is an incident worth preserving.
There was still Jackson's sword. With great trouble we
carried it under our clothes — that sword that had flashed victoriously over
many a battle field — and finally concealed it in an outhouse. Then breathing
freely for the first time since our fright, we went to the guard and told him
there was not to our knowledge, and we were willing to take our oath upon it,
an article of contraband clothing, or an instrument of defence in the house. He
said he was perfectly satisfied, and nobody should enter the house to search,
except over him.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and
Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 194-6
