 | LOYAL SOUTHERN WOMEN. Women of the war : |  |
A Loyal Richmond Girl.
The following story of "hair-breadth 'scape," illustrates
at once the genuine loyalty of some of the citizens of the
rebel capital, and the unequalled fertility of woman's wit
in devising expedients.
S. R. McCullough, the hero of the story, is a Wisconsin
soldier, who was captured at Chickamauga, and brought as
prisoner to Richmond.
Being somewhat ill, he was sent to a hospital, and had not
been there long before a young lady of the city made him
a present in the form of a pretty bag filled with "Virginia
fine cut." It occurred to young McCullough that possibly
enough, at the bottom he found a slip of paper with these
words: "Would you be free? Then be prepared to act.
Meet me to-morrow at —." The meeting took place.
In a few brief words she told him her plan for his escape,
agreed upon a day for its execution, and the parties separated
without being noticed by the guard. In a few days
he received another note conveyed in a similar manner,
giving further instructions, and saying that he might bring
a comrade with him.
As the day approaches he can think of no way of passing
the guard but by feigning to be dead. The details of this
ruse were discussed with his fellow-prisoners; and on
the eventful day four of them laid him out as a corpse,
covered him with a blanket, and carried him to the dead
house, where he lay, still as a log, and nearly smothered
with his rude face-cloth, till dusk. At length he raised
himself, made a hasty reconnoissance barefoot, and finding
all right, sallied forth. Just at this time, as had been arranged,
a sham fight was played off in the opposite part of
the enclosure, by which the attention of all the guards was
arrested, when his comrade slipped into a hut near the dead
house, and McCullough, as had been arranged, when everything
was favorable, threw a stone against the logs. His
comrade came out; the two adventurers were together and
undiscovered. They quickly scaled the high board fence,
one standing on the other's shoulders, and then drawing his
companion up, and let themselves down on the other side
in the same manner. Once outside the prison, they went
to the place designated by the young lady, and found
keeping in sight her white handkerchief. Taking a circuitous
route she led them twenty-five blocks, and waited
for them on the steps of a house, which proved to be that
of her father. Here they were kindly received by him,
though he knew nothing of the plan of his daughter.
In a few days he procured them passes by paying for them
between two and three thousand dollars in Confederate
money. The young lady provided them with suitable
clothes; her father sent them away in his carriage, and he
and his daughter gave them their blessing as they departed
for the Federal lines, which they reached, with but little
difficulty, on the 23d of December, 1863, just three months
after they were made prisoners.
| LOYAL SOUTHERN WOMEN. Women of the war : | |