 | MISS MAJOR PAULINE CUSHMAN. Women of the war : |  |
MISS MAJOR PAULINE CUSHMAN.
THIS brilliant and impulsive being, whose life, if it
could be fully written, would sound like some tale of
romance, is of French and Spanish descent, and was born
in New Orleans, in 1833. As she grew to womanhood,
the charms of her person and the impressiveness of her
manners drew her irresistibly to the stage, where she has
had a brilliant career.
When the war commenced, in 1861, she was playing an
engagement in Cleveland, Ohio, and soon after went to
Louisville, where her histrionic success continued, and was
even greater than ever before. Early in the year 1863,
while playing in Wood's Theatre, she received many attentions
from paroled rebel officers, who were then in Louisville;
and, with the desire of making that foolish and ill-timed
parade of secession sentiment, which was so often
considered true bravery among them, one of these officers
proposed to her to offer, in the midst of one of her parts, a
toast to Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. She
consented to do so; and, upon reflection, it occurred to
Miss Cushman that here was afforded her an admirable
opportunity of serving her country, and at the same time
gratifying her own love of romance and wild adventure.
She at once sought and obtained an interview with Colonel
and becoming convinced of her genuine loyalty, received
her proposition to enter the secret service of the United
States.
She took the formal and solemn oath administered before
entering that hazardous branch of the service; and the following
night, in the midst of her part, and while the
crowded theatre had all eyes riveted upon her graceful
acting, proposed this astounding toast: "Here's to Jeff
Davis and the Southern Confederacy. May the South
always maintain her honor and her rights."
The sentiment fell upon the audience like the explosion
of a shell. All the loyal persons present were at once mortified
and indignant, while the southern sympathizers were
delighted. Very prompt action was taken. Miss Cushman
was formally expelled from the theatrical corps, and sent
south, in the direction of her "sympathies," to be lionized
as a victim of Yankee tyranny. She went to Nashville,
and sought an interview with Colonel Truesdale, the chief
of army police, who gave her the most minute instructions
and details as to the information which she must endeavor
to obtain in the rebel lines. Thus equipped, and with full
confidence in luck and her mimetic talent, she started out
on the Hardin Pike, as the people there call the road
which leads from Nashville in the direction of Shelbyville.
Within a few days, and amid a variety of adventures, she
was able to collect many important items of information,
with which she was about to return to Nashville, when for a
time the run of good fortune was changed; and one night,
while stopping at the house of a quiet farmer, by the name
into the presence of that renowned guerrilla and marauder,
Jack Morgan. Jack had too much chivalry to be anything
but civil to a prisoner so fair, young, and fascinating, and
was truly profuse in his generosity as he was conducting
her to Forrest's headquarters, offering the beautiful Pauline
all his friendship, a magnificent diamond ring, and a
silver-mounted revolver, and urging her to accept a position
as aid-de-camp on his staff, as soon as she should be
released.
Forrest she found a rougher custodian, and much less
susceptible, than "Johnnie," as she familiarly called the
other freebooter. Her first interview with him was a fine
piece of melodrama, and would have excited applause and
admiration in any theatre in the country.
"Well," said the hero of the card-table and the bowieknife,
"I'm really glad to see you; I've been looking for
you a long time; but I've got this last shuffle, and intend to
hold you. You've been here before, I take it — know all
the roads — don't you? and all the bridle paths, and even
the hog paths — don't you?"
Our heroine, drawing herself to her full height, and flashing
indignant scorn from her black eyes, exclaimed, —
"Sir, every word you utter is as false as your own traitorous
heart! I've never been here before, and I should like
to send a bullet through the man who is mean enough to
make the charge."
The ruffian gazed on her a moment, and with the savage
gleam of the eye that he afterwards wore at Fort Pillow,
replied, "Yes, and I'd send one through you, if I could,
for pluck got the better of his temper, and he added:
"Well, you've got good fighting stuff in you, if you are a
woman."
In the sharp skirmish of cross-questioning which followed,
her woman's wit enabled her to spring a doubt in
the mind of the cautious desperado, and he turned her over
to Provost Marshal General McKinstry, who, he assured
her, was a humane and just man, and would investigate
the charges made against her, and decide on them with
fairness.
After a little more bandying of words, the fair Pauline
was despatched to the headquarters of General Bragg; and
as she rode away, Johnnie Morgan bade her adieu in the
following elegant vernacular: —
"Good by; I hope we shall meet again, where we shall
have something better than corn bread baked in ashes, and
rot-gut whiskey at fifteen dollars a quart."
Some months after, she saw the great marauder under
circumstances very different. He had been captured, in
his famous raid north of the Ohio, and was confined, like
any other felon, in the Penitentiary at Columbus, in prison
stripe, and with hair dressed by the prison barber. Advancing
to him, she held out her hand, and laughingly exclaimed,
"How are you, Johnnie?" "Ah," replied the jolly rebel,
"the boot is on the other foot now."
Bragg she found a different man from either of the cavalry
chieftains; and her talk with him was not so spicy, nor
so cheerful in its termination.
She saw before her a bony, angular, sharp-pointed man,
of human nature in his composition; of blunt address, impatient
gestures, and heartless physiognomy.
Her colloquy with this cast-iron rebel ran somewhat as
follows: —
Of what country are you?
Pauline.
I am of French and Spanish descent.
Bragg.
Where were you born?
Pauline.
In New Orleans.
Bragg.
Your speech savors of the Yankee twang.
Pauline.
Well, as an actress, I've been playing Yankee
parts so long that I suppose I've caught the "twang."
Bragg.
But to the point: you have important papers in
your possession, and if they prove you to be a spy, nothing
can save you from a little hemp.
Pauline
(carelessly)
. Well, go on; root the whole
thing up, if you like.
Bragg
(picking up a package of letters)
. Without sending
out any spies, I know what goes on at the Yankee headquarters
better than the clerks there know.
Pauline.
Suppose I am found guilty; what will you do
with me?
Bragg.
Why, you'll be hanged; that's all.
Pauline.
Come, now, general, I don't think I'll be either
useful nor ornamental dangling at the end of a rope.
Won't you let me choose my method of dying?
Bragg.
Well, really, I couldn't, as you might choose to
die in your bed, in the natural way.
Pauline.
Come, now, won't shooting do just as well?
It wouldn't hurt quite so bad, you know.
This interview had given our light-hearted heroine an
idea. She was soon after taken very ill, and seemed in a
fair way to cheat the general out of his pleasant little
amusement of hanging a female, for she was tried (or was
so informed, at least), found guilty, and condemned. The
execution was delayed only by her continued sickness. At
the eleventh hour her fortune changed. As our heroine
was lying on her cot one fine morning in the last days of
June, feeling that she would soon be well enough to be
hung, there were signs at the headquarters of the rebel
general of sudden commotion; and, before she was informed
what it meant, the joyous sound of the Union bugles,
playing the national airs, reached her sick room; and soon
Rosecrans' advance guard was in town. Bragg had fled for
the mountains, and she no longer felt the terrors of her
unfortunate position.
General Garfield, in consideration of her long service,
and suffering and danger, in the Union cause, and of two
severe wounds, received while engaged in the secret service,
conferred on the heroine the rank and title of major, by
which she was afterwards commonly known.
| MISS MAJOR PAULINE CUSHMAN. Women of the war : | |