. Reminiscences of a soldier's wife : an autobiography. sad. In company with noble women, who worked all the timefor charity or the soldiers, we visited these people to try toalleviate their sufferings, and were deeply affected to seethem, in their absolutely helpless situation, sitting or l^ingon the ground with folded hands, perfect pictures of despair. One white family of eight I remember were, without excep-tion, the most cheerless and forlorn we had ever seen. Themother and six daughters were lying on the floor of an oldfreight depot with nothing but their scanty clotliing to coverthem, t
. Reminiscences of a soldier's wife : an autobiography. sad. In company with noble women, who worked all the timefor charity or the soldiers, we visited these people to try toalleviate their sufferings, and were deeply affected to seethem, in their absolutely helpless situation, sitting or l^ingon the ground with folded hands, perfect pictures of despair. One white family of eight I remember were, without excep-tion, the most cheerless and forlorn we had ever seen. Themother and six daughters were lying on the floor of an oldfreight depot with nothing but their scanty clotliing to coverthem, the old man sitting shivering with the cold. The bleakwinds of November were whistling through the cracks, andthey had not a morsel to eat. Our aid society had very littlemoney, but we hoped to relieve their extreme wants, andasked the poor mother what she desired most. Imagine ourconsternation when, with bated breath, she said, in trueSouthern vernacular: A little terbacker, if you of the ladies declared we ought to let her die, but char-. General John A. Logan In a photograph in the Meserve Collection. A SOLDIERS WIFE 147 ity prevailed, and she was given the much-desired weed. Thedoctors attended all these poor people faithfully, furnishingmedicines for their prescriptions gratuitously. Food and rai-ment were given them, and after being braced up by the in-vigorating Northern climate they went to work and madeuseful citizens. The poor blacks were, if possible, more pitiful on accountof their timidity and extreme destitution; the climate wasworse on them than on the whites, and they died as if suffer-ing from a contagion. After a while they began to feel thatthey were safe from their persecutors and that they werefree. Many an old man sang Old Shady with enthusiasm: Good-by, hard work, and nebber any pay,Im going up North, where de white folks stay,White wheat bread and a dollar a day. Chorus Away den, away, for I cant stay any longer,Hurrah, boys, hurrah,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectloganjo, bookyear1913
