MRS. S. G. TINSLEY'S WAR EXPERIENCE PART 2

To see Part 1, click here.

   In the meantime, Mother and I were running through the woods and the camps. We came to the old Zouave camp and an old Irishman came out and said, "Misses, is you running ?" Mother said, "yes, and it's what you'll be doing pretty soon." Then we went on and got into an open field between the two armies-- the retreating Yankees and the advancing Confederates-- and the shells were bursting and blowing up the ground and going over our heads. We were facing the cannon. In this field we came to a ravine and we got down into it all right and Mary went ahead with the baby, but when we got down there at the mouth of this ravine there were any number of Yankees, and they were all around it looking down at us. Mother went on up and I got half way up- to where there was a great big pine tree on the side of the bank. Then I felt so faint that I stopped and leaned against the tree. Mother said, "Fannie, come on". I said, "Mother, I can't. I might as well die here as anywhere else." She looked at me and saw that I was going to faint, and said, "Goodbye, I am going. Don't you see all those Yankees looking at you?" Whereupon I did not faint, but climbed up instead. When we got up this ravine we could not find Hattie and the nurse-- they were out of sight.

   We next came to the mill-dam, and up on the hill above we saw fourteen Yankees coming down towards the dam. There was an officer with them, and he said, "Stand back and let these ladies pass." Then he stepped up to me (I still had my satchel) and said, "Let me take your satchel." I told Mother I was afraid to let him take it. She said, "Fannie, let him have it." He next offered to help me over the mill-dam. I expected to be thrown in but I let him help me. When we got across, he handed me my satchel and said, "Please tell me the way to the White House." "I am going home and I never expect to fight these rebels again, I had just as soon fight the devil as to fight them." I told him to follow the telegraph wires and they would take him straight to the White House.

   We had not yet seen anything of Hattie and did not know where she was. There were two roads, one went around the hill and the other went up it. Mr. Foster lived at the head of the pond on the road going around the hill. Mr. McGhee lived on the top of the hill, and Mother proposed that I go around the hill to where I could see into Mr. Foster's yard so that I could see if Hattie had gone there. She went over the hill to Mr. McGhee's so she could see the yard there and see if Hattie and the nurse had gone there. Mother saw them going into Mr. McGhee's yard then she sat down in a camp to wait for me. (There was a Yankee camp on the top of the hill.) While she was waiting there on of the soldiers came up to her and told her that there was a good old man who lived up on the top of the hill and that she had better go there. Mother told him that she had known that "old man" before he did (he was our miller), but that if she was in his way she would leave. By that time I had gotten up there, so we started on. Just as we got out of the camp it was blown up.

   We found Father and Dr. Curtis at Mr. McGee's and saw the carriage coming through the field with both doors open and filled with Yankee soldiers, and there were some standing on the steps- about eight or nine in all in it. Toler was then walking, he had gotten out of the seat because he found they wanted to take him with them to the White House and he told them that he was not going with them. He came back and told us that he could not get the carriage. It was taken to Old Point and run as a hack.

   We had been at Mr. McGhee's but a little while when a small piece of shell came through the house. We then started on again, and we had gathered a good many people with us -- the McGhee's and other neighbors. We next went to Mr. Ellison's which was about a mile away. Here Mother killed her chicken and put it on the fire to make soup. Just about the time it was done a cannon ball came and knocked down the chimney. Of course, the soup was forgotten. Father took Dr. Curtis and went out into the woods with him and hid behind the big trees. We did not know where the shells were coming from in that direction. We went on, but of course Father could not go with us because he was with Dr. Curtis. None of us had anything on our heads. Mother, Hattie and I came to a spring and the woods beyond were being shelled all the time. At the spring, we met a man in Confederate uniform who asked us where we came from. We told him we had been in McClellan's lines for six weeks. He then told us that Jackson's army was right at the top of the hill and that he was on of Jackson's men. When we got up there, we found ourselves in the midst of the whole army. An officer rode up and asked us where we were from. We told him that we had been in the hands of the Yankees for 6 weeks. He then said, "Ladies you had better pass on, for if the men --- find that you have been in the hands of the Yankees you will be smothered with questions, and men will surround you." While he was talking, a negro man came up to us and offered to take Hattie through the lines, and she went to him. While we were in the camp a man shot himself accidentally. The officer called out, "If I hear any more of that I will have you arrested.". One of the other soldier's remarked, "He is already arrested."

   It was about six o'clock that we came up with Jackson's army, and passed through the lines, with assistance of an officer who rode in front of us and made way for us. When we came to Mr. Glass's it was sundown. Mrs. Glass told that she had given the Confederate soldiers everything she had to eat except a few peanuts, and that they were so thirsty that they had borrowed all her cups and glasses and had left them at the well and they had been broken. I then wrote a note to Mrs. Johnson, another neighbor who lived about a mile away, and asked if we could spend the night with her. Mrs. Johnson sent word back that she would be glad to have us. By this time we had almost made a circuit and gotten back to where we started from. When we got to Mrs. Johnson's we learned that Mr. Johnson had also been arrested, and had been sent straight down to Fortress Monroe. Mrs. Johnson had a little provisions left and gave us what she had for supper.

   We did not know where Father and Dr. Curtis were. We had not seen them since about three o'clock in the afternoon. The fighting was still going on when we went to bed about nine o'clock and the Yankees were retreating to the White House. We could hear our men driving them and we could also tell when they were driving our men. Several times in the night we thought that they were getting nearer and nearer us. Just before we went to bed they began to bring the wounded in, and the yard was literally covered with them. We could hear them groaning all night.

   Hattie was sick from being out in the hot sun all day without anything to eat and then eating too much at night. I had started out with slippers on, but in going through the briars, swamps, etc., I left them on the way. My arms were black and blue from the limbs hitting me as I passed through the woods.

   Next morning I got up and went down to the pump to wash the baby's clothes out, and while I was there a wounded soldier came up to me and asked if I would not dress his arm for him. I could not see blood without fainting, so I told him that I couldn't do it but that Mother would. So Mother came down and dressed his wound for him.

   We had not yet heard anything from Father, but about half past eight or nine o'clock he came up with Dr. Curtis. Father then got one of the boys in the neighborhood to drive Dr. Curtis to Richmond.

   We had not heard anything from Mr. Tinsley. His brother, Dr. Tinsley, was a surgeon in the army and came out to Pohite to see if he could hear anything from us. There they told him that we had all been sent down to Fortress Monroe. Dr. Tinsley went back to Richmond and told his brother that we had been taken prisoners and sent to Fortress Monroe. Mr. Tinsley knew the country so well that General Lee had taken him from the Treasury Department to act as a guide. But when Mr. Tinsley found out that we were not at home, he asked General Lee to allow him to go and look for his family who had been in the Yankee lines. He traced us to Dr. Curtis's and from there on around to each place that we had been the day before, and finally about twelve o'clock, he came to Mr. Johnson' where we were. He staid there that night, and the next morning we got Dr. Curtis's buggy and Mr. Tinsley took me over to Richmond. I had no clothes except what I had on. I had left them all at Dr. Curtis's, and our men-having heard that there had been some Yankee women there (the nurses who came with the army) broke my trunks open and took my dresses and rolled them up for pillows and put them under the wounded soldier's heads. My underwear was torn up for bandages. I also had a trunk there with my wedding presents in it and they were all taken by our men. Captain Williams went out from Richmond and came back and told his family that there was a quantity of nice clothes and silver left there and that the soldiers were taking everything and he thought once that he would take some of the things too, but he did not. I wished that he had because I would have gotten them back then. Afterwards I heard that the silver, jewelry, etc. was taken by a Texas soldier who was afterwards sent to Lynchburg on a sick furlough. In Lynchburg he sold a great deal of the jewelry, I was told by a soldier who saw it.

   After the battle, Mr. Tinsley came out and took me into Richmond. As we went along the road from Mechanicsville, the dead were strewed on every side. I had to keep my eyes shut all the way to keep from seeing the most horrible sights. We left Mother and Father at Mr. Johnson's, but they went home that day. When Mother got to the front door there was a dead Yankee there. When we left home an officer had given this man orders that he was never to leave his post. The officer had also assured Mother that nothing in the house would be disturbed and that the guard was to stay there. And he did stay, and was shot while performing his duty. Mother tried to have him buried, but she had nobody to do it. She offered to pay one of our soldiers to do it, and he consented to bury him right at the door, but said he would not take him any further.

   When I got to Richmond I was very sick. Father and Mother went back home, and staid there until the raiders began to come around, when they left and came to Richmond. Everything on the place was destroyed, and all the negroes left except some old ones who could not get away. All of us live in Richmond until a few months before the close of the war, when Father and Mother went up to Amelia and rented a farm. Hattie, Jennie and I went with them and lived there until the close of the war.

                              Signed Fanny W. Tinsley.

Richmond, Va.
Jany. 6, 1912.

Written almost identical to the original text, obvious typos were corrected but other wise it is the same.

Part of this story is included in a booklet called "History Hunt at Cold Harbor" by Pamela B. Cathcart, 1994.