The advance guard of the Yankee army—I am ordered out—A noble Federal.

The day clear, bright and beautiful, in July, 1864, and though a midsummer’s sun cast its vertical rays upon the richly-carpeted earth, refreshing showers tempered the heat and preserved in freshness and beauty the vernal robes of May and kept the atmosphere pure and delightful. Blossoms of every hue and fragrance decked the landscape, and Ceres and Pomona had been as lavish with their grains and fruits as Flora had been with flowers.

And I, assisted by Toby and Telitha, had gathered from the best of these rich offerings, and prepared a feast for Wheeler’s Cavalry. By the way, strive against it as I would, I was more than once disturbed by the mental inquiry: “What has become of Wheeler’s Cavalry? I saw it enter Decatur last night, and now there is not a soldier to be seen. It is true a large number of scouts came in this morning, and spoke comforting words to my mother, and reconnoitered around town fearlessly, but what has become of them?” Hope whispered: “Some strategic movement that will culminate in the capture of the entire Yankee army, no doubt is engaging its attention.” Yielding to these delusive reflections, and the seductive influence of earth, air and sky, I became quite exhilarated and hummed little snatches of the songs I used to sing in the happy days of childhood, before a hope had been disappointed or a shadow cast over my pathway.

These scenes and these songs were not in keeping with the impending disasters even then at our portals. Crapen draperies and funeral dirges would have been far more in keeping with the developments of the day.

Distant roar of cannon and sharp report of musketry spoke in language unmistakable the approach of the enemy, and the rapidity of that approach was becoming fearfully alarming. Decatur offered many advantages as headquarters to an invading, devastating foe, “and three hundred thousand men” under the guidance of a merciless foe ought to have entered it long before they did—and would have done so if their bravery had been commensurate with their vandalism.

“Yank! Yank!” exclaimed our deaf negro girl, Telitha, as she stroked her face as if stroking beard, and ran to get a blue garment to indicate the color of their apparel, and this was our first intimation of their appearance in Decatur. If all the evil spirits had been loosed from Hades, and Satan himself had been turned loose upon us, a more terrific, revolting scene could not have been enacted.

Advance guards, composed of every species of criminals ever incarcerated in the prisons of the Northern States of America, swooped down upon us, and every species of deviltry followed in their footsteps. My poor mother, frightened and trembling, and myself, having locked the doors of the house, took our stand with the servants in the yard, and witnessed the grand entre of the menagerie. One of the beasts got down upon his all-fours and pawed up the dust and bellowed like an infuriated bull. And another asked me if I did not expect to see them with hoofs and horns. I told him, “No, I had expected to see some gentlemen among them, and was sorry I should be disappointed.”

My entire exemption from fear on that occasion must have been our safeguard, as no personal violence was attempted. He who personated a bull must have been the king’s fool, and was acting in collusion with the house pillagers sent in advance of the main army to do their dirty work, and to reduce the people to destitution and dependence. While he thought he was entertaining us with his quadrupedal didos, a horde of thieves were rummaging the house, and everything of value they could get their hands upon they stole—locks and bolts having proved ineffectual barriers to this nefarious work. By this time the outside marauders had killed every chicken and other fowl upon the place, except one setting-hen. A fine cow, and two calves, and twelve hogs shared a similar fate.

Several hours had passed since the coming of the first installment of the G. A. R., and a few scattering officers were perambulating the streets, and an occasional cavalryman reconnoitering. Having surveyed the situation, and discovered that only women and children and a few faithful negroes occupied the town, the main army came in like an avalanche. Yea, if an avalanche and a simoon had blended their fury and expended it upon that defenceless locality, a greater change could scarcely have been wrought.

The morning’s sun had shone upon a scene of luxuriant beauty, and heightened its midsummer loveliness, but the same sun, only a few hours later, witnessed a complete transformation, and blight and desolation reigned supreme. My mother and myself, afraid to go in the house, still maintained our outdoor position, and our two faithful servants clung very close to us, notwithstanding repeated efforts to induce them to leave. Our group had received addition. Emmeline, a negro girl whom we had hired out in Decatur, had been discharged, and had now come home. She was not so faithful as her kith and kin, and was soon on familiar terms with the bummers. Toby complained of being very tired, and when we all came to think about it, we discovered that we, too, were tired, and without being asked took seats upon the capacious lap of mother earth. As we were not overly particular about the position we assumed, we must have presented quite an aboriginal appearance. But what mattered it—we were only rebels. Notwithstanding the insignia of the conqueror was displayed on every hand, we felt to a certain degree more protected by the presence of commissioned officers, and ventured to go into the house. I will not attempt a description of the change that had taken place since we had locked the door, and, for better protection, had taken our stand in the yard.

Garrard’s Cavalry selected our lot, consisting of several acres, for headquarters, and soon what appeared to us to be an immense army train of wagons commenced rolling into it. In less than two hours our barn was demolished and converted into tents, which were occupied by privates and non-commissioned officers, and to the balusters of our portico and other portions of the house were tied a number of large ropes, which, the other ends being secured to trees and shrubbery, answered as a railing to which at short intervals apart a number of smaller ropes were tied, and to these were attached horses and mules, which were eating corn and oats out of troughs improvised for the occasion out of bureau, washstand, and wardrobe drawers.

Men in groups were playing cards on tables of every size and shape; and whisky and profanity held high carnival. Thus surrounded we could but be apprehensive of danger; and, to assure ourselves of as much safety as possible, we barricaded the doors and windows, and arranged to sit up all night, that is, my mother and myself.

Toby complained of being very tired, and “hurting all over,” as he expressed it. We assisted him in making the very best pallet that could be made of the material at our command, and he lay down completely prostrated. Telitha was wide awake, and whenever she could secure a listener chattered like a magpie in unintelligible language, accompanied by unmistakable gestures—gestures which an accomplished elocutionist might adopt with effect—and the burden of her heart was for Emmeline. Emmeline having repudiated our protection, had sought shelter, the Lord only knows where. Alas, poor girl!As we sat on a lounge, every chair having been taken to the camps, we heard the sound of footsteps entering the piazza, and in a moment, loud rapping, which meant business. Going to the window nearest the door, I removed the fastenings, raised the sash, and opened the blinds. Perceiving by the light of a brilliant moon that at least a half-dozen men in uniforms were on the piazza, I asked:

“Who is there?”

“Gentlemen,” was the laconic reply.

“If so, you will not persist in your effort to come into the house. There is only a widow and one of her daughters, and two faithful servants in it,” I said.

“We have orders from headquarters to interview Miss Gay. Is she the daughter of whom you speak?”

“She is, and I am she.”

“Well, Miss Gay, we demand seeing you, without intervening barriers. Our orders are imperative,” said he who seemed to be the spokesman of the delegation.

“Then wait a moment,” I amiably responded. Going to my mother I repeated in substance the above colloquy, and asked her if she would go with me out of one of the back doors and around the house into the front yard. Although greatly agitated and trembling, she readily assented, and we noiselessly went out. In a few moments we announced our presence, and our visitors descended the steps and joined us. And those men, occupying a belligerent attitude towards ourselves and all that was dear to us, stood face to face and in silence contemplated each other. When the silence was broken the aforesaid officer introduced himself as Major Campbell, a member of General Schofield’s staff. He also introduced the accompanying officers each by name and title. This ceremony over, Major Campbell said:

“Miss Gay, our mission is a painful one, and yet we will have to carry it out unless you satisfactorily explain acts reported to us.”

“What is the nature of those acts?”

“We have been told that it is your proudest boast that you are a rebel, and that you are ever on duty to aid and abet in every possible way the would-be destroyers of the United States government. If this be so, we cannot permit you to remain within our lines. Until Atlanta surrenders, Decatur will be our headquarters, and every consideration of interest to our cause requires that no one inimical to it should remain within our boundaries established by conquest.”

In reply to these charges, I said:

“Gentlemen, I have not been misrepresented, so far as the charges you mention are concerned. If I were a man, I should be in the foremost ranks of those who are fighting for rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The Southern people have never broken that compact, nor infringed upon it in any way. They have never organized mobs to assassinate any portion of the people sharing the privileges granted by that compact. They have constructed no underground railroads to bring into our midst incendiaries and destroyers of the peace, and to carry off stolen property. They have never sought to array the subordinate element of the North in deadly hostility to the controlling element. No class of the women of the South have ever sought positions at the North which secured entrance into good households, and then betrayed the confidence reposed by corrupting the servants and alienating the relations between the master and the servant. No class of the women of the South have ever mounted the rostrum and proclaimed falsehoods against the women of the North—falsehoods which must have crimsoned with shame the very cheeks of Beelzebub.

“No class of the men of the South have ever tramped over the North with humbugs, extorting money either through sympathy or credulity, and engaged at the same time in the nefarious work of exciting the subordinate class to insurrection, arson, rapine and murder. If the South is in rebellion, a well-organized mob at the North has brought it about. Long years of patient endurance accomplished nothing. The party founded on falsehood and hate strengthened and grew to enormous proportions. And, by the way, mark the cunning of that party. Finding that the Abolition party made slow progress and had to work in the dark, it changed its name and took in new issues, and by a systematic course of lying in its institutions of learning, from the lowly school-house to Yale College, and from its pulpits and rostrums, it inculcated lessons of hate towards the Southern people whom it would hurl into the crater of Vesuvius if endowed with the power. What was left us to do but to try to relieve that portion of the country which had permitted this sentiment of hate to predominate, of all connection with us, and of all responsibility for the sins of which it proclaimed us guilty? This effort the South has made, and I have aided and abetted in every possible manner, and will continue to do so just as long as there is an armed man in the Southern ranks. If this be sufficient cause to expel me from my home, I await your orders. I have no favors to ask.”

Imagine my astonishment, admiration and gratitude, when that group of Federal officers, with unanimity said:

“I glory in your spunk, and am proud of you as my countrywoman; and so far from banishing you from your home, we will vote for your retention within our lines.”

Thus the truth prevailed; but a new phase of the conflict was inaugurated, as proved by subsequent developments.

Turning to my mother, Major Campbell said:

“Mother, how did our advance guards treat you?”

A quivering of the lips, and a tearful effort to speak, was all the response she could make. The aggravation of already extreme nervousness was doing its work.

“Would you like to see?” I said. He indicated rather than expressed an affirmative answer.

I went around and entered the house, and, opening the front door, invited him and his friends to come in. A hindrance to the exhibit I was anxious to make presented itself—we had neither candle nor lamp, and this I told to the officers. Calling to a man in the nearest camp, Major Campbell asked him to bring a light. This being done, I led the way into the front room, and there our distinguished guests were confronted by a huge pallet occupied by a sixteen-year-old negro boy. A thrill of amusement evidently passed through this group of western men, and electrical glances conveyed messages of distrust when I told them of my walk yesterday afternoon, accompanied by this boy, and his exhaustion before we got home, and his complaints of “hurting all over” before he lay down an hour ago.

A low consultation was held, and one of the officers left and soon returned with another who proved to be a physician. He aroused the boy, asked several questions, and examined his pulse and tongue.

“That will do,” said he, and turning to the others, he said:

“He is a very sick boy, and needs medical treatment at once. I will prescribe and go for the medicine, which I wish given according to directions.”

Having received a statement of the boy’s condition from a trusted source, we were evidently re-instated into the good opinion of Major Campbell and his friends. Telitha had retired from them to as great a distance as the boundaries of the room would permit, and every time she caught my eye she looked and acted what she could not express in words—utter aversion for the “Yank.”

We now resumed our inspection of the interior of the house. The contents of every drawer were on the floor, every article of value having been abstracted. Crockery scattered all over the room, suggested to the eye that it had been used to pelt the ghosts of the witches burned in Massachusetts a century or two ago. Outrages and indignities too revolting to mention met the eye at every turn. And the state of affairs in the parlor baffled description. Not an article had escaped the destroyer’s touch but the piano, and circumstances which followed proved that that was regarded as a trophy and only waited removal.

“Vandals! Vandals!” Major Campbell sorrowfully exclaimed, and all his friends echoed the opinion, and said:

“If the parties who did this work could be identified, we would hang them as high as Haman.”

But these parties were never identified. They were important adjuncts in the process of subjugation.

After wishing that the worst was over with us, these gentlemen, who had come in no friendly mood, bade us good night and took their leave. Thus the Lord of Hosts, in his infinite mercy, furnished a just tribunal to pass judgment upon my acts as a Southern woman, and that judgment, influenced by facts and surroundings, was just and the verdict humane.