Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/323

Rh Scouts, thought to have been John Mayfield, a Mr. Clinton and Ed Fort. The lieutenant in charge of the company and the citizen prisoner were both killed. The Federals, not knowing how strong their enemy was, fled in confusion, leaving their dead in the road. Mrs. White's family was composed of herself, a daughter about eighteen years of age, and a son, who had married a few days previously a beautiful and wealthy girl. Mr. White was a strong Union man, and refused to go into the Confederate Army or to give the Confederacy any aid.

The Yankee officer, having been killed near Mrs. White's house, and young White being in sympathy with the Federals, he decided to bury the officer, and requested my father (Esquire Hutchinson) and Esquire Gillespie, both very old men, and the only immediate neighbors left in the country, to assist him. After holding a consultation, it was agreed to bury the citizen first and hold the Federal officer a short time until his friends could have an opportunity to claim his body if desired.

My father's family consisted of himself, my sister Linnie, and the writer. Whilst the men were filling the grave where the citizen was buried, say 200 yards distant from Mrs. White's house, and in her private burying ground, the Federals returned in considerable force, and finding them, began to curse and abuse the rebels with language and threats too horrible to mention. My sister Linnie was at Mrs. White's at the time. Leaving the grave, a company of soldiers dashed towards the house, yelling and cursing and acting in a manner which frightened the ladies very much. The officer in charge ordered the house to be burned. Esquire Gillespie, Willie White and my father hurriedly filled the grave. My father, however, advised Willie White to get out of their way, because he being a young man and also having his horse saddled, might cause them to do him harm.

He followed the advice and rode away to the rear of his residence, but when the house had been fired and he heard the pleadings and screams of the ladies, he quickly dismounted and returned to them, leaving his horse hitched in the woods. Unfortunately, he entered the yard from the direction the scouts had fired on and killed the lieutenant, which seemed to infuriate them, because the officer in command ordered him to be shot down. Willie White explained his connection with the affair