Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/364

356 "She stopped not for a brake and she staid not for a stone," Gates, fences and bars delayed not her flight; One bound and she cleared them, not breaking a bone, Intent upon sleeping in safty that night.

We plodded along under the heavy cross-fire, balls falling right and left of us. We felt the town by way of the old "Plank Road," with batteries of Confederates on both sides. The ground was rough and broken up by the tramping of soldiers and the heavy wagons and artillery that had passed over it, so that it was difficult and tiresome to walk, and the sun got quite warm by this time and the snow was melting rapidly, the mud was simply indescribable.

I think the only vehicle we encountered (of which I often heard my mother tell in after years), was a dilapidated wagon, to which an old colored man had hitched a decrepit but vicious-looking mule, hoping to drive off from the wars, but lo! upon the steepest and most exposed place of a very high hill the mule had halted, planting his forefeet firmly in the ground, whilst with his hind legs he was displaying the usual agility of the mule species in kicking the spatterboard. No coaxing, cajoling, beating or "cussing" would induce him to budge one inch.

The exasperated driver, after many efforts, exclaimed, "fo' the Lord, Casbianca, you thick head brute, if t'warnt for de valeration uy yer harness I'd let you get kilt right heah." Suddenly his countenance brightened and he said, "But I gwine move yer now, 'cause I sees some corn comin'!" A man with a bag of corn was passing just then, and "Casbianca's" attention directed toward it by the old driver, he unstiffened his forelegs and started after it in a brisk trot, dragging the broken wagon and his irate master, who rained unmerciful blows on his hardened back. We had now reached the "resevoir," a wooden building over "Poplar Spring," and about a mile from town. I had already lost one of my shoes several times, because of having no string in it, and my little brother insisted on giving me one of his, so we