Page:The woman in battle .djvu/406

358 "Who is she?" some one asked.

"O, she's a spy that the Illinois picket captured."

"You're gone up!" yelled some fellow in the crowd.

"Why don't they hang her?" was the pleasant inquiry of another.

These and other cheering comments greeted me on all sides, and some of the brutal fellows pushed against me, and struck my pony, and otherwise made my progress through the streets exceedingly unpleasant, notwithstanding the efforts of the lieutenant to protect me.

Finally we reached the building occupied by the colonel in command, and I was ushered by that official into a private room, in the rear of the one used as an office. The lieutenant accompanied me, and related the manner of my coming to the picket station, and the story which I had told him. The colonel then proceeded to cross-question me, being apparently desirous of finding out whether I was possessed of any information worth his knowing, as well as whether I was exactly what I professed to be. I nattered myself that I played my part tolerably well. I knew very little about the movements of the Confederates, or their number, but, under the process of rigid cross-questioning to which I was subjected, I said just enough to stimulate curiosity, pretending that what I was telling was what I had picked up merely incidentally, and that, as I took no interest in the fighting that was going on, except to desire to get as far away from it as possible, I really knew scarcely anything, except from rumor.

As for myself, I stuck close to one simple story. I was a poor widow woman, whose husband had died about the time of the breaking out of the war ; I was for the Union, and had been badly treated by the rebels, who had robbed me of nearly everything, and I had been anxious to get away for some time with a little money I had collected, and had finally got tired of waiting for the Federal troops to come down my way, and had resolved to try and get through the lines; that a man had promised I should be paid a hundred dollars if I would carry a despatch to General Washburn, at Memphis, and had assisted me to get off; that I was to deliver the papers to General Washburn only, and was to tell him alone