CHAPTER VI.
A WIDOW.
Flirtation and Recruiting. — My brilliant Success in enlisting a Company. — Embarkation for New Orleans. — Letter from my Husband. — Change of Plans. — Cheered while passing through Mobile. — Arrival at Pensacola. —Astonishment of my Husband. — Sudden Death of my Husband by the Bursting of a Carbine. — Determination to go to the Front. — A fascinating Widow. — A Lesson in Courtship. — Starting for the Seat of War. — Unpleasant Companions. — A bit of Flirtation with a Columbia Belle. — In Charge of a Party of Ladies and Children at Lynchburg. — Arrival in Richmond. — Another Lady in Love with me. — The Major wants to make a Night of it. — A great Game of Cards. Off for the Battle-field.
THE noise of a coffee-mill, operated in a very energetic manner by one of the daughters of the house, and the yelling of half a dozen ill- conditioned dogs, disturbed my slumbers in the morning, at an hour when I fain would have kept possession of my couch, in spite of its unsavoriness. I knew that it was time to get up, but the fingers of sleep pressed heavily upon my eyelids, and I lay for some time half awake and half lost in slumber, not quite certain as to exactly where I was, wondering if camp-life was as rough as this, amused at myself for thinking of such a thing, when I knew that many a soldier would envy me my surroundings, and then dropping off amid a cloud of fancies into a sound doze again. The rather pier cing tones of Miss Sadie, calling to Frank, and a fresh outbreak of yells from the dogs, awoke me again, and this time in good earnest. I jumped out of bed, thinking that this kind of laziness would never do if I intended to be a soldier, and pulling on my boots, I stepped out on the porch. The dawn was far advanced, but the sun was still below the horizon, and the air was dull and heavy with dampness and with the miasmatic vapors of the neighboring swamps. It
required some little exertion for me to shake off the lethargy
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