The next day found us at our destination, Hicksford.
While I was at Hicksford I stayed at General Chambliss’s. I was very happy there. Dan’s camp was not far off, and he came to see me very often and every morning sent his horses to me. In my rides I used frequently to take the general’s little son, Willie, along as my escort, and one morning, when several miles distant from home and with our horses’ heads turned homeward, who should ride out from a bend in the road and come toward us but two full-fledged Yankees in blue uniform and armed to the teeth. My heart went down into the bottom of my horse’s heels, and I suppose Willie’s heart behaved the same way. We did not speak, we hardly breathed, and we were careful not to quicken our pace as we and our enemies drew nearer and nearer, and passed in that lonely road a yard between our horses and theirs. We did not turn back; we crept along the road to the bend, until our horses’ tails got well around the bend. Then Willie and I gave each other a look, and took out at a wild run for home. We went straight as arrows, and over everything in our way. I had all I could do that day to stick on Nellie Grey, who went as if she knew Yankees were behind--only in her mind it must have been the whole of Grant’s army. Dan laughed our “narrow escape” to scorn, and said the two Yankees were probably Confederates in good Yankee clothes they had confiscated. At this time Confederates would put on anything they found to wear, from a woman’s petticoat to a Yankee uniform, but Dan never could convince us that those two Yankees were not Yankees.
After this I rebelled less against going out, as I sometimes had to do, in “Miss Sally’s kerridge.” This was an old family carriage, a great coach of state with the driver’s perch very high. The driver, an old family negro as venerable and shaky in appearance as the carriage, attached due importance to his office. He thought no piece of furniture on the place of such value as “Miss Sally’s kerridge.” He cared for the horses as if they had been babies. This part of the country had not been so heavily taxed as some others in the support of the two armies, and a little more corn than was usual could be had. Uncle Rube was sure that his horses got the best of what was going, and also that everything a currycomb could do for them was theirs. He himself when prepared for his post as charioteer wore a suit of clothes which must have been in the Chambliss family for several generations, and an old beaver hat, honorable with age and illustrious usage. When we were taken abroad in “Miss Sally’s kerridge,” we were always duly impressed by Uncle Rube with the honor done us. On the occasion of a grand review which took place not far from General Chambliss’s residence, I, with three other ladies, went in the “kerridge.” The roads were awful--in those days roads were always awful. Troops were traveling backward and forward, artillery was being dragged over them, heavy wagons were cutting ruts, and there always seemed to be so much rain.