Trials and Triumphs of Faith. Mary Cole
was eight years old when the Civil War began. The first event that I remember in connection with the war was our teacher's dismissing school one day so that we might go over to the public road to see the Union soldiers. I suppose there were at least a regiment of these troops, if not more. As I had never seen soldiers before, their fine appearance as they marched by, dressed in their uniforms, with their guns, bayonets, drums, and full military equipment, made a lasting impression on my childish mind.
At the beginning of the war, my father wished to move from the State where we were then living. Missouri was a slave State and he knew that there was trouble ahead. Perhaps father would have had his way, had not God shown mother in a dream that he would protect us, and that we would be as safe in Missouri as in any other place. Subsequent events proved that we did well to obey God, for none of our stock or property was taken. The deaths of my brother and sister were the most severe trials through which we had to pass.
In January, 1862, the Federal soldiers again came to our neighborhood and camped near the same place where I had first seen them; but, at this time, the scene excited in me entirely different emotions. Snow was on the ground; the weather was very cold; and the soldiers took rails and made a large bonfire to keep themselves warm. The sky was lit up with the flames, and to me, in my nervous condition, the scene was frightful.
That same evening some of the soldiers went down to our little town (then called Belmont, afterwards Windsor), brought back to the camp with them the hollow trunk of a tree containing a swarm of bees, and laid it down to take out the honey. Mrs. Hammond, the wife of our nearest neighbor on the east, who lived but a short distance from the camp, thinking that they were planting a cannon, became frightened and came over to our house with her two little children. She was afraid there was going to be a battle, and sought our house as a place of safety. She wanted to stay all night. Father pitied her; and in spite of the fact that the children were sick with diphtheria, he felt that he could not turn her out.
Thus we children were all exposed to diphtheria; and as my nerves were in such a bad condition, and as I was greatly frightened because of the news from the camp and the presence of the sick children, I was the first victim of the disease. The next to take it was my sister Katherine. Just before she took her bed, she got her feet wet, and therefore had the disease in a very malignant form. The doctor who was caring for her, assured us that she was better, but he told some of the neighbors that she could not live until morning. We did not know that she was seriously ill until Father, who was sitting up with her that night, said, "Katy, it's time to take your medicine." There was no answer; her gentle spirit had taken its flight.
The thought that my sister was dead was almost more than I could endure. The thought that she was gone into eternity, that I would never meet her again in this world, almost broke my heart. I wept for hours at a time. I would sit beside my mother weeping and wondering why my sister had been taken. It seemed that I could never forgive the doctor for deceiving us; and I think I never did fully forgive him, until the time when God pardoned my sins and gave me a forgiving spirit. Dear little sister Katherine! She was twelve years and six months old when she died. She was an unusual child—patient and kind—was never known to disobey her parents, and was loved by all.
The other members of the family took the diphtheria one by one, until all but my father and one brother had this awful disease. Some of us were sick for nearly two months and during this time none of the neighbors, except Daniel Douglas, our nearest neighbor on the west, came to lend any assistance. He came over and sat up a part of every other night when the sick ones were at their worst, and needed the most care. Even the woman who brought the disease to us refused to help, until she was compelled to do so by Mr. Douglas; and then she only helped to prepare Katherine's body for burial. It certainly was a sad time. Even nature seemed to cast a gloom over everything—much sleet fell, and everything had a dismal appearance.
It was during the war and sometime before Katherine's death that Mr. Hammond used to cross our orchard going to and from his work. One day Father said to one of the Hammond children, "Come over and get some apples to eat"; to which the child answered, "Oh, Papa brings us all the apples we want to eat. He gets them out of your orchard."
One day while my brother Harvey was passing through the orchard, he saw an apple caught in the fork of two limbs. Supposing that the apple had fallen from the tree and accidently lodged there, he ate it, and soon began to feel very sick. The doctor found upon examination that the boy was suffering from strychnine poisoning. From remarks that had been dropped, we thought we knew that a certain neighbor had poisoned the apple and that he had done it for spite. A visitor at our house remarked that she feared that the Union soldiers, who were then encamped near her home, would in their absence from home, get the strychnine they had bought for the rats and poison their meal or their water before they got home again. My brother suffered from the effects of the strychnine he had taken for a number of years before he fully recovered.
The husband of the woman of whom I have just spoken was a soldier in the Southern army. One time while he was out foraging, he went into a Union woman's house and asked for a pie. Finding out that she had her pies hidden under the puncheon floor, he raised a plank and proceeded to help himself. The woman, seeing her opportunity, threw the plank onto his neck and jumped on the plank. The man got a furlough, came home, and was confined to his bed for some time. It was reported about the neighborhood that he had a spell of fever.
The woman who brought the diphtheria to us sought our house as a place of refuge, because the house being "low and in a low place" the cannon balls would pass over it. After the Lord saved me, this incident came to my mind as a lesson in humility. "Low and in a low place." If we as God's servants keep humble and in a low place, the enemy may hurl his darts and shoot his cannon balls: they will go over us and will not harm us. If we don't want to be disturbed or crippled by the enemy of our souls, we should keep low at the feet of Jesus where he can continually shelter us. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
Some time after these events the Southern soldiers, commonly known as "bushwhackers," came into our neighborhood and camped in the woods. One evening as it was growing dusk, my oldest sister and the one next older than I went after water to a well half way between our house and the house of our nearest neighbor on the west. From this well both families used water. The girls had to go down a steep hill to get to the well; and as they came back to the brow of the hill, they found our dog lying dead. While the girls were at the well, the soldiers had no doubt killed the dog with a club, as no one heard a gun fired. My sisters went home with the water and then went back to investigate; they wanted to be sure that it was our dog that had been killed. They heard men in the brush near the place where the dog was lying, and being very young and not realizing their danger, they talked rather loudly and boisterously, saying that if they could see the men in the brush, they would shoot them with their fingers. The crackling in the brush indicated that the men were very near.
That night a large number of these bushwhackers entered our neighbor's house and stole bonds, notes, and clothing estimated to be worth $2000. Mr. Douglas had just been to Sedalia, where he had procured a good supply of clothing. The soldiers pointed Mr. Douglas's own gun, which had never been known to miss fire before, at his head; but it failed to go off. Our house was not molested. The next day these same men caught one of Mr. Douglas's boys, made him take off his shoes, hat, and all his other clothing, except his underwear, and turned him loose. In this condition, he had to go about a quarter of a mile before reaching home.
It was probably some time after these events that the bushwhackers came to our house and wanted Mother to cook a meal for a dozen men. Mother was hardly able to be out of bed, but my sister Mehala, thinking that they were Union soldiers, said, "Mother, I can cook for them." "Well, Mehala," Mother said, "if you can, you may go ahead." Mother helped all she could. They baked two large pones of corn-bread in the oldfashioned fireplace and fried plenty of fresh beef. Although the soldiers had ordered food for a dozen men, only two of them came. One of them took the provisions and the other guarded the house until he thought we would have no chance to report them. Then they went to the home of a neighbor and with much bad language said that Mother was Union and therefore pretended to be sick and did not want to cook for them.
During the war, things