Memories. Fannie A. Beers
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Fannie A. Beers
Memories
A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664569912
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
For several years my friends among Confederate soldiers have been urging me to "write up" and publish what I know of the war. By personal solicitation and by letter this subject has been brought before me and placed in the light of a duty which I owe to posterity. Taking this view of it, I willingly comply, glad that I am permitted to stand among the many "witnesses" who shall establish "the truth," proud to write myself as one who faithfully served the defenders of the Cause which had and has my heart's devotion. I have tried to give a faithful record of my experiences, to "nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice," and I have told the truth, but not always the whole truth. A few of these "Memories" were originally written for the Southern Bivouac, and are here republished because my book would have been incomplete without them.
I am very inexperienced in the business of making books, but relying with confidence upon the leniency of my friends, and feeling sure that I have no enemy who will savagely rejoice that I have written a book, I make the venture.
INTRODUCTORY.
Among those who early espoused the Southern Cause, few, perhaps, were more in earnest than my husband and myself. Our patriotism was at the very outset put to a crucial test. The duties of a soldier and a civilian became incompatible. Being in ill health, it was thought best that I should go to my mother at the North for awhile. My husband, after preliminary service with the "Minute Men" and the State troops, as a member of Company A, Crescent Rifles, was, with this company, regularly mustered into the Confederate service in April, 1861, and left for Pensacola, Florida, where the Crescent Rifles, with the Louisiana Guards, Orleans Cadets, Shreveport Guards, Terrebonne Rifles, and Grivot Guards, were organized into the Dreux Battalion. It was then supposed that "the affair" would be "settled in ninety days."
From my house of refuge I watched eagerly the course of events, until at last all mail facilities were cut off, and I was left to endure the horrors of suspense as well as the irritating consciousness that, although sojourning in the home of my childhood, I was an alien, an acknowledged "Rebel," and as such an object of suspicion and dislike to all save my immediate family. Even these, with the exception of my precious mother, were bitterly opposed to the South and Secession. From mother I received unceasing care, thorough sympathy, surpassing love. During this troubled time a little babe was born to me—a tiny babe—who only just opened its dark eyes upon the troubled face of its mother to close them forever.
The guns of Sumter, reverberating throughout the North, "stirred a fever in the blood of age" and youth alike. Fanatics raved more wildly than ever, while those who had hitherto been lukewarm hastened to swell the cry of horror and fury which everywhere arose at this "insult to our flag." This feeling found vent in acts of oppression, met by prompt and determined resistance, and thus was inaugurated the fratricidal strife which was for four years to desolate the land.
Rumors of an engagement in Virginia intensified my suspense until it seemed unbearable. One day I received a kindly warning from an old friend concerning a small Confederate flag which had been sent to me by my husband. It was a tiny silken affair, which I kept in my prayer-book. This harmless possession was magnified by the people of the town into an immense rebel banner, which would eventually float over my mother's house. I had still a few friends whose temperate counsel had hitherto protected me. The note referred to warned me that while I retained possession of the flag I might at any time expect the presence of a mob. I would not have destroyed my treasure for worlds, and how to conceal it became a subject of constant thought. The discovery one day of a jar of "perpetual paste" in mother's secretary suggested an idea which was at once carried out. Applying this strongly adhesive mixture to one side of the flag, I pasted it upon the naked flesh just over my heart. One morning the mail brought certain news of a Confederate victory at Big Bethel.