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immediately declare for the Union.”
In this I doubt not there was a grain of truth, and possibly a grain in the following: “Since your entrance into Charlestown, now only three days, I have heard great change in the sentiments of some who formerly made use of strong secession language, and I have been much surprised at it.”
This was so cheerful that I thought I might venture to test the strength of Union feeling by sending Major Dwight to find rooms for General Abercrombie, our brigade commander.
Knocking at a promising-looking house, he was greeted by a sharp-visaged woman, who called out to him from an upper window,--
“ Go away, I won't have anything to do with you.”
“Won't you come to the door, and let me talk with you?”
urged the Major, blandly smiling.
The door was opened just a crack.
“Could n't you open the door wider,” inquired the Major, “and so avoid a draught?”
“ I'm a lone woman.
I am a lady, and I am a secessionist; and I hope you will lose the next battle you fight, and I just as lief tell you so as not. I hope I am a Christian, but I hope you will get whipped.”
Through the crack of the door came this impetuous torrent of words, until the flow was checked in a downright cry.
Major Dwight, though embarrassed, proceeded to business.
“I want a room,” said he, “for General Abercrombie; and he will protect you.”
Still the woman refused.
Then the Major, with soothing words, mollified the good woman, and soon received the assurance that she would take the General, but she would tell him she “hoped he would be whipped in the next battle he fought,” --which
James R. Osgood and Company, 1883.
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