"When they started through the cemetery gates, I said I wanted to see the Confederate graves first and when they told me only Federals were buried there, I took my seat under the trees and told the rest to go on. Pa, I was so hurt I just couldn't help but cry. The old superintendent came out to say something nice to me and I said: “Are you a Southern man or a Northern?” He brushed his hand up and down a box brush near him and said: “Oh! It does not matter now all those things are passed now.” Johnnie said no wonder the man was embarrassed when I fired into him so. I told him it did not look as if those times were done away with and the North and South at peace when the Yankees lay in beautiful cemeteries under marble slabs and we were taxed to help pay him and others keep the graves green and flowers blooming while our brave boys lay out there in the ravines unmarked and places unknown. I tell you I don't know what else I said. Johnnie came up and the old man was especially nice to him and me too and kept his eye on me while he talked. He took our pictures and told me to push my bonnet back. Johnnie said he wanted a picture of that fire-eating, unreconstructed Southern woman.
Afterwards I said I smelled something like pine apples and the old gentleman said they were apples. He went down in the cellar and brought us each one the prettiest, the most fragrant yellow apples I ever saw. I ate a half one and did not throw it up last night for a wonder.
Well, after registering our names, looking at the maps of the park, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Thompson so kindly explained, seeing the relics picked up and preserved--(there is a gun found last year in the bottom of a branch, buried in the mud 34 years, that I did wish I wished)--we left for Shiloh church.
I did go to the speakers stand in the cemetery to see the river. As I stood there I looked at the beautiful stream and the grassy slopes covered with the white marble slabs, and read the tablets around the center, with the beautiful verses telling of brave deeds and gallant soldiers that lie on “fame's eternal camping ground.” I thought of the bivouac of our Southern dead and I turned and went away from there as hot and hurt a woman as you could have found in 1862 when the strife was at its height. If I had had the sense to know that the United States would not care for the rebels they had whipped—but no one had told me. Johnnie says “Why our boys lie just as peacefully and the Lord knows where they are, Sallie, what on earth are you crying for?”
Well, we drove on to the church, not the same but on the same place; then down to the spring,{6} and Pa, we crossed the Purdy road twice. We ate dinner and Johnnie bought me a glass of sweet milk just out of the spring-house. It was delicious. The old man who lives just above, brought down a bucket of butter milk for the crowd. Said his wife was expecting company and could not spare any more sweet milk.
After dinner Johnnie and Gen. Taylor went out reconnoitering where our men had fought and been. Johnnie found a grape shot where Hindman's brigade captured Waterhouse Battery [commanded by Capt. Allen C. Waterhouse, and under Brig. Gen. W.T. Sherman's 5th Division of the Army of the Tennessee, USA]. I have
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awhile I made them all come go with me to the Confederate graves, in a field just below where Waterhouse Battery was stationed. We had our pictures take here. Mr. Rowsey {7} said some years ago, an old steamboat captain who had been a Confederate soldier and fought at Shiloh, came all the way from the West to see the place again. He gathered some flowers in the yard and when he came to the graves he stood a long time silent, then walked around the long, wide grave and reverently laid the flowers down and said low, “Old comrades, I aint never forgot ye.”
The old folks had a little organ and I sang “Just before the battle, mother,” “Tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,” “Dixie” and “Annie Lyle” and lots of war songs. Johnnie went to the spring that saw blood—old Shiloh spring. He said it is changed and nearly dry.
We had a very pleasant drive back and reached here just at twilight well pleased with out trip.
Your devoted daughter,
SALLIE
P.S. I forgot to say that Mr. Shaw, the superintendent of cemetery, is a Southern born man, fought in Yankee army. He had a sabre cut across his face, done by Forrest's men at that very fight. If I had known it I would have said “goody.”