I do not see how she managed to do what she did when the enemy got to Woodside
in the war. That was quite remarkable, considering what a coward she was.
During 1864 the Yankees on a raid got to her house one evening in the summer.
As it happened, a young soldier, one of her cousins (she had no end
of cousins), had got a leave of absence, and had come there sick with fever
just the day before (the house was always a sort of hospital).
He was in the boys' room in bed when the Yankees arrived, and they were
all around the house before she knew it. She went downstairs to meet them.
They had been informed by one of the negroes that Cousin Charlie was there,
and they told her that they wanted him. She told them they could not get him.
They asked her, "Why? Is he not there?" (I heard her tell of it once.)
She said:

"You know, I thought when I told them they could not get him
that they would go away, but when they asked me if he was not there,
of course I could not tell them a story; so I said I declined to answer
impertinent questions. You know poor Charlie was at that moment
lying curled up under the bed in the boys' room with a roll of carpet
a foot thick around him, and it was as hot as an oven. Well, they insisted
on going through the house, and I let them go all through the lower stories;
but when they started up the staircase I was ready for them.
I had always kept, you know, one of papa's old horse-pistols as a protection.
Of course, it was not loaded. I would not have had it loaded
for anything in the world. I always kept it safely locked up,
and I was dreadfully afraid of it even then. But you have no idea what a
moral support it gave me, and I used to unlock the drawer every afternoon
to see if it was still there all right, and then lock it again,
and put the key away carefully. Well, as it happened, I had just been
looking at it -- which I called `inspecting my garrison'. I used to feel
just like Lady Margaret in Tillietudlam Castle. Well, I had just been