Our daily work was very wearisome, having to walk from four to six
miles each day. Fresh arrivals daily required our attention, and after
wind or rain pneumonia and deaths were frequent. Bible-reading and
prayer were also a part of our mission. One day, while sister Backus
was opening barrels and boxes, and sorting and arranging their
contents in our store, I went with a load, in a recently confiscated
stage-coach drawn by mules. One of the mules the colonel said he was
afraid to allow me to ride after; but I thought a little mule could do
but little harm with the experienced driver, and I ventured the ride,
taking in a poor crippled man on the way, who was just coming into
camp. He was clad in a few cotton rags that he had patched with old
stocking-tops and bits of old tent-cloth, to hold them together, and
it was impossible to detect the original fabric. In passing down the
"Paradise Road" to the camp in Natchez-under-the-Hill, the unruly mule
pranced, kicked, and reared, until both of them became unmanageable,
and the dust rolled up a thick cloud, hiding the way before us, as
well as the galloping mules.

I believed that we should turn over at the short curve near the base
of the hill, where was a number of large stumps; and that if we should
strike one of them we should be dashed in pieces. But prayer for a
guiding hand seemed in a moment to bring relief. We were overturned
amid stumps, and were dragged a few rods on the side of the coach,
when the canvas covering was detached from the wheels. Our driver was
dragged a few rods farther, while the crippled man and myself were
doing our best to crawl from under the canvas. By this time fifteen or
twenty men reached us. I was out and hauling the canvas off the
groaning man, whose head and face were covered with blood. I told one
of the men to run for a pail of water, for I thought the poor man must