Soldiers' record, 1869-07-31

              ONE FLAG, ONE LAND, ONE HEAUT, ONE HAND, ONE NATION, EVERMOEB1
YOL. II. HARTFOKD, OOOT., SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1869. NO. 4.
i o i i r s a t D o m e .
LET US HAVE PEACE.
Let us hftve peace ! Let nations war no more,
Lot peaceful industry their powers employ,
Let Commerce spread her wings from shore to shore,
Nor Science teach us how we may destroy.
Let us have peace for which our fathers fought!
On hill and field tlieir sacreil blooil was shed ;
'Twas with a price our Liberty was bought!
Be not immindful of the honored dead.
Let us have peace ! Lo, hill and valley cry,
New consecrated in these later days ;
Our Nation's Flag full many a soldier's eye
Looked at in triumph with its dyuig gaze.
Let us have poace! but not till East and West,
Till North and iSouth, to Law and right shall bend!
Till 'neath that flag, all may securely rest!
Till bUck and white alike it shall befriend !
How Nature seeks the worn earth scars to heal.
And clothes with flowery robe each battle plain ;
Yet through the murky clouds wilt lightning steal.
Ana earthquakes rend the rock-bouud earth in
twain.
So where disease lurks in the stagnant air
There let sharp lightnings dart to purify !
Within the moral world, let earthquakes tear
And crush the structures sin hath builded high!
Let us have peace ! but first prepare the earth ;
Run deep the furrows, sow broadcast the seed ;
Let Justice, Mercy, Lov© around have birth!
Then shall the Angel's Song be sung indeed.
Not from ten thousand voices, and the shout
Of human lungs, or booming cannon's roar;
But in the deep recesses of the spirit—
An anthem grand to stand forevermore !
LYDIA L. A. VEIIY.
A WAE WAIF.
I heard a "story of the war," last win-xer,
wliich has never appeared ia print,
and I will tell the tale as 'twas told to me,
with the remark that the main incidents
are correct, I have reason to believe, and
no part of the narrative here given is at all
exaggerated. In fact a good deal that I
have heard is here omitted for the reason
tliat. it did not appear to be reliable.
Some time last fall the newspapers re-ported
that a brave young woman in one
of the mountain counties of Kentucky had
shot and killed a desperado named Kuntz
Harris,commonly called "Cooney Harris";
that she did it in self-defence, gave her-self
up to the sheriff of the county, was in-dicted,
tried, and acquitted. The papers
had nothing more to say except to give a
scrap of the history of the murdered man.
The scene of the murder is in a sparsely
settled mountain district where newspa-per
men do not very often travel. I
stopped at a tavern one night up in that
region of country and thei'e met a man
who lived near the girl's father (nine
miles is near in that country,) and knew
her hi&tory from a babe. He told the fol-lowing
story :—
Old Squire Rockensiyre, the girl's fa-tlier,
was a thrifty former ; he always had
a plenty of meat and bread in the house ;
o w n e d numboi-s of cattle, horses, hogs and
sheep, and a few negroes before the war.
He kept open house, and travelers were
recommended to his farm as a desirable
place to stop, so every one passing
through the-locality, if near night, would
be sure to call, and as there wore no tav-erns
in the vicinity, muny strangers have
enjoyed the hospitality of his house. The
old man was proud to entertain them, was
very sociable, and would often urge a
stranger who was intelligent and a good
talker to stay several days with him. He
would always find leisure to entertain a
stranger, if iie was agreeable, and no man
was permitted to pay for anything at his
house. Everything was free.
In 1860 a young Mr Pearne came
through that region, and, of course, call-ed
to see Esquire llockenstyj-e. He was a
city gentleman, connected with a newspa-per,
full of information upon political and
other current events, a joker, and lively
company every way. The old man was
pleased with his guest, and persuaded him
to stay a few days ; perhaps a week, may
be longer. Esquire Kockeustyre's next
youngest child was Mary, then fifteen, a
fair looking, healthy girl, full of animal
spirits, and, like her father, fond of com-pany
and very sociable. She was describ-ed
as "not overly handsome" (which I
found to mean that she was not pale and
delicate), "but had mighty pretty eyes,
red cheeks, a powerful worker, and sharp
as a tack." The last expression was ex-plained
to mean that she was energetic,
lively and witty. Young Pearne became
well acquainted with her, and she appear-ed
to bo fascinated with him. But Pearne
soon left, and Mary heard no more from
him till about Christmas, 1861, when he
called in confederate regimentals and the
badge of rank of captain in the army,
with a line horse, servant, orderly, etc.
Mnry was delighted to see him, and the
whole family exerted themselves to make
his visit agreeable. His command was
in camp about .forty miles distant, and
he returned next,day, but came again and
often. On one of the visits of the cap-tain,
h« j)ersuaded her to go with him,
and as she had relatives living- in the
neighborhood, her parents consented,
not even suspecting there was any impro-
])riety in the trip for Mary to go and
"see our boys."' When Mary sent the
horse back which she had rode away
from home, her old father began to think
it was not all right, and went after Ma-rv.
But it was too late ; she would not
return.
Of Mary's wandering with the army,
and her residence in Tennessee and Ala-bama
while Oapt Pearne was fighting the
"Yanks," my informant knew very little.
Some of her eventful history came back
to her old home, however, and is worth
relating. These two incidents are said
to be true: Soon alter the regiment left
camp in F. county, Mary had attracted
the attention of another ofBcer df the
same brigade with Capt Pearne. The
captain was comi)elled to be away from
camp a good deal, and hearing indefinite
rumors of the attentions of his brother
officer towards Mary, became jealous
and quarreled with her, though she most
solemnly protested he had no cause for
complaint. He would not trust her, and
in one of his jealous fits he left her to
her fate, while the regiment was on the
march, supposing he Avould not hear of
her again.
During the time they were together,
Pearne had given her a pair of pretty
pistols, and taught her to'shoot, and she
soon became an adept in their use. It
was several weeks before the captain
heard of her again, and then he learned
that she had followed the regiment, and
the da.y before she had shot his supposed
rival. Pearne limited her out, and found
that she had rejected the solicitations of
the other officer alwfiys, and finally re-sisted
a base assault from him by the ef-fective
use of one of the little i)istols he
had given her. Her lover was overcome
with this i)roof of her faithfulness to him,
and "took up with her" again. Their in-timacy
was not intermitted aigain for
several months, and until anotlier ofii-cer
got in the way. Oapt Pearne used
threats at first, and as the other man was
as high spirited as himself, their quarrel
led to a fight, and another man was kill-ed
on Mary's account, this time by the
hand of Oapt Pearne. The captain was
obliged to relinciuisli his sword, and soon
after leave the command antl Mary, and
she never saw him again. He got out of
his difficulty somehow, but as he did not
seek Mary, and she became satisfied that
he led a livelier life than she anticipated
he would after what had occurred, she
returned to her father and mother in
Kentucky. Her neighbors said she was
dressed better and looked pretter than
when she went away. She was just as
independent and energetic as ever, and
after moping a little rather discontedly,
returned to her old duties cheerfully, and
"bossed" the house as before, led off in all
improvement enterprises about the farm,
and made herself generally useful.
After the war was over, law and order
were not speedily restored in the region I
am talking about, and a good many reck-less
men returned to their old homes there,
or to the scenes of their operations in that
neighborhood during the war, to subsist
by various kinds of illegal enterprises
Taking horses away and trading them off
and pretending they were stolen from
them, was one way of doing business. The
scouts for both armies were skilled in
stealing, and spent more time in thieving
and frightening old men, women and child-ren
than they did in the business they
were detailed for. They were generally
smart, but reckless and unprincipled.
When the war closed, their occupation
was gone, but it was hard for them to
give up the business entirely and at once,
i t was several months bafore the officers
of the law attempted to execute it upon
all the offenders, and then the boldest
scoundrels went unpunished. The sher-iffs
did not dare to arrest them. The au-dacity
of some of the horse-thieves cowed
the officers, and they let them run.
One of the most enterprising of these
ruffians was Cooney Harris, who lived in
the county adjoining the one in which Ma-ry
Rockenstyre's parents resided. He
Avas well acquainted with the family, had
visited them many times during the war,
and usually quartered his men on Esquire
Rockenstyre when in that neighborhood.
As Harris always pretended to have or-ders
from some general, he was treated
with constrained respecL by the Rocken-styre
family, including Mary when she
was there, because they were rebels and
he was scouting for the Union army. In
1867 Harris had more leisure and was
more frequently a visitor at the Rocken-styre
plantation than was agi-eeable to the
family. He had bluntly told Mary he
came to see her, and was going to have
her for his wife. His manner of life for
five years, and his personal success gen-erally,
had rendered him bold, selfish and
shamefully inconsiderate. He was a ruf-fian,
ignorant, headstrong self-conceited.
He construed the forbearance of the Rock-enstyre
family into fear of himself, and
had doubtless fully expected to bully them
into compliance with his wishes. Mary
had been living quietly, betraying no
trace of her late wandering in her con-duct.
She promptly and decidedly told
Cooney she would not have him, and en-deavored
to conduct herself in such a way
toward hiui as to cause him to discontinuo
his visits on her account. But he repeat
edly replied to her that he would have
her; he had sworn to and he should.
Something like this passed between them
several times.
Mary bore the threats of the ruffian for
several months, he treating her with more
insult and contempt when she intimated
that she might be compelled to protect
herself, as she had done before. What
cared he for the threats of a woman !
She told him at last that she could not en-dure
him and his insulting treatment any
longer, and she should adopt such means
as Wcjre within her power to protect her-self,
let the consequence be what it might,
and desired him to understand that she
intended that as a warning he had better
heed. His reply was in substance, that
he admired her the more, and that she
was just the woman for him, and he must
have her ; and taunted her with her stray-ing
away with Capt Pearne. He told her
she would never see Pearne again, and
must be his wife, unless she would choose
to go off with him any way ; she might
have her choice, to be married or not, but
must live with him, and iie would come
for her on such a day.
On the day named, when the men of the
farm were all away, Cooney wont to the
house accompanied by another degraded
and no less unscrupulous fellow, both arm-ed
with revolvers. Mary saw them com-ing
and ran up into the chamber, tolling
the family to inform Cooney that she would
not go \vith him and did not wish to see
him. Cooney walked in with an impu-dent
swagger and asked tor Mary. The
colored servant woman attempted to mis
lead hitn at first, but was soon frightened
into tellmg him where she was, and at the
same time warned him that Mary was
"mad" and would shoot. Cooney station-ed
his friend in the middle of the room
and rushed up the stairway after Mary,
while she called out to him that she had
her pistols and would shoot if he came up
the steps. With a pistol in each hand,
both cocked, he showed himself above the
chamber floor, the muzzles of his pistols
appearing at the same time with his head.
He ?aid, "Now, Mary, damn my heart if
"when the explosion of one of Mary's
revolvers interrupted him. and he fell
back down the stairs a dead man. The
ball entered near the middle of the fore-head,
passing dow.i and out in front of
the left ear. One of the i uffian's own re-volvers
was discharged as the body fell
back. Mary hurried down the steps to
meet his companion, as she says, for fear
he would injure some of the lamily, but
the fellow had fled and has never been
seen in that section since.
Of course there was a gre it commotion
on the plantation, but it is said that Mary
was as caltn as though engaged in ordi-nary
household affairs. She assisted a ne-gro
woman to catch and saddle a horse to
go for the nearest magistrate, and dis-patched
another messenger to the county
seat sixteen miles distant, where her fa-there
was attending court; and also sent
word that she would present herself to
the sheriff in the morning. Esquire Rock-enstyre
hurried home, accompanied by
several neighbors, a corner's inquest was
held during the night, and by 9 o'clock
the next morning Mary appeared in the
court-house with her witnesses. The first
business of the grand jury was to indict
Mary for murder. The lawyers who were
acquainted with her history and Cooney's
conduct, all volunteered in the defense.
Mary's younger sister and an old woman
living at her father's lold the same
straightforward story of the killing ; the
threats of Cooney were proved by several
other witnesses, and the next day, before
noon,Mary was acquitted and returned to
her home.
She is still living with her father, an
industrious,genial young woman oi twenty-three,
who, from all that I can hear, does
not look like one who has passed through
such stirring scenes and lived such a life
of adventure for seven years. She ap-pears
in no way changed except as in-crease
of years would change her in man-ners
and looks. She went off with Pearne
as though that were one of the duties of
life. When she came bacik she-came as
though it were all arranged and under-stood
previou-^ly and her friends expec-ting
and ready to welcome her ; though M
will be seen by the narrative, she was for-ced
to return to her home after being-forsaken
by Capt Pearne, or adopt a more
shameful course of life. Shooting a man
appeared to give her no shock. Young
as she was, she contemplated the deed
coolly, and prepared her mind and heart
for it, as one of great experience would
prepare for an unpleasant but necessary
duty. She is not the daughter of .m In-dian
ohief nor of a pioneer in a wild coun-try,
whose childhood was passed in scouet?
of strife with red men. She is not rough
and masculine as women who pass coolly
through scenes of violence and bloodslied
are generally supposed to be. She had
no early experience of life that would
prepare her for the adventures following
her fifteenth birthday. Her associations
were such as had been common to a farm-er's
family in the niountiiins, where itin-erant
preachers always found a home and
strange travelers were welcomed. The
most respectable young farmers in the
neighborhood, before she went olf, were
generally in friendly contest for the honor
of escorting Mary home from "preaching,"
as religious services were called, or from
a shucking or a quilting party. She treat-ed
all with equal courtesy and respect.
Her father had a common school educa-tion,
had been elected justice, and Was
sometimes talked of for the Legislature.
Her brothers were energetic, enterprising
young men, much respected, and disiin-