The account below was written by Frances Emmaline Allen ("Ema Pickle"), and it follows her account "Emaline's Tale" of Sherman's Union army in Chesterfield County, South Carolina. "Emaline's Tale" ended with the departure of Sherman's troops.
The Allen family lived on a small farm near the town of Mount Croghan. They owned one-hundred thirty-five acres and farmed twenty-five acres on which they raised food provisions and a small amount of cotton. Emmaline mentions workers who were enslaved on the farm, and evidently, the workers made up at least a few families since she mentions multiple cabins on the farm. Unfortunately, its unclear exactly how many people were enslaved there as their presence went unrecorded in the 1870 census.
In the story below, Emmaline begins with the departure of Sherman's troops from the area around Mount Croghan, which was early March 1865. As was the case throughout the region, the Allen family was left destitute.
Emmaline describes Confederate soldiers, including members of her family, returning home after the Sherman's army left. She mentioned by name her father Eli, brother Robert Alfred, and an "Uncle Jas." I have not been able to verify the military service of all these family members. Eli does not appear in any records I examined, but he was in his fifties during the war (very old for military service), so he have served the Confederate government in a non-military capacity. Robert does appear but the extent record does not agree with Emmaline's recollection. He enlisted at the start of the war (August 25, 1861) in the Chesterfield Light Artillery but was discharged for health reasons. within a year, long before Sherman came to Chesterfield County. "Uncle Jas" I have not been able to identify. The discrepancy could be attributed to missing record to Emmaline's mistaken memory.
The narrative ends with Emmaline's family leaving for North Carolina and starting a new life for themselves. By 1870, the family had moved to Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Emmaline says that the family abandoned cotton growing and worked on the railroads after after the move, but the 1870 census records show the family continue to farm. However, they are recorded as farm hands, rather than farmers, indicated that they likely didn't own their own farm, showing a significant drop in economic status.
Emmaline married a man by the name of James T. Burris in the 1870s (probably around 1872). Burris was a farmer in Stanly County, and Emmaline focused on home life, raising three kinds and helping care for her father-in-law William. They remained on their farm until Emmaline's death in 1930.
Emmaline's discusses her sister, Nancy, who became a pariah after becoming romantically involved with a Union soldier. Independent records indicate that Nancy indeed was scarred by her experiences during the war. In 1880, she was living with Emmaline's family. Despite being in her late thirties, the census taker recorded that she was single, unemployed, and disabled.
Homecoming – Leaving Home
After the army left, and the others that were to follow, had come and gone we had virtually nothing left. Our spirit was broken along with furniture, and all belongings. Mama managed to repair the secretary and safe with tin panels.
A lot of collard greens were left unharmed so we cooked messes of the stuff. Once Mama had stored a pot of them in the pie safe for overnight, and it came up a bad storm. Mama was scared to death of thunder and lightning. She woke us all up in the middle of the night and made us sit in the hall, lined up along a wall. Sleepy headed as we were, some would start snoring and she would pound our head and say that we should be prepared in case we have to run. After awhile the rain slacked off from making so much racket on the roof and it had been some time since the last crack of thunder. Mama told Eli to get up and look out the door and see how bad the storm was. He had been the one snoring and was half asleep. He accidentally opened the safe door instead and stuck his head in. There was a long period of silence and Mama hollered at him.
"It's black as pitch and smells like collards!" He reported.
We faced another enemy: poverty and starvation. It was soon late spring and we needed to get seeds into the ground. Luckily, some seed was saved, but we didn't have a mule, plow or even a hoe to plant with. We had no saw to cut stove wood. One of my brothers tried to make a plow from piece of the old one, it turned out crooked and useless. Te saying "make do" had to be born here. There was no source of assistance available. The handful of help which were left behind were very aggressive towards us. The rest either went on their own or were forced to join Sherman's army.
Somehow we did get another vegetable garden started and found cornmeal that was hidden. There were no salt to put in it or anything to make it rise, so it was flat and tasteless, but it was hot and filling. We did have a lot of fish fries in those days.
For months, I would awaken in the still of night and be very distressed. Squads of ragged looking refugees and our beloved soldiers in grey had been passing by daily.
One cold Saturday afternoon in December, we saw a column of weary men coming around the bend of a road, a dismal train of returning soldiers. A lanky, giant of a man with rounded soldiers and sunken chest broke apart from the rest. There was a tangle of black hair sprouting from holes in his hat like lots of ruffled grouse feathers and he looked quite a spectacle to us with his scraggly beard as he came closer. The walk was very familiar but his stooped posture didn't fit my remembrance of Papa.
Us children, tow headed and thin as young pines standing there in rags must have looked like a spectacle to him as well.
"It's Papa! Eli shouted. The words "Papa" ran from every mouth except mine. There was no way that is Papa. You could not make me believe it. I remembered him being tall, but not this thin. The weather was bitter cold, and the wind whistled through the leafless trees. As he drew near us, the dozens of bearded men stopped to see what would happen.
He definitely was coming to our place. There was a familiarity to his dusty, haggard face, a face which wore a weary expression that was painful to look at. He had no soles on his shoes, just tops. He walked from Pig Point, Virginia all the way to Chesterfield County.
But was Papa. We surrounded him joyously. Hugged him and ground our faces into his rough worn coat, making it soaking wet from tears of joy.
The old wash pot that served many purposes and plugged with tallow was full on hominy Mama had prepared for our meal. She invited the soldiers to have some and never in my life have I witnessed such ravenous hunger. They filled their dirty hats with food to use for bowls. Some even used pieces of wood found on the ground. We drank some poor tea made from sassafras leaves and bark.
We had managed to save some of the silver by hiding it in the woods under the sod. The rest we could not find, but for one of the boys had placed it under a fence post. After the soldiers took up the posts to burn, its whereabouts could not be located. One of the neighbors had saved some household furniture, gave us a couple of chairs, two stools and an old pine table. We located several pieces of crockery and a wash basin, but we had to drink from gourds.
Papa had not seen home in four years. Yet here he was and he intended to try to regain the life he left. It was a hopeless cause. Try as he might, he did not succeed. We were not even left a Bible to read. The lawless men had took all the best horses and cows, then shot the rest and left them lying to rot. There was no way for us to get rid of them. The stench was unbearable. Everything was gone, not a building fit to use left standing, the house itself beyond repair.
The soldiers had even pushed Mama down snatched the shoes right off her feet and threw them in the fire when the woodpile was burning. As she fell, her snuff box tumbled from her picket, and of course, was promptly taken. I always looked forward to going in the yard and breaking off twigs to chew up the ends for Mama's toothbrushes. I would chew and chew to make it soft for her to dip with, now there was no reason to do so. We had only one needle to sew with; the one Margaret had hidden in her bonnet.
Franklin and Eli were thin, sickly and often plagued with horrid nightmares. Eli never fully recovered from his shock at the creek. He used to be a fleshy child, but was now very peaked. The unhiding in the bushes the night of his torture was our Uncle Jas. He had returned from Virginia, traveling by night to avoid capture. He didn't survive, for he was caught when the found his haversack. He was tortured severely, and he died as a prisoner of war with the pneumonia. They were kind enough to let us retrieve his body which we laid him to rest under the magnolia tree. Such a lonely grave there by itself.
My brother, Robert, had walked most of the way home from Pig Point, Virginia. He had to hide out to avoid being taken and endured most horrid circumstances eventually being taken prisoner a short time.
We were children that had lost childhood. Our family had led a life of hunger and terror. Nancy was in a bad way since she returned. Thin and claimed to have headaches. She would hardly eat and didn't do any work. Not that she was so inclined to do alot of anything before this, but now it was either an excuse or the fact that apparently she was still in love with our enemy. Somehow Papa found out, he always finds out everything.
He had not expected all that. When Papa returned to find her in this state. I think that's where his world ended. Nancy was his pick. He always believed every word she said, but her actions and attitude broke his heart. He felt that Chesterfield County was no longer our home.
I knew a change was coming before Papa decided to move us. I watched as daily, Mama stood, face streaming with tears when she thought no one could see. She had been caught wringing her hands for she could not bear to see him this dreadful shape. It sickened her heart. She grew even leaner and her face had a pinched look to it. At first, I thought it was because she missed her snuff. In the past, John would play pranks on her and all of us for that matter. He would hide her spittoon when she was in the house cooking or cleaning and didn't want to go out to spit. She would look around trying to find ti and her face this same pinched look. Lack of a place to split was not the reason for this.
There was not a fence post anywhere. The peach and apple trees were gone. We did find the silver that was buried on the creek bank and a barrel of salt that we had disguised by burying it and covering it over with leached ashes. But we couldn't even restuff our bedticks, there wasn't a chicken or duck on the place and the soldiers had taken their swords and stirred up the molasses in the fathers they took out of the pillows.
Such a sight of desolation and the prospect was gloomy at trying to resume our former life. Papa had tried but the coming of the carpetbaggers and those "bummer" outlaws was the last straw. We were attempting to resew our bed clothing when an outlaw came in and used his bayonet to reduce the clothing to small pieces. Finally, he gave up. He hitched a scrawny horse that he bought off someone to our ragged buggy and loaded what we had salvaged, of our property which wasn't much, and we left Chesterfield forever.
Papa said we were going to a different world. A world with no more sand spurs and swamps. We would be in North Carolina. To us children, that place sounded grand compared to what we had been accustomed to. Also, he gave me a new nickname, 'Ema Pickle'. Maybe he is taking a cotton to me now, being as I am older and help mama the most around the house. He seemed to pay more attention to me than before.
He decided to take us to his brother in Mecklenburg, North Carolina. We lived for awhile in Morningstar Township which is which is Matthews before moving to down town Charlotte. My grandpa, uncles and aunts went along. too. The whole family left that barren, God forsaken country and it's bad memories. Grandpa and all the rest ended up in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Up at Rocky River Township. Even help start a church in the area. There, we tried to forget the past by starting a new life. I know things are going to be better now. Mama's hands don't shake like they used to. I watched her part her hair in the middle and pull it smooth over her temples, then put it up in a top knot with a new jeweled comb that Papa brought her. Our cotton life was over, railroads were our new way to make a living.
A neighbor's girl named Mary went with us when we left. A lot more wanted to go, but there wasn't enough room. It seemed she was with child and rumor was that it belonged to a Yankee. The family rejected her and she had to leave home. Papa felt sorry for a young girl in a situation like this especially since she was a friend to Nancy.
Mary's baby was born by the light of a tallow candle in our new place in Matthews, North Carolina. It was a beautiful boy. No matter, though, for Papa said she couldn't stay with us any longer. She would have to go to Anson County, to an all female college along with Nancy for they needed book learning. Mary took the baby with her. Later, the poor dear was discovered dead. It was told that she poisoned him and put the body in her suitcase. It was found by the lady that ran the boarding house where she stayed. For some reason, nothing every came of it. We didn't breathe a word about what she'd done even though we felt Nancy had a hand in it.
Nancy never married, but she went to church every Sunday. Why, she even went so early as to sit on the porch steps out front until it was time for the people to arrive. She was there every time the doors opened for the rest of her life. Papa told us tales in the evenings after supper about his long walk home. There was no money for to pay his way.
Coming through a steep, rugged pass in the mountains of North Carolina, he spent the night in an abandoned school house. He knew it was abandoned because it was thick with cobwebs and mice had knawed all the books into nest materials.
In the middle of the night there was a slam and a bang. The benches were shaking and started turning over row by row. Before it got to the row on which he laid down, eh fled out the door and ranas fast as he could without looking back.
Then he had hidden in a briar patch and watched two outliers kill a man and take his horse. Both of them rode it off together and it was too much for the horse bare. Horses were scarce for so many were killed in the war.
In one town he crouched in the weeds beside the train tracks until it was near time for the train to leave the station. When the whistle started blowing, he ran and pulled himself into an open boxcar. The workers walked up and down looking inside each one but somehow they didn't see him. The rattling of the wheels sang him to sleep and he almost didn't get off in time before the next stop.
Uncle Willie lives in the edge of the mountains, and it wasn't out of his way to stop by for a visit with the kin folks. His brother had not yet returned to help the family with the spring planting, so he stayed for a few days. He was in a hurry to get the last field plowed so that he could continue on his way and each evening he worked until there was no light to see by.
The last few rows were down near a thick patch of woods. Suddenly, the mule didn't want to go in that direction. It rared up with eyes wild looking like an animal in a trap and snorted until it's nose bled. Then after a lot of tossing around, the harness came a loose and that mule ran off faster than any one Papa had seen go. There was deadly silence, not even a bird was heard. Papa froze, for standing in front of him was a huge bear. Someone up above must be looking after him, because he made it back to the house. Walking backwards the whole way. He said that he didn't want to turn his back on it.
Papa's advice is for all us southerners to work hard and wait. Wait for their time to come. One of these days, it will.
