“ON August 11, 1862,” says Trow, “about a month prior to the capture of Independence, while Press Webb and I were out on a little frolic, we attended a dance at his father’s, Ace1 Webb, and stayed all night there. During the night a regiment2 of soldiers surrounded the house. We barred the doors against them and I aimed to get away in a woman’s garb3 and had my dress all on, bonnet4 and everything, with permission to get out of the house with the women without being fired upon. But old Mrs. Webb objected to my going out for fear it would cause her son to be killed, so I had to pull off the dress and hide my pistols in the straw tick under the feather bed and surrender to them. I was taken to Independence and made a prisoner for a month.
“While in prison several incidents happened. A Federal officer in the prison who called himself Beauregard, was put into jail with me for some misdemeanor and challenged me to a sparring match, with the understanding that neither one of us was to strike the other in the face. However, he hit me in the face the first thing he did and I kicked him in the stomach and kept on kicking him until I kicked him down the stairs. For this offense5 I was chained down on my back for ten hours.
77 “The provost marshal would come in once in a while and entertain me while I was chained down. He was a Dutchman, and would say in broken Dutch, ‘How duse youse like it?’ and would sing me a song something like this: ‘Don’t youse vish you vas in Dixie, you d——d old secess?’ and dance around me.
“After I had been there a few days they cleaned up the prison and took out the rubbage and dirt. Press Webb, who had been captured with me, and I were detailed6 to do the work. We had an understanding that when we went out into the back yard, which was walled, we were each to capture the guards who were guarding us, take their arms and scale the wall. But Webb weakened and would not attempt to take his man, so we did not attempt to get away then. Then I was court-martialed and remained there in jail, while Webb was sent to Alton prison. I was held there under court-martial and sentenced to be shot.
“All this time Quantrell was trying to hear from me, whether I had been killed, and at the same time getting the boys together to make a raid on Independence and try to capture the town and release me from jail, all unbeknown to me, should I still be alive. Colonel Hughes had joined Quantrell with his company, the expedition being agreed between Quantrell and Colonel Hughes. Colonel Hughes asked Quantrell for some accurate information touching8 the strongest and best fortified9 points about the town. It was three78 days previous to the attack; the day before it was begun the information should be forthcoming. ‘Leave it to me,’ said Cole Younger, when the promise made to Hughes had been repeated by Quantrell, ‘and when you report you can report the facts. A soldier wants nothing else.’ The two men separated. It was the 7th day of August, 1862.
“On the 8th, at about ten o’clock in the morning, an old woman with gray hair and wearing spectacles, rode up to the public square from the south. Independence was alive with soldiers; several market wagons10 were about the streets—the trade in vegetables and the traffic in fruit were lively. This old woman was one of the ancient time. A faded sunbonnet, long and antique, hid almost all her face. The riding skirt, which once had been black, was now bleached11; some tatters also abounded12, and here and there an unsightly patch. On the horse was a blind bridle13, the left rein14 leather and the right one a rope. Neither did it have a throat latch15. The saddle was a man’s saddle, strong in the stirrups and fit for any service. Women resorted often to such saddles then; Civil War had made many a hard thing easy. On the old lady’s arm was a huge market basket, covered by a white cloth. Under the cloth were beets16, garden beans and some summer apples. As she passed the first picket17 he jibed18 at her. ‘Good morning, grandmother,’ he said. ‘Does the rebel crop need any rain out in your country?’ Where79 the reserve post was the sergeant19 on duty took her horse by the bridle, and peered up under her bonnet and into her face. ‘Were you younger and prettier I might kiss you,’ he said. ‘Were I younger and prettier,’ the old lady said, ‘I might box your ears for your impudence20.’
“‘Oh, ho! you old she-wolf, what claws you have for scratching,’ and the rude soldier took her hand with an oath and looked at it sneeringly21. She drew it away with a quick motion and started her horse so rapidly ahead that he did not have time to examine it. In a moment he was probably ashamed of himself, and so let her ride on uninterrupted.
“Once well in town no one noticed her any more. At the camp she was seen to stop and give three soldiers some apples out of her basket. The sentinel in front of Buell’s headquarters was overheard to say to a comrade: ‘There’s the making of four good bushwhacking horses yet in that old woman’s horse,’ and two hours later, as she rode back past the reserve picket post, the sergeant still on duty, did not halt her himself, but caused one of his guards to do it; he was anxious to know what the basket contained, for in many ways of late arms and ammunition22 had been smuggled23 out to the enemy.
“At first the old lady did not heed24 the summons to halt—that short, rasping, ominous25 call which in all tongues appears to have the same sound; she did, however,80 shift the basket from the right arm to the left and straighten up in the saddle for the least appreciable26 bit. Another cry and the old lady looked back innocently over one shoulder and snapped out: ‘Do you mean me?’ By this time a mounted picket had galloped27 up to her, ranged alongside and seized the bridle of the horse. It was thirty steps back to the post, maybe, where the sergeant and eight men were down from their horses and the horses hitched28. To the outpost it was a hundred yards, and a single picket stood there. The old woman said to the soldier, as he was turning her horse around and doing it roughly: ‘What will you have? I’m but a poor lone7 woman going peacefully to my home.’ ‘Didn’t you hear the sergeant call for you, d——n you? Do you want to be carried back?’ the sentinel made answer.
“The face under the sunbonnet transformed itself; the demure29 eyes behind their glasses grew scintillant30. From beneath the riding skirt a heavy foot emerged; the old horse in the blind bridle seemed to undergo an electric impulse; there was the gliding31 of the old hand which the sergeant had inspected into the basket, and a cocked pistol came out and was fired almost before it got in sight. With his grasp still upon the reins32 of the old woman’s bridle, the Federal picket fell dead under the feet of the horse. Then stupified, the impotent reserve saw a weird33 figure dash away down the81 road, its huge bonnet flapping in the wind, and the trail of an antique riding skirt, split at the shoulders, streaming back as the smoke that follows a furnace. Coleman Younger had accomplished34 his mission. Beneath the bonnet and the bombazine was the Guerrilla, and beneath the white cloth of the basket and its apples and beets and beans the unerring revolvers. The furthest picket heard the firing, saw the apparition35, bethought himself of the devil, and took to the brush.
“During this month’s stay in prison, being chained down, drinking coffee sweet as molasses, when they knew I did not like sweetened coffee they made it that much sweeter, running a boxing match, having songs sung to me of the sweet South in an insulting way and being janitor36 for the jail and thousands of other things that go with a prison life, and while Cole Younger was getting information under disguise as an old lady Sally selling apples and cookies to the Federals three days before, I made my bond, my father being a union man and interceding37 with Colonel Buell in my behalf. I made bond for $50,000 to report at headquarters every two hours during the day and be locked up at night.
“About the third day after I gave bond and after I was thoroughly38 acquainted with the location of the soldiers I made my escape through the back way, through the guard, and found my way to a near-by friend by the name of Sullivan and got a horse and saddle, went by Webb’s and got my pistols out of a82 hollow log back of the barn where Mrs. Webb had hid them, and rode on to Quantrell’s camp, arriving there about eleven o’clock that night. After telling Quantrell how the soldiers and camps were located, and as Younger had told him about six hours before, it was decided39 to make the charge the next morning, and after a hard night’s riding we struck Independence just a little before daylight on the morning of August 11, 1862, surprised the camp, and nine hundred soldiers, with the exception of the colonel, who was in command, surrendered to two hundred and fifty of us. Colonel Buell was quartered in a brick building with his body guard and it was not until about nine o’clock that he surrendered. Buell lost about three hundred killed, besides three hundred and seventy-five wounded. We had a loss of only one man killed and four wounded. In attempting to take the provost marshal, who tortured me so when I was in prison, Kitt Child was shot and killed, making two men lost in the attack, all told.
“In the skirmish I was badly cut up by a saber, but I got away from them on foot, and so did Quantrell. While the colonel was slashing41 at me I struck him with a heavy dragoon pistol and burst his knee cap and he fell off his horse. This ended the fight. That night we got together at camp and Quantrell came in on foot, and I had to remount.
“If Quantrell’s men could have been decorated for that day’s fight, and if at review some typical thing83 that stood for glory could have passed along the ranks, calling the roll of the brave, there would have answered modestly, yet righteously, Trow, Haller, Gregg, Jarrette, Morris, Poole, Younger, James Tucker, Blunt, George Shepherd, Yager, Hicks, George, Sim Whitsett, Fletch Taylor, John Ross, Dick Burns, Kit40 Chiles, Dick Maddox, Fernando Scott, Sam Clifton, George Maddox, Sam Hamilton, Press Webb, John Coger, Dan Vaughn, and twenty others, some dead now, but dead in vain for their country. There were no decorations, however, but there was a deliverance. Crammed42 in the county jail, and sweltering in the midsummer’s heat, were old men who had been pioneers in the land, and young men who had been sentenced to die. The first preached the Confederacy and it triumphant43; the last to make it so, enlisted44 for the war. These jailbirds, either as missionaries45 or militants46, had work to do.”
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1
ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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6
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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11
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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15
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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beets
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| 甜菜( beet的名词复数 )； 甜菜根； （因愤怒、难堪或觉得热而）脸红 | |
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picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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18
jibed
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| v.与…一致( jibe的过去式和过去分词 )；（与…）相符；相匹配 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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sneeringly
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| 嘲笑地，轻蔑地 | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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24
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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28
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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29
demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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scintillant
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| adj.产生火花的，闪烁（耀）的 | |
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31
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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32
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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33
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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36
janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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interceding
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| v.斡旋，调解( intercede的现在分词 )；说情 | |
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38
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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39
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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40
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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41
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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42
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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43
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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44
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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45
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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46
militants
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| 激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 ) | |
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