Hines

RECOLLECTIONS OF MRS. M.C. HINES OF CAMDEN

When I look back through the lapse of some forty-odd years, back through the dark days that looked then like ruin and disaster, back through the days of pilfering and plundering, back through the events of the bloody, unjust strife, when this Southland was filled with guerrillas, jayhawkers, carpetbaggers and bloodsucking vampires, I feel almost appalled at the circumstances and conditions existing in those passing events of that just and nobly fought cause. I am seventy-four years old and can't say that I feel my infirmities. My health is fairly good. My hearing and eyesight is almost as good as it was thirty years ago. I enjoy life yet, enjoy church going and visiting my neighbors. My scope in this life has been one of broad measure, and when I view the lost cause in its original latitude and longitude "so to speak," I feel that I won as great a battle as any, or almost any of the sons of our Southland. Being deprived of the care, comfort and support of my husband, whose name was Wm. Lafayette Hines, who died in July, 1863, being left with three little children to care for, to be mother and father too, I kept my vigil as does the good angels on the death watch of an infant child. I lost my home, which in its true sense means a great deal. Lost my kindred relatives and friends, lost everything, but clung to my little ones. I was mother, wife and landlord; had to chop wood, make fires, cook, plow, hoe, card, spin and weave, running the whole gauntlet, filling all the life's offices, dreading nightfall with all its hideous affliction, and I almost feel the chilly sensations yet. Expecting to be disturbed by some prowling marauder or listening for the clatter of some Yankee's horses feet or probably listening to the welcome "hoo hoo" of a friendly owl; singing a cradle lullaby to my children until tired and worn out. When I would lay me down to sleep knowing not whether I would wake or be murdered or burned alive. It was about this wise that I spent that never-to-be-forgotten period which is as fresh in my memory today as the living sun.