There is one sweet Southern girl, a cousin of mine, who has long since passed to her reward, of whom I feel it a duty to speak, Miss Linnie Hutchison. Her work did not pertain much to Arkansas, but she was well known to H.C.Tipton, former state treasurer, and others.
The first Confederate company of Horn Lake, Miss., where we lived, was made up March 1, 1861, and we were ordered to Pensacola, Fla. When the Yankees took Memphis my uncle's fine home and farm became a regular raiding ground for them. My uncle was 75 years old and Miss Linnie quite a girl. For 24 miles from Memphis to Hernando the Federals burned everything combustible and not a cow, horse, hog or chicken was left. They were three years in this work of devastation and all this time Linnie Hutchinson was subjected to every possible insult and injury.
The house was burned to the ground and the old man and young girl took up their abode in a negro cabin. Miss Linnie had practiced much with pistol and gun, as the necessity of being able to defend herself dawned upon her young mind. When the Feds would come into her yard, she stood, pistol in hand, ready for anything. One day a company of fifty entered the yard and began shooting every chicken in sight. Standing upon the cabin porch and raising her gun, she declared that she would shoot the man that fired the next shot at her chickens. They vacated the yard without further ado. She saved one old horse, old Mike, the buggy horse, but only after a fierce struggle in which several soldiers threw her round and round as she clung to the bridle until blook gushed from her wrists.
Her only brother, James Hutchinson, was killed at the battle of Franklin, Tenn, falling with Gen. Pat Cleburne.
A neighbor boy, Willie White, was a Union man. Some raiding Federals thought he was a bushwhacker and shot him thirteen times until death, came to his relief. That brave Southern girl, Confederate to the core of her heart, knowing that Billie Brown was an honest man, went down on her knees to beg his life, from his cruel captors.
There were twenty-five negroes on the Hutchinson plantation during the war and no white people except an old man and a weak old woman. Nothing went wrong. The negroes were faithful. They helped on all occasions to hide things and never told the Yankees. They made a living during the four years of the war for white and black. Old Aunt Sasa was a constant guard over Miss Linnie, frequently remaining up all night when danger was anticipated.