Lucinda, brushed the hair out of her eyes, stood up and straightened her skirts, dusting them off as she did.  Drawing her 5’ 7” frame to full height and tilting her head back defiantly, she announced.  “Ah am Lucinda Jane Pless and Ah come here with a basket of medicinals and bandages, hopin’ to strike a bargain with y’all.”
"General Rousseau, folks ‘round here got little or nothin’ fer y’ to take.  It’s yore job to make war on soldiers, not on starvin’ women an’ children an’ old folks!  Ah’m beggin’ y’ to march on an’ leave us be.  They’s only a handful o’ planters in the whole o’ Tallapoosa County.  Mos’ o’ the people here were hard against pullin’ out o’ the Union. Why, most of us work like slaves, but we surely don’ own any. 
"Suh, the people o’ our county didn’t feel like this wuz our war to fight, but this is our home, our land.  When the state voted to s’cede, why, then we had to go along an’ pr’tect what’s ours an’ what we love.  Ain’t that what y’ b’lieve y’all are doin’?”  Lucinda implored, looking from one soldier to the other.
Lucinda Jane Boon Pless, now an old woman, was relating the story to her grandchildren.

“On Christmas Day in eighteen hun’red an’ fifty- two, yer gran’pa, James Monroe Pless, an me wuz married by W. A. Johnson, the Justice o' the Peace. Our circuit preacher wuz down with the pneumony an’ we didn’t want to wait any longer.  Ah’ve never been so happy in my life.  Yer Grandpa wuz, too!  He hugged an’ kissed me after we wuz man an’ wife an’ he lifted me up high an’ whirled me aroun’, right there before God an’ everybody!  Such a man wuz yer gran’pa.  He had the lightest heart an’ the happiest ways.  If only y’ could’ve knowed him. ”
 
Ah’ll jus’ take y’ up on that, James Monroe.  Besides, Ah kin do somethin’ no man kin do!”
“ Oh, so what’s that, smarty britches?”
With great flare and self-importance and a sparkle in her green eyes, Lucinda declared, “Well, Ah kin birth babies!  kin ye’ ?”

With a shake of his head and a half-grin on his face Monroe admitted she had him.  He loved her quick wit and deep inside he knew that if his Lucinda had had the chance, she could have become a doctor if she had chosen.  He felt a pang of sadness that she had been born into a life of hardship instead of into a wealthy family and the life of a fine lady.
It was the general opinion in the South that if Lincoln won the presidency there would be war in spite of the number of people with strong feelings of loyalty to the Union.  A Lincoln victory meant no chance for the Southern States to continue their way of life. The economy would be in ruins.  Several states had already vowed to secede if the lanky man from Illinois won the race.
At a Confederate camp in Satillo, Mississippi
“Shittimwood? Ain’t that a kind o' wood talked ‘bout in the Bible?"
“Yeah.  It wuz used to build the Ark o' the Cov’nant.”
“Cov’nant...don’ that mean some kind o' promise?”
“Ah think so. Why?”
“It gives me a idea. Ah love to work with wood.  What Ah wouldn’t give to have a little piece of that thar Shittimwood to make my woman somethin’ special
“Look on the back.”
Lucinda turned the cross over.  “ It says Amen.”
“Ah didn’t have room ta put the whole verse on it, even if Ah knowed how ta spell it,” he smiled sheepishly. “When y’ see this cross it'll remind y’ o' the verse, ‘An’ lo, Ah am with y’ always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.’  Darlin’, when times git hard an’ y’ need yer courage lifted, look at this an’ ye’ll know the Lord is right here with y’ an’ so am Ah.  Maybe it’ll help git y’ through ‘til Ah come home.”
Was no victory today.  Men died, families lost their fathers, brothers, uncles, an' sweet-hearts. We won nothin’ but sorrow fer us an’ glory fer them gen’rals.”
One cold morning a guard passed by.  “Mornin’ folks.  Couldn’t help but notice what a ripe smell y’ got in here.  Smells clear out here in the hall.  We got somethin’ that’ll clean it up in a hurry.  Keys rattled as the big guard unlocked the thick door.  Several other guards followed, all carrying buckets of dirty water that they unleashed on the freezing men.
Monroe gasped as he was doused with the water.  It splashed hard against his skin, plastering his ragged clothes to his body.  “Ah look like a skel’ton.  Ah ain’t nothin’ but skin an’ bone,” he thought, not realizing how emaciated he had become until now.  His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably as the frigid temperatures penetrated his wet skin.  There was nothing to dry off with, nothing to cover up with.  The men huddled close together, shamelessly placing arms around each other trying to survive.  Several died in the night.
 
Monroe didn’t see the dead being dragged, like dogs, from the room or being tossed on a pile of corpses and carted away.  Still breathing, but barely, he had lapsed into the mercy of a coma.  Loud wheezes escaped with every breath.  He was covered with his own vomit and feces.  Fleas hopped over his body and lice worked in his black hair.  The guards stopped beside him.
 
“Might as well throw him on with the others. He’s good as gone.”
 “You prob’ly right, but I can’t stomach buryin’ a man alive.  He’ll be dead tomorrow, we’ll get him then.”
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