An UnCivil Woman in the Civil War

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She was certain that the Colonel was planning to relieve her from service as soon as he could do so with a clear conscience. He very much considered himself a gentleman and she’d always felt he was uncomfortable with women directly participating in war. He seemed, like many men, to feel that women should be making bandages or peeing into pots to make gunpowder, rather than dealing more direct blows for the Cause. Whatever that was, she reflected. If anything, she had learned from her long talks with Jeremiah that the war was far more complicated than she had ever believed.

Mary rode on through the whirls and eddies of snow, the early winter storm. She doubted it would be a bad one, but she also knew it was impossible to be certain of the weather in the Shenandoah. The hour-long ride down the trails and tracks turned into three hours and took her through the abrupt darkening of the western sky. Night fell suddenly in the valleys of the Shenandoah. There was enough dull moonglow pushing through the winter clouds to fall with the snow to make her way, but if she didn’t reach camp before moonset, she’d have to huddle down wherever she was rather than risk a fall into a draw.

Just as she passed the twisted oak at the edge of the camp, she heard the oddly muffled shots and shouts of battle in the snow. A Yankee patrol must have stumbled across the encampment.

It had to have been an accident since even the Yankees weren’t damn fools enough to attack with mere minutes of moonlight left. The sounds were more of marked confusion than anything coherent, Mary had been in enough clashes to know the difference. She pulled her Colt Navy from the saddle holster. She thumbed the hammer back before resting it across the pommel, as she moved cautiously in on the camp.

A burst of gunfire focused her just in time to see a figure racing through the darkness and snow and she steadied the big revolver on it.

The swirling snowflakes made it all but impossible to see her target, a looming shadow, barely visible except as a pattern in the blindness. But that pattern had the unmistakable shape of a Union Cavalryman. A glimpse of dark blue through the snow confirmed her suspicion.

Her Colt revolver boomed, and the shadow seemed to fall apart. The larger part raced past her, resolving into a galloping horse, the smaller part falling to the road, still and quiet.

Two more figures, obviously in pursuit of the first drew up slowly and cautiously, one finally calling out in a hoarse whisper. “Show yourself.”

Recognizing the voice, she answered, “Don’t be a fool Martin, It’s me.”

He lowered his revolver to his side. “I think he’s the only one we got. Four of ’em ran right through the middle of camp, dispatch or something. Must have gotten lost.” He dropped off to check the body. “This one’s alive.”

He didn’t sound too happy about it and Mary knew why. Colonel Mosby had ordered them to hang one prisoner out of the next batch of Union soldiers they took in retaliation for Custer’s “illegal contravention of the laws of war.” Custer had ordered some of Mosby’s men hanged as guerrillas, even when they were clearly captured in uniform. Or at least as much uniform as most Confederate soldiers still had. Still, killing a man in battle was one thing, and hanging a prisoner, no matter how much you supported the Cause, was another entirely. It was a murder of sorts, rather than war, and the Rangers were very disconcerted by the orders.

The other figure, Martin’s brother Joseph, helped him move the prisoner back to the camp while Mary went on ahead to warn the guards so there would be none of the unfortunate confusion of the type that often has soldiers shooting their own.

She knew Captain Barrow would have mixed feelings about her return. He was practical enough to understand her value, but, more than the others, he was astute enough to sense that she was no more on the Confederate side than the early winter storm was.

After hobbling her horse, she began to fold down the small shelter set off to one side past the Captain’s. She usually stayed in sympathetic farmer’s houses, as did they all. When she had to stay in camp, the location of her shelter had become customary after a drunken Ranger had “accidentally” tried to enter her tent. He had been beaten quite bloody, and quite senseless, with a spare horseshoe.

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