Saving the Milk
Narrow Escape #21
Ironton Register 7 April 1887
Submitted by Karen Carlyle
“Mr. Israel Smith, have you heard you are under arrest for a short time?”
“No, when did this happen?”
“Just now, I want one of your narrow escapes for the Register man.”
“Oh! I understand now. Well, I’ll submit it if you treat me kindly. I belonged to Company E, 5th WV, under Colonel Enochs.”
“Our brigade started in June ’64 for a raid on Lynchburg. We were about a week on our way. We arrived there at about 3 o’clock. If we had gone into the town, we could have taken place, but our general halted us until the next morning.
“All night, we could hear troops arriving on the train. We charged them the next morning around 10 o’clock, but we did not reach the place, as they were too strong for us. We then had orders to fall back, which we gladly did. All that afternoon, we kept getting away from them. That night we stood in the line of battle very tired and without rations.”
“Next morning, we had our orders to march home. James Hawkins and I started to forage for grub. We went to colored women’s house a short distance away. We went over and passed ourselves as rebel spies; told her we had whipped the Yankees and wanted our breakfast and haversacks filled. The lady was very polite and treated us very kindly.
“We fared sumptuously – but not every day – eating our breakfast with our guns on our laps. After breakfast, we saw the rebs were ahead of us. We fell into our rear guard, who was crossing a field. All we got from there to Greenbrier River was potatoes. After the cross, a woman [sic] was having griddle cakes for us.
“The boys were taking them off the griddle as fast as she could bake them. George Miller looked into the window and said, “We can beat that.” “We started by ourselves to hunt something to eat. We soon struck a farmhouse and found plenty of women but no men. George broke into the cupboard and handed me a loaf of bread, and he got a crock of milk.”
“Just as we came out on the porch, we saw a dozen rebels on horseback coming for us. We started to run – George with the crock. “Throw that crock away,” I said. He answered, “I’ll be — if I do.” and held on to it. They opened on us with a vengeance.
I believe they tried to get George to spill the milk. We ran about a mile before we were safe in the woods. George had about a pint when we reached the woods. We soon came across our men and were saved.”
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