Wayne County, NC - Sarah Frances Smiley & Wayne County Quakers ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Theodore Perkins - theodore_perkins@yahoo.com ______________________________________________________________________ Sarah Frances Smiley was born in Vassalboro, Maine on March 30, 1830. She was educated in New Bedford and after graduation, taught in the same school and afterwards in a fashionable Friends’ school in Philadelphia. By the early 1870s she was a preacher and a speaker of note. On a trip to Great Britain, she spoke extensively to church groups in England, Scotland and Wales. With a pass from the War Department dated April 20, 1865, she and Richard M. Janney (R.C.J.) departed by railroad to New Bern and thence to Goldsboro with supplies of food worth about $2,500, clothing, material for clothing, and shoes packed in four large trunks. Following are excerpts from her journal of the trip. Sarah Frances Smiley Diary “Jottings of a Journey to North Carolina in the Fifth Month of 1865 To My Family and Intimate Friends” At Kinston we could see in passing a part of the late battlefield. We were now fairly upon the fresh tract of war. Breast-works, rifle pits and deserted encampments were on every hand but saddest of all were those rude ungrassed graves with the little sticks at their head. On our way we met a drawn-train, a study for a picture. The cars were mostly mere platforms with bags of oats, and spread over these the freight of human life, sick and wounded soldiers, white refugees and Blacks. It was nearly 3 when we alighted in the streets of Goldsboro. Depots were so generally burnt that in our whole journey we entered but one (at Newberne). We set off to inquire for the man who could direct us to the neighborhood of the Friends, none of whom lived within six miles. After a walk of half a mile we found his house. His wife plainly in great alarm, told us her husband was in Raleigh and she didn’t know a single Quaker. In evident haste to have us be gone, she pointed to another house saying “They can tell you there I reckon at Mrs. Slocum’s.” Meanwhile we had learned where our Friends lived, but not how to reach them. So dreadful and complete had been the destruction, that not even a cart or an ox could be hired in the place. The army had everything. They (army) were sitting in the pizza and R.M.J. handed them our passes and briefly explained our present need. “O certainly we will send you, our horses have little to do now. Sergeant, order a wagon and driver and a cavalry escort of 15 men.” We then drove in advance of our escort to store a portion of our goods at the rooms of the Christian Commission. As I sat there waiting, I saw six young women eyeing me closely and drawing near me on the side walk when one of them advanced and said “Isn’t thee a Friend?” These young women walked into town that morning, several of them 16 miles, and were to return in the same way next day. They had come for rations and help of various kinds. They told us their Mo. Mtg. was held the next 7th day and that they would spread the intelligence of our coming of which they seemed glad indeed. We now rode on and our horses were fine and spirited. I caught enough of their bold spirit to make me less fearless in crossing the frightful rickety bridges which the horses often had to leap. We and our seat often parted company and sometimes the seat itself would spring off the wagon but we took it all very quietly. It was sad indeed to see the desolation. For five miles we saw not a house of any size standing, only black chimneys and heaps of ruins, fields spoiled by camps or lying wastes. We rode on through rough old corn fields, into wild ravines and found at last the end of the road. Our road over the Neuse proved to be a pontoon and I was glad to see a thing of which I had heard so much. The banks were fearfully steep and the wagon had to be held behind as we walked over. Other sights we saw from which the eye had to turn away – horses killed near the road side and lying unburied. In one place, 200 had been driven together and shot. One picturesque sight alone feasted our eyes. In front of a beautiful woodland skirting the Neuse was a Negro camp. They were preparing supper and as the rich sunset light shone through the woods, the blue smoke curled peacefully up and half screened the rich green and gold behind it. At last a few houses could be seen across fields and up lanes, and as often as one appeared, off dashed a rider or two, leaping ditches and fences, and springing through thickets to ask if Jesse Hollowell lived there. Recrossing the bridge we rode over a deserted encampment of vast size and plunged into the forest. As the men dashed up to the gate the Mother appeared at the door, great was her consternation. “Does Jesse Hollowell live here?” She answered “Yes” but in tears. “Yes this is the place” they shouted back. What was to be their lot next she dared not think, till glancing along the line she spied my bonnet and was reassured. For four years they had seen no one from the North and heard very little. The husband was not at home and did not return till I had retired, but he confessed to me afterwards in a quiet half coherent way, that that night he could nor refrain weeping for joy. It was a plundered house in which we were to be guests and little like comfort was left. I asked for water as the roads had been very dusty. A little tub called a Keeless was brought in and placed before the fire on the hearth and an old sugar bowl cover held some soft soap but they had no towels. Taking my own towel and soap from my bag, I accommodated myself to circumstances. Their simple faith in their Divine Protector had been very strong and so they had taken “joyfully the spoiling of their goods.” We were by and by invited over “to tother house” to supper. This was the kitchen which is so generally a separate building. Groping our way across quite a stretch of yard in the moonlight, we sat down on little benches to our repast – some hoe-cake and a little pork, no butter, no milk. The daughters had been in town that day to claim rations and had brought home a little poor coffee and sugar. With a little help from our trunk, we did well. Next morning after breakfast I began the work of dividing the clothing and for this end, took a list of the 20 families in the neighborhood and their circumstances. Levi Massey, Avis his wife, and five children; Joab Jinnett, Mildred his wife, and eight children; David Grantham who joined the army, his wife and three children; Needham Jinnett, Charity his wife, and two children; Penninah Whitehead and two children; and so we went on till our list was finished. The larger garments were given with reference to names but in every bundle I placed a towel and hanky, thread, cotton tape, pins, needles and buttons. Finally in every bundle I placed a package of Tracts. The next day, Seventh, was the Mo. Mtg. and it was held five miles off. Jesse Hollowell had obtained permission of any army mule and about 7 o’clock I heard him giving order to his son, Jesse Thomas, to hook up the cart. We reached the Mtg. House at Neuse about an hour and a half before time. Most of the Friends were there an hour before. The House was not open and we sat in the shady pizza where there were nice seats. Ours was the only buggy I think. Some had carts, one couple had only a pair of wheels and an axle-tree. Many were double on horse back, and many walked. Some of the girls had come ten miles through the sand that hot morning. In this Meeting there were 99 members ranging from 85 to a week old and 70 were at Meeting. The young Friends had very sweet pure faces and looked tidy and attractive in their homespun dresses and nice grey Quaker bonnets. The old Friends wore sun bonnets stiffened with wide strips of cypress wood. As they came in each went round the entire circle shaking hands with each, without a word of recognition and then sitting down at the end of the line would begin with slight nods the special salutations. “Thee well, Charity? How’s thee, Zilphy?” To which Zilphy and Charity would quietly answer, “Tolerable.” We went to Needham Jinnett’s to dinner but we were all completely over- pressured by one of the guests whose voice was like that of Stentor. Her family, who were Friends, had been somewhat plundered and now not content with telling the tale once, she must needs repeat it to each of this company. In going over the items to me, she had finished her wrongs with this climax of vexation pronounced in an indescribable burst of voice “And they left me narry a goose!” Again and again as ignoring her termagant tongue I tried to listen to others or talk a little myself, I had to give way before this fatal point “And they left me narry a goose.” At the close of dinner an old colored man who sat outside on the steps, begged permission to say a few words and proceeded with a broken but quite touching address upon one’s mission and what he had heard of the meeting that morning. We soon proceeded on our journey. We were to attend the Meeting at Nahunta the next day and were to return first to Goldsboro and then go six miles beyond to the Wilson Prisons and Jesse Hollowell was to be our guide. We reached Goldsboro and were met by a gentleman on horseback and soon learned he was a Friend and the son-in-law of the widow we were to lodge. The ride was much the same as before, old encampments in every direction, fine old forests half burned or cut down, and but few houses left. We reached the house of our Friend and were kindly welcomed. The daughters of our hostess possessed a great deal of native refinement, and were truly lovely. The oldest daughter at home was Elizabeth and one was away at boarding school at New Garden. The son-in-law, Edwin G. Copeland, was a young man of superior character and intelligence. E. Copeland’s wife was an invalid, a sound nature refined by suffering. On First Day morning (the 7th) we started early for Meeting. A bridge on the most direct road was burned down and we had to pass some distance by “Little River” to ford it. We had a good meeting though very much smaller than the previous day. There were only five females there and the one beside me wore her checked sun-bonnet lined with newspaper. We had called before meeting at Nathan Pike’s, a very humble home and largely plundered but neat. We met here a young man, Thomas Hobs, who had joined Friends since the war began. We dined at the house of Needham T. Perkins. He is a minister and a very intelligent man. His home had been for some years in Illinois, but coming back about the beginning of the war, he had not yet seen the right time to return. Living at first on a road where the armies were passing and repassing, he had felt unwilling to expose his children to such scenes, and so moved to the first poor house that he could find for a shelter. He was now recovering from a severe illness of typhoid fever. It was hard to break away from the interesting conversations but over such roads, though the distance back to the Wilson Prisons was but five miles, 2 hours and day light were indispensable. In talking with Jesse Hollowell next morning he explained once more all he felt in regard to our visit and turning to me with his face aglow with kindly emotions he said: “Well Sary I reckon that thy coming did my wife a thousand dollars worth of good. Well thee knows I didn’t see thee till morning but she told me that thee seemed so cheerful like, she reckoned thee’d never had a speck of trouble in all thy life, and yet thee could seem to feel for us and so somehow it just seemed to lift her right up.” Taking leave of the family as of old friends we started again for Goldsboro. On our way we passed long lines of women with baskets and bags going in to receive rations. They are not given to men unless they work in return. I presume many take the view the Richmond ladies openly express. “This is not charity you will understand, it is simply the return of what you have taken from us.” It was somehow known that we were to be at the Christian Commission that morning so when I reached there desirous of a few quiet hours to arrange the remaining trunks, what was my dismay to find quite a crowd of Friends there, young and old and Aunt Zilphy with her fearful voice at the head of them! The house besides was all action with the arrival of new agents, stores, books and the army flies darkened everything. The trunks arranged, we went round to the Provost Marshall’s to ascertain if we could reach Greensboro. I was desirous of visiting the hospital. The surgeon in attendance was from Richmond, Indiana, and a friend of Dr. L. Test. Scarcely exceeded by those in the Libby Prisons and yet this was the way their own sick and wounded were treated in a building which was designed for a college had unusual advantages. Bedding and clothing were needed, but had not arrived; the poor men lay dying with no kind hand to soothe them. On one bed a poor man in terrible agony lay struggling to raise his hands. I thought him black, but what was my horror on approaching him to find his face literally covered with flies. I stood and fanned him till the boy whose task it was had finished his dinner. He was speechless but I think he heard me as I tried to tell him of One who suffered more for him. As I passed around from couch to couch I thought how each one had doubtless some far away mother or wife, or sister, who would give so much to stand where I stood, and I tried to speak to them as they would speak. In speaking of what I saw there to the Agent of the Sanitary Commission at City Point and expressing my horror that their supplies had fallen short in Goldsboro, he said that after all their vast efforts, such an ocean of misery had made them as but a drop in the bucket. They said “We give everything away as fast as it comes and there has been so much worse suffering – men have been dying in the streets, on the sidewalks, with no one to give them a shelter. Yesterday we brought a poor fellow in here to die. He had been lying on the hotel steps for hours.” Just then word was brought in that six soldiers had been killed the day before not far from the scene of our first visit. No one knew exactly how. So cheap has life become. A fine shower now came to cool the dusty air and refreshed by a comfortable dinner and the kindness of our excellent friends who are doing much good in the place, we started by about 3 P.M. for Raleigh.