General Robert E. Lee's desire was never fulfilled.

_THE BLOCKADE_

From time to time various writers have stated that the isolated Northern Neck of Virginia was "out of bounds" or "bypassed" in the Civil War.

Despite these statements, which so lightly dismiss the Neck during the war years, natives of that region, did not spend that time in the carefree, unmolested state thus implied.

All able-bodied men of the Neck were away on the battlefields. Anxiety for them, and for the South, hung like a pall over the remaining population. More tangible worries beset them also.

Although the bordering waters of the Potomac, Rappahannock and Chesapeake were rich with food, when the Virginians tried to take the oysters, crabs and fish, a tug from the Federal flotilla which patrolled these waters would come "steaming out to hasten them home, with sometimes a six-pound shot sent after them for emphasis."

The women, girls, old men and boys raised what they could, but many fields, once lush with corn, tobacco, sugar cane and other crops, now lay barren save for sedge and pine seedling. Many of the men had ridden away to war on the horses. The people at home gave as much as they could of what they could raise to the men at the front.

The Federal gunboats shelled homes and landed soldiers who carried off everything they could find. Many are the tales that lingered on in the Neck about the geese that were struck down by swords, the bowls of milk that were lifted to mouths and gulped down, the firkins of butter that were carried away by soldiers who thrust their arms elbow deep in the butter and carried it off that way, the cattle that were slaughtered before the hungry eyes of the natives, the churches that were profaned--the list could go on and on. And there were some instances when the invaders were kind, or fair.

The resourceful women of the Neck invented substitutes for lost luxuries. Tea was brewed from sassafras, wheat, sage or mullein; coffee was concocted from sweet potatoes and other things. Sorghum and honey served for sugar. They got out the discarded spinning-wheels and looms and revived those skills. They carded, spun and wove the wool from their sheep. Polk berries and walnut hulls were used as dyes, and a special mixture of plants produced a shade that would pass as Confederate gray.

The latter was used to dye garments made of the homespun so that there was always a new suit ready for the soldier when he came home on furlough. Thorns were used for pins, and seeds such as persimmon had holes bored in them and were used for buttons.

In spite of these and other ingenious substitutes the supplies of food and clothing had been very nearly exhausted by 1862. Thus, the natives of the Northern Neck were driven to running the blockade.

At that time Hampton Roads was blockaded by Union naval forces, and the rivers were patrolled by them. Maryland, just across the Potomac from the Neck, was divided territory. Leonardtown, in southern Maryland, was a trading center for the blockade runners from the Neck.

On the Virginia side of the Potomac, Kinsale in Westmoreland County, situated on an estuary called Yeocomico River, was one point of departure and arrival. This village had become quite cosmopolitan, for the country people were not the only ones who ran the blockade.

Strangers from the North and South--merchants, speculators, adventurers, Northern draft dodgers, Southern sympathizers from the North, pro-Unionists trying to reach the North, even ladies, usually married women traveling with their husbands--all rubbed elbows in Kinsale. And there was at least one blockade-runner among them who dodged the tugs on the Potomac and blistered his hands on the muffled oars for no more serious reason than romance.

A steady stream of canoes from Maryland sneaked through to the Neck bringing quinine and other drugs, food, and Southern sympathizers. They landed anywhere in the Northern Neck.

The rivers were probably dark, for by the latter part of April, 1861, practically all lights in the lighthouses and lightships had been extinguished, removed or destroyed, from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande by the Southerners.

_THE HOME GUARD_

Though no major battles were fought in Northumberland County during the Civil War, it was the scene of a number of skirmishes which were never recorded in history.

The geographical position of this county in the tip end of the Neck and surrounded on three sides by water isolated it from the main stream of the war, but made it vulnerable to enemy naval raiders. Also, small groups of Union cavalry rode through the Neck from time to time looking for deserters from their own army and for Confederate soldiers who might be at home on furlough. Homes were looted.

A Federal flotilla was stationed across the Potomac at Piney Point, Maryland, and although this river was not formally blockaded during the war, it was patrolled, and the smaller rivers were patrolled from time to time. Many of the homes adjacent to the shoreline were shelled by these boats. The crew often landed and raided farms and houses.

For the purpose of keeping these raiders away and defending the women and children, a home guard was organized. (They were probably organized in all the counties of the Neck.) Since the able-bodied men of Northumberland were away on the battlefields, this group was composed of teen-aged boys and old men.

[Illustration: _"Yankee" foragers during the Civil War._]

Except traditionally, very little has been known about this organization. A notarized statement written by a former member of the Northumberland Home Guard, sheds some light on their activities. It is as follows:

"I'm going to try and write something in regard to the Home Guard to which I belonged but hardly know what to write. I was only a boy then, and as to giving dates, I couldn't tell you what month or even the year we organized but we didn't organize untill those Yankee raids began to take place. The Gun Boats would come in the rivers and land soldiers, go to the farm Houses and carry off anything they wanted, so we organized to try and keep off those raids and defend the Women and children while the men-folks were in the War. Our Company, I suppose was what you might call an independent company, don't think the Confederate Government ever furnished us with anything except Guns and ammunition. I think they permitted us to organize.

"We had several skirmishes with the raiders, one in the vicinity of Lotsburg where we captured a Horse and perhaps killed the rider. His fellow soldiers got Him away but we got the Horse. After getting their wounded or dead comrad aboard ship they left. On another occasion at Glebe Point on the Great Wicomico River, we opened fire on a Gun Boat that was going up the river. She stoped immediately and turned around and went on down the River. We kept up our fire untill she was out of Gunshot. They gave us a severe shelling of shrapnell but shot too high, didn't kill anyone. I heard one Horse was killed. And at another time on Raisons Creek we captured a little Picket Boat No. 2. She carried one brass cannon and a crew of seven men. One man was shot in the leg. The Captain of the Boat gave up His Sword and revolver to our Captain. We sent the Prisoners to Richmond and Burned the Boat."

(Signed) Bertrand B. Haynie Apr 7--1927

Further data are added concerning this organization by Rev. C. T.

Thrift, who spent his boyhood at Wicomico Church, Northumberland County.

He writes:

"Many Yankee gunboats came in the Great Wicomico River from time to time. Marauding parties landed and did much pillaging.

Poultry and pigs and other things were taken. The women and children were frightened not a little.

"One such boat came in and anchored on the Wicomico side between Rowe's landing and Blackwell's Wharf. A band of pillagers landed and took what they wanted and then returned to their boat. Young ... had hidden himself while the band was at the home where he lived. He waited until they had left the shore. Then he took an old rifle and crept down to the water's edge, hiding in the bushes. The captain greeted his marauders upon their return and stood leaning against the deckhouse sunning himself.

"Young ... raised his rifle aimed carefully and fired. The bullet struck the captain in the forehead, killing him instantly. Panic ensued on board, for they had no idea where the shot came from nor did they have any idea how large a force might be attacking. There was no time to be lost for they needed to go and they could not stand on the order of their going.

"So they unfastened the end of the anchor chain at the capstan and fled, leaving the chain and the anchor in the mud of the river bottom. He said (many years later) that he supposed this was still where it was left. He had thought of going there to search for it but he had never done so."

Young ..., tradition says, was a member of the Northumberland Home Guard.

_THE MYSTERY OF HORSE POND_

When the Yankee gunboats patrolled the waters surrounding the Northern Neck during the Civil War they found the entrance to Little Wicomico River--where the Potomac and Chesapeake meet. They entered through its natural channel which was open then and quite deep.

Men went ashore to hunt for provisions--vegetables from the gardens, eggs, milk and freshly made butter. Even preserves and jellies from the shelves of the good housewives of Little Wicomico. They searched for men who might be at home, too.

One day near the beginning of the war, a small sailing vessel, probably twenty-two feet in length, and with several persons on board, came into Little Wicomico. She sailed in through the channel with the stone tower lighthouse on Smith Point to her right and Tranquility Farm to her left.

She passed through Rock Hole, by tiny Bamboozle Island and around Gough's Point. It was straight sailing then with Ellyson Creek to the right and Sharps Creek to the left.

When the boat passed the tract of land between Sharps Creek and Horse Pond those on board were too far away to note the face of a woman pressed to a window pane of the house on the left bank of the River.

The woman, Sardelia, watched the boat with interest for it was a strange boat, and no doubt with a little uneasiness since those were dark times.

Any unfamiliar boat was cause for alarm.

To Sardelia's surprise the boat dropped anchor just beyond her house and abreast of a strip of woodland near the pond where the horses drank. She saw the persons on board go ashore and enter the woods. After a short while they came out, boarded their boat, headed out of the River and sailed out of sight.

Sardelia called her little girl, Florence, and together they hurried through their barn-yard and into the woods. They found the place where the men had come ashore, their footprints on the sand, broken bushes and bruised foliage in the woods, but they could find no clue to the mysterious mission. Sardelia finally gave up her search and sat down under the big water oak tree there in the woods to ponder what she had seen.

Nearly four years later, after the close of the war, Sardelia again saw almost an exact re-enactment of the same scene she had witnessed before.

The same boat came into the River, stopped at the same place and the persons on board went ashore and disappeared into the woods. After a short while they boarded their boat and sailed away--for the last time, so far as Sardelia ever knew.

Sardelia again hastened to the woods. This time her search was not in vain. About forty feet back from the shore amidst the trees she found a newly dug hole. It had been hastily and loosely refilled with earth.

This called for more than one period of meditation under the water oak tree. Who were they? Why did they select this particular spot to bury whatever they had buried? (The island at the mouth of the River would have been a perfect setting for buried treasure.) Why did they come into an inhabited area--almost in the barn-yard? Were they evading Federal gunboats? Or, perhaps they were from the North themselves. Did they come from one of the islands in the Chesapeake? And what did they bury?

Tales of buried treasure circulated around Little Wicomico for a long time, although many who lived close by never knew how it all started.

The woods became haunted, too, especially the big water oak. But the haunts must not have been too bad because Uncle Zeke, a respected colored man, lived peacefully for many years in his little house in the woods by Horse Pond.

_SCHOONER IN A MILL-POND_

On November 18, 1863, Abraham Lincoln passed through Baltimore on his way to dedicate a battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg.