On the morning I was to leave Memphis I saw an old woman wringing the bottom of her cotton dress a few rods from the door. I inquired how her dress came so wet half a yard deep. "I come up in a leaky skiff las' night wid six boys dat do oberseer whip de Yankee out, he say; an' da say da go to Yankees now any how, an' I begged 'em to let me come, for da knows I has sich hard times. But da say, 'Aunt Peggy, de skiff leak so bad.' But I tole 'em I's comin' wid a basin, an' I reckon I dip fas' enough to keep us 'bove water. An' da let me come, an' it tuck all night to come seven miles up de river. Dar was forty of us on dis plantation. Massa is a big man in Secesh army, an' sent more'n a hundred of our people 'way off to de big plantation: an', missus, da all wants to come mighty bad, an' begged us to go see de big man right soon, an' tell him da wants to do any thing he wants 'em to do, if he will only let 'em come. For missus is mighty rich, an' don't need us, 'case she's got barrels of meal, an' flour, an' plenty bacon in de smoke-house, da keeps locked up, da say for de Secesh sojers. An' missus had us put a tin trunk of gole an' silver money, an' a big ches' of all her silver plate way up in de lof' few days ago. Missus, do please go tell de big man how da all begged us so hard to ax him, soon as we got here, if he 'll let 'em come." I told her I would see the colonel, and inquired for the boys who came with her. She pointed to the six young men standing outside our door. I approached the young men, who were between twenty and thirty years of age, and shook hands with them, saying, "It seems your overseer didn't succeed in whipping the Yankee out of you night before last." "No, indeed," said one; "he drove in the Yankee deeper every lick;" and another said, "I reckon he'll find out this mornin' how much Yankee he whipped out." I informed Colonel Eaton of his new comers; and of the earnest appeal of the old woman in behalf of the remaining thirty-three, and how she backed her pleading, with enumerating the abundance of every thing her mistress possessed. He said he would see General Veach, and he might conclude to send a gun-boat for them.