APRIL 19, 1864:
The Nashville Dispatch publishes two brief snippets of news about
general war conditions in the city:
The depots .
. . were crowded with refugees and mechanics, the former from below [Southerners], and the latter from above [Northerners],
and their destination respectively North
and South. Several families of refugees,
with an almost unlimited number of flaxen-haired children, left in the train
for Louisville yesterday morning.
And on a somewhat
lighter note:
Dame Rumor says that before the "snaik man
sloped," [sic] a former Lieutenant in the Federal army
eloped with the wife of a friend, leaving the disconsolate husband and
interesting children to take care of themselves. What the said Lieutenant has
done, or intends to do, with his own wife, the good dame is not advised, but
promises developments in due course.
Unfortunately for those
with salacious appetites, this juicy bit of entertaining, utterly meretricious
gossip was all they got of the story. If anyone ever knew what became of the
cuckold, the “interesting children,” the lovers, and the dashing
ex-Lieutenant’s family, it is lost in the mists of history.
