River with Bridge and Union Camp in "Raid"|The Unvanquished in The Unvanquished (Location)

Display Label: 
River, Bridge and Union Camp
Map Icon: 
OutOfYoknapatawpha
Authority : 
Speculation
Other Texts Location Appears In: 
X: 
2436
Y: 
265
Description: 

A day's travel from Hawkhurst (since Granny and her party left at sunup), and probably in Tennessee, the Union army is camped on the northern bank of a river. The scene on the southern bank is very chaotic, as a huge crowd of self-emancipated slaves tries to get across the bridge to join the army, while Union troops try to hold them back: "It was sunset; now there was a high bright rosy glow quiet beyond the trees and shining on the river, and now we could see it plain - the tide of niggers damned back from the entrance to the bridge by a detachment of cavalry, the river like a sheet of rosy glass beneath the delicate arch of the bridge, which the tail of the Yankee column was just crossing" (104). When the soldiers blow the bridge, the wagon carrying Rosa Millard and her party floats across the river. On the other bank they are taken to the camp, described by Bayard as "rows of tents" (108), and from there to a place where chests of valuables, captured contraband, are stacked up in "a pile that looked higher than a mountain" (110). Included in the category of contraband are the former slaves, "what looked like a thousand" of them, who have made it across the river (110).

Role: 
Site of Event
Status: 
Continuous
Types: 
River; Bridge; Military Base

digyok:node/location/9733