Chapter 3: Pauline

I am Marilyn’s first cousin. I grew up near her on the adjoining farm. She is 10 years older than me and I was envious of her when she started courting, then marrying that good-looking John Merrill. When the war broke out, he went off to fight and was wounded. If it had not been for Marilyn’s personal slave Lottie, he might have died. Lottie and Marilyn doctored him back to health, then he left to fight again.

My family did not have anyone old enough to fight but we were what was called Confederate sympathizers. My father supported the ‘rebel cause’ anyway he could.

I was 18 years old when the battle of Shiloh was fought. The Confederate army was scattered, and the Yankees were occupying north Mississippi. There I was, a very pretty 18-year-old girl, who had ‘played around’ with boys since I was 15 years old, stuck in the middle of all those nice looking Yankee boys. I started sneaking off and meeting up with a few at different times and places.

One day this handsome Yankee officer met me in the woods behind his camp. We had our little tryst then I got up to leave. I noticed he had a small pouch lying beside his pistol belt. While he slept I picked it up. It was full of gold coins! I opened it and took out two thinking he would never miss them. I hid the coins in my room. Three days later I was back at the meeting place. The officer was there with two other men!

“That’s the whore that stole my money,” he shouted as he pointed at me.

The two men grabbed me and started to rip off my dress. I tried to fight them off but was knocked unconscious. I woke to find myself naked and staked, spread eagle, to the ground. The three men spent the afternoon raping me! When they had their fill of me, I was dragged over to a tree and a rope put around my neck. I was slowly pulled up and strangled to death. My dead, naked body was left hanging with a note tied around one of my legs. It read, ‘Thieving Rebel Whore!’

I watched all of this from above, it was like I was floating! I saw these men get dressed in their uniforms and leave me hanging. I was expecting to go to heaven (or hell probably for my sins) but that did not happen. I just floated around.

I saw my mother and father find my hanging body and cut it down!

My father complained to the local authorities, a Yankee Provost Marshall. He searched my father’s house and found the coins I had hidden in my room. They shot my mother and father and burned down our house!

I watched as both my parents crossed over and were welcomed as they passed through those pearly gates. I was not allowed to go with them. I had no place to go so I went to Marilyn’s house. For years I lived quietly in one of the bedrooms, never bothering anyone.

A couple of years went by. I had watched Marilyn and John fuck a number of times but I did not interfere. I saw Lottie and her husband fuck and Lottie get pregnant. Then I listened as he tried to talk her into running off to the north with him. She would not go even after we heard that Lincoln had freed the slaves. I never interfered with any of their lives. I had to be content with using my hand to get any kind of sexual relief.