Ladies Turned Soldiers

 The Marietta Register, June 3, 1864

A member of the company of Captain Knowles hired one John ____ of Union Township as a substitute for the 100 days' service, who received a few dollars advance, when he took himself home - terribly afflicted - had the rheumatism so badly that he could scarcely walk!

Two ladies determined to arrest him and send him to his company. They dressed in some soldier-clothes, left or sent home by brothers in the army, put on black hats, blacked their upper lips, with also a touch upon their chins. One took a gun, the other a pistol, and about dark in the evening marched to the home of said John. They took him prisoner. He made all manner of excuses and complaints, but the soldiers were "under orders" to take him to Marietta. 

They started, one on each side of the prisoner - the father and mother following. One of the soldiers slipped and fell, but jumping up moved all forward at a quicker march. They came down about a mile, when the mother plead hard for John, and the soldiers finally agreed to let him off it he would give security to be at his post in Marietta at 9 o'clock next morning.

He did so, and before daylight was on his way to Marietta. However, he was finally refused as a substitute and permitted to go home to his mother - where he threatened what terrible things he would do if the soldiers should come again! The soldiers who arrested him, he says, were certainly drunk, as they could not walk like sober soldiers!