How Beauty Was Saved by Amanda Alcenia Strickland Washington

“In the summer of 1862, in the Bayou Manchac country near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there was a modest little schoolhouse called the “Dove’s Nest.” To that school came two young girls to complete a course of study begun in Baton Rouge before the Federals captured that city.
“The country was visited quite often by bands of Confederates, “Jayhawkers,” and Federals; the slaves on the vast sugar plantations were in a demoralized condition from being so near the enemy’s lines; yet the girls braved all these dangers, and rode on horseback three miles through forest and field to attend school. They had no fear, for both could shoot a pistol, and always carried a loaded one, and a small Spanish dirk for self-protection. All the valuable horses on the plantation having been given to the Confederate army, only two were left for family use, an old one, not of much service, and a young beautiful bay, the individual property of one of the girls.” -an excerpt