Hope this is of use. Fred

GAZETTE, AUGUST 23, 1942 By Loreen Meador Lee
To most of us the Civil war is something in the history book; to Mrs. Josephine Hill of Delight, Pike county, it is more vivid than either the first World war or the present conflict. In fact, talking to Mrs. Hill is much like turning the pages of an absorbing book of history.
To this lady, who celebrated her one hundredth birthday at Christmas last year, life during an invasion is no idle conjecture. Still alert and surprisingly active, she is one of the very few people in the United States who can recall when the South was invaded.
Grandma Hill, as she is widely known in Pike county, was born in Walton county, Georgia, in 1842, but came to Arkansas at an early age. A young married woman in her early twenties, she was living near Arkadelphia with her husband. Richard Hampton Hill, and two small children when the Federal troops came to Clark county.
Mrs. Hill, who has survived three major wars and has seen her country enter the fourth, has not been deeply affected by the present one. Comparing it to the Civil war, she remarked, “From what they tell me about them sinking so many of our ships and killing our boys, I reckon this war is worse than the old war, but I don’t know much about this one.”
Asked if she remembered much about the Civilwar, she declared that she did. “I remember General Price and a Captain Hart; they both came to my house several times. I remember, too, the time there was a picket fight on the hill in front of my house, and the men yelled at me to run in the house.”
Continuing her story, Grandma Hill explained that this was not a regular battle, but was fought by the Home Guard, the bushwhackers, and other guerrilla force. However, most of the men who took part in the engagement went on to join the troops at Hollywood where an important battle did take place. “I could hear the roar of the guns just as plain as anything, and soldiers kept passing our house for days,” she said.
Mr. Hill was in the Home Guard. He volunteered for active service time after time, but because of physical disability, he was rejected until near the end of the war. “Then,” Mrs. Hill explained, “the Confederates were taking anybody.” He was away for about seven months, and during that time his wife kept the home intact and cared for the children. The Hill’s third child was born while the father was with the fighting forces.
Before her husband left home and while he was ill in bed, Mrs. Hill turned from her work one day and saw a Union soldier, pistol in hand, standing in the door. “I was scared,” she confessed, “but I asked him to come in and take a seat.” Despite the nearly 80 years that have elapsed since that day, excitement still kindles her eyes and quickens her voice when she tells how he came in, looked around, and asked who was on the bed.
“I told him that it was my husband and that he was very sick. Then he asked if we were Union. I got mad, and I said ‘No! We’re not We’re Southern and Democrats, and if my husband wasn’t sick, he’d be up from there facing you in the war. He’s not a bushwhacker, either, but he’d be a soldier if he was able.”’
To the young woman’s intense surprise, the soldier did not seem to mind her outburst; on the contrary, he said that he was glad that she hadn’t tried to lie, told her that he was a corporal, and promised that a guard would be placed around her house.
The corporal then told the Hills of an old man and his daughter who lived across the river. When Federal soldiers went there, he said, the old man told them that he had been supporting the Union. According to the soldier’s version, he had really been aiding the Confederates; consequently, they hanged him and burned his house. His daughter, the Yankee related, walked up and down the gallery of the house, waving the Confederate flag and singing “Dixie”, until the roof was falling in. “I told him they ought to be ashamed to do a thing like that,” Grandma Hill snapped.
Enemy forces came to their home one day and took an the hams and shoulders, Mrs. Hill said. However, they left the less desirable middlings. They also took the last of the flour. Another time marauders took all the cloth she had woven.
Like most Southern women, Grandma Hill wove cloth not only for her own family, but also to make for the soldiers. She is still justly proud of the fact that she could card enough at night to make a hank the next morning, and then weave this into strong cloth for jeans.
There were no ration cards for the women of the South; there wasn’t enough to ration. Mrs. & Hill recalled especially the only coffee they had, that famous Southern brew of parched wheat and bran. There was no snuff, often no flour or meat and no cloth except home spun. To women like this elderly lady, it was a real all-out war effort. Significant in its brevity, was her comment on the hardships they underwent: “It was a hard time.”
Mrs. Hill remarked that every home in the neighborhood except hers was torn down or burned. She explained the fact that they fared better than their neighbors by saying “My father was a Master Mason and the Northern people didn’t bother us so much.”
Although a grandson, George Hill, was in the army during theWorld war, Grandma Hill does not remember it, as she does the Civil war.
Most ofMrs. Hill’s eight children were born near Alpine, Ark., where they lived for 30 years after the war.
Mrs. Hill’s husband, the friends of her earlier days, and the men who fought on that hill near Arkadelphia in 1863 or 1864, have long since passed away, but she is not resentful. Her faith was probably best shown when she smiled and remarked, “I’ve had some hard times in my life, but I reckon the OldMaster has spared me this long for something.”
Five of the 11 children are living: Mrs. N. E. Fulton of Delight, with whom the mother makes her home; Dennis Hill of Delight;. Arthur Hill of Pisgah; Jesse Hill of Alpine,Walter Hill, also of Alpine.
Four generations of this remarkable woman’s family live in Mrs. Fulton’s home: Mrs. Hill, Mrs. Fulton, Mrs. Fulton’s daughter, Mrs. Christine Anderson, her son Joe Donald.
All the surviving children were present on their mother’s one hundredth birthday. Many friends also came during the day bringing gifts and congratulations.
With a pleasant smile and a cordial “Come to talk to me again,” the interview was over. It had been a rare privilege to talk with one of the American women who actually faced and bravely met the problems of a war at home.