The story of Sansom's actions during
Streight's Raid (April 19-May 3, 1863) is part Alabama history and part myth. Although she did aid Forrest in locating a crossing on Black Creek, some of the details, particularly alleged conversations between Sansom and the cavalry commander, have undoubtedly been dramatized.
According to an account published in the Jacksonville
Republican one week later, Sansom volunteered to guide Forrest to a nearby ford. Initially, her mother objected to the idea of her daughter being escorted by a group of strangers. But Forrest was well known and respected, and Sansom's mother dropped her objections. With Sansom's guidance, Forrest located the ford, crossed it, and caught up with the Union forces. While escorting the general, Sansom reportedly faced enemy fire that ceased after the Union soldiers discovered that they had been firing upon a teenage girl.
Poem About Emma Sansom:
The courage of man is one thing, but that of a maid is more, For blood is blood and death is death, and grim is the battle gore;
And the rose that blooms, though blistered by the sleet of an open sky, Is fairer far Than her sisters are Who sleep in the hothouse nigh.
Word came up to Forrest that Streight was on a raid— Two thousand booted bayonets were riding down the glade.
Eight thousand were before him—he was holding Dodge at bay-But he turned on his heel Like the twist of a steel And was off at the break of day.
Six hundred troopers had he, game as a Claiborne c ock, Tough as the oak root grappling with the gray Sand Mountain rock;
And they fought like young Comanches by the flash of the Yankee gun, And they fell at the ford, And they shot as they rode, And fought from sun to sun.
But Streight went shirling southward with never a limp or a lag; His front was a charging huntsman, but his rear was a hounded stag.
For the gray troops followed after, their saddle blankets wet, With the bloody rack From the horses' back— And Streight not headed yet.
A fight to the death in the valley, and a fight to the death on the hill, But still Streight thundered southward and Forrest followed still
And the goaded hollows bellowed to the bay of the Rebel gun, For Forrest was hot As a solid shot When its flight is just begun.
A running fight in the morning and a charging fight at noon, Till spurs clung red and reeking around their bloody shoon—
The morning paled on them, but the evening star rose red As the bloody tinge Of the border fringe That purpled the path of the dead.
A midnight fight on the mountain and a daybreak fight in the glen, And when Streight stopped for water, he had lost three hundred men.
But he gained the bridge at the river and planted his batteries there, And the halt of the gray Was a hound at bay, And the blue—a wolf in his lair.
And from out the bridge at the river a white-heat lightning came, Like the hungry tongues of a forest fire, with the autumn woods aflame;
And the death smoke burst above them and the death heat blazed below, But the men in gray Cheered the smoke away And bared their breasts to the blow.
Should they storm the bridge at the river through melting walls of fire, And die in the brave endeavor to plant their standard higher?
Should they die at the bridge on the river or die where they stood in their track Like a through-speared boar With death at his door, But tossing the challenge back?
"To the ford! To the ford!" rang the bugle, "and flank the enemy out!" And quick to the right the gray lines wheel and answer with a shout.
But the river was mad and swollen—to left, to right, no ford— And still the sting Of the maddened thing At the bridge, and still the goad.
"To the ford! To the ford!" rang the bugle. "To the ford! Retreat or die!" And still the flail of a bullet hail from out of a mortar sky,
And they stood like a blue bull, wounded in wallowing mud and mire, And still the flash From a deadly lash And still the barbs of fire.
Then out from a near-by cabin a mountain maiden came. Her cheeks were banks of snow drifts, but her eyes were stars of flame;
And she drew her sunbonnet closer as the bullets whispered low. (Lovers of lead, And one of them said, "I'll clip a curl as I go" ).
Straight through the blistering bullets she fled like a hunted doe, While the hound guns down at the river bayed in her wake below.
And around their hot breath shifted and behind their pattering feet, But still she fled Through the thunder red And still through the lightning fleet.
And she stood at the General's stirrup, flushed as a mountain rose, When the sun looks down in the morning and the gray mist upward goes.
She stood at the General's stirrup, and this was all she said: "I'll lead the way To the ford to-day. I'm a girl, but I'm not afraid."
How the gray troops thronged around her! And then the Rebel yell. With that brave girl to lead them they would storm the gates of hell.
And they tossed her behind the General, and again the echoes woke. For she clung to him there With her floating hair As the wild vine clings to the oak.
Down through the bullets she led them, down through an unused road, And when the General dismounted to use his glass on the ford.
She spread her skirts before him (the troopers gave a cheer) "Better get behind me, General, For the bullets will hit you here!"
And then the balls came singing and ringing quick and hot, But the gray troops gave them ball for ball and answered shot for shot.
"They have riddled your skirt," the General said; "I must take you out of this din." "O that's all right," She answered light, "They are wounding my crinoline."
And then in a blaze of beauty her sunbonnet off she took, Right in the front she waved it high, and at their lines it shook.
And the gallant bluecoats cheered her—ceased firing to a man— And the gray coats rode Through the bloody ford And again the race began.
Do you wonder they rode like Romans adown the winnowing wind, With Mars himself in the saddle and Minerva up behind?
Was ever a brave foe captured and conquered by such means Since days of old And warriors bold And the Maiden of Orleans?
The courage of man is one thing, but that of a maid is more, For blood is blood and death is death, and grim is the battle gore.
And the rose that blooms, though blistered by the sleet of an open sky, Is fairer far Than her sisters are Who sleep in the hothouse nigh. John Trotwood Moore