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From: "Fran Warren" <>
Subject: [AR-OLD-NEWS] Van Buren Press, May 2, 1908
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 08:38:41 -0700


May 2, 1908

EXPELLED FROM HELENA DURING WAR

After an absence of more than 40 years, Mrs. Emma Morris has returned to
Helena, which she was forced to leave in her girlhood days because she dared
to wear the colors of the flag she loved upon her hat, after the fall and
capture of Helena by the Federals in the Civil War.

It was Mrs. Morris, then Miss Emma Rightor, who presented to the gallant
Captain J C Barlow a silk flag, worked by the ladies of Helena, when he
mustered his battery of guns and marched away to the front. She was loyal to
the flag which her hands presented, and it was this unwavering devotion,
coupled with brilliant daring, thought brought on the command which drove
her from the city.

Mrs. Morris was presiding at the organ for the Baptist Church on a Sunday
following the fall of the city, and she showed her spirit by donning a hat
bearing the colors of the Confederacy. A lieutenant from the Federal troops
was in attendance at church and after the services he notified the daring
young woman that she might consider herself under arrest and requested that
she report at headquarters Monday morning, General Beauford, who was
commanding, upheld his junior officer, and Mrs. Morris was compelled to
leave the city.

She went from Arkansas to Kentucky, where she met the young man whom she
afterward married- Benjamin Morris- and in Kentucky she has lived ever since
the day that she donned the hat trimmed in the stars and bars of the
Confederacy.
Fran Alverson Warren
e-mail:
501-369-2703
http://www.crawfordcountyarkansas.net/

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