Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1873 — A Strange Meetings [ARTICLE]

A Strange Meetings

In the New York Dispatch we find an incident growing out of the rebellion, which will be of interest to many of ovjr readers. The incident is headed a strange meeting, and the journal relates how, on an evening or two previous, a good-look-ing man, a laborer about thirty years of age, took the cars at Center street depot for New York'. There was but one vacant seat in the car that he entered, and that was by the side of a handsome and elegantly dressed lady. The man sat down, and after his -fair companion had removed her veil, he was surprised to recognize in her his wife, whom he had not seen for twelve years. The lady threw her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly, and mutual explanations followed. It seems that they had been married just before the breaking out of the war at the home of the lady in Missouri. Her -father was the owner of a large tract of land, but had only a little money. He joined the rebel cause, and the daughter also warmly adhered to the opinions of her father. Her husband, however, was a decided Union man. She abused him violently on nceount of his principles, and tolci him if he sided with the “bloody Yanks,” he might leave the place, and she never wished to see his face again, lie took her at her word, and the same night left her and joined Fremont’s army as a private. He was several times taken prisoner, and as often escaped to our lines, TTe pressed on with Sherman towaid the sea, and at the conclusion of his term of enlistment joined a New York regiment, and by this means, at the end of the-war, found his way to Newark, where he has since worked quietly in a factory. His wife’s father was killed at Vicksburg, and she was left sole possessor of his uncultivated farms. She supported herself by working in a millinery establishment in St. Louis till after the close of the war. Her land rose in value, and she sold it for a good price, and realized about $5,000. With this sum she started a millinery of her own in St. Louis, and succeeded splendidly. She is reputed worth $40,000 to $50,000. She was on her way to New Yoik to buy goods when she met the man whom she had supposed long ago dead. Remorseful for driving him away, she had refused all offers of marriage. The joyous meeting caused the husband to forgive his wife’s error, and a present of a new suit of clothes,-a diamond ring and a splendid gold watch, when they arrived in New York, served materially to increaso his respect and affection for his long lost wife. Theyare now stopping at a fashionable hotel, joyous over the accident that reunited them. — St. Louis Globe.