Ginnie Moon, also called Ms. M, along with her pampered dog, Peanut, was helping to serve dinner to a squad of Union soldiers. The soldiers loved the spirit and energy of the small dog, which Ginnie had named for the color of his fur. Everyone at the camp knew how much she loved her dog, for where you would find Ginnie, you would find Peanut. They were inseparable.
As she was serving the last of the soldiers for that evening, her fiancée’, Brigadier General of Volunteers, John Aaron Rawlins walked up. “Lovely evening for a walk don’t you think?” he asked.

“I’d love to!” She replied happily. “Just let me finish servin’ these last few men.”

Malinda, a nurse who was also helping to serve, came over and said, “No you go on ahead and enjoy yourself. I’ll take care of the few that are left.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll be sure to help you out again sometime,” replied Ginnie.

“Now you two go before it gets to dark. Shoo! I want you out of here. Go!” Malinda joked.

“All right. We’re leavin’. We’re leavin’,” Said Ginnie, while slowly backing away with John, and Peanut, both of them laughing.

As soon as they left all of the commotion of the camp John said, “You look absolutely stunning tonight”.
“General,” she started, “you do realize that I have been working all day, don’t you?” Ginnie asked.
“I know,” John replied, “and I think you look better than ever”
“Well, you are an amazing liar,” she said causing them both to laugh.
Despite her dirty state, Ginnie was very beautiful. She had fair skin, rose-colored lips, and dark brown hair. Her most distinguishing feature, however was her piercing green eyes. They were so bright, as if the sun were glinting off her officer’s sun. Her eyes were so beautiful and such a rare color that you couldn’t help but to look at them. If the eyes are the window to the soul, you could easily spend hours trying to figure her out.

“Well you’re pretty handsome yourself,” Ginnie said, looking over his smooth black hair, short wiry beard, and pale blue eyes.
“So how did you spend this wonderful afternoon?” He asked
“Well, this morning I wrote a letter to my brother, Fountain, as I do every week. Most of the morning and afternoon I helped Malinda and the other nurses. Then I took Peanut for a walk, since the weather was so nice, and served food, of course,” she said smiling and looking up at him. And I am assuming that you had a very full day as usual.”
“Correct once again,” he said with a smile. Then a more downcast look came upon his face, seeming perturbed as he said, “Tomorrow evening I’m meeting with the other generals to go over future plans.”

“What? Is something wrong?” she asked, realizing that he was out of his normal joyful state.

“Well . . . It’s just that we’ve been losing more battles than winning these past few months; we can’t keep losing this many men. I have no idea what we have been doing wrong. We’ve been training more often, and spending more hours working on our plan of attack. It’s like they know what we’re planning on doing before we do it.”


Ginnie gasped, as her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped. “No . . . no . . . you’re . . . You’re just hitting a rough spot, that’s all. You’re . . . At that meeting tomorrow night you will all have to work together to come up with the most unheard-of, most unthinkable battle plan, something that the rebels will never suspect, something that they will not see coming, something that will make everything they have planned fall apart. And I’ll make food for everyone at the meeting because if you’re anything like me, you cannot think on an empty stomach.”

“No I can’t let you do that. You’ve brought food to every one of my meetings since,”
“I know.” Ginnie interrupted. “But you are all just so busy you barely have any time to spare, and you all work so hard . . . you work so hard.” she said looking him in the eyes, while stroking her fingers through his hair.
“All right, but only because I love your cooking; best in the world,” he said grinning.
“Well, then I suppose it is a good thing my mother has never cooked you dinner. She taught me how to cook, and her food was absolutely delightful on the taste buds, but I think I like being the best,” she said with a huge smile.
“Well, don’t we all?” He asked, both of them laughing, yet again.
“It’s starting to get dark. We should head back to the camp now.”
“Back to camp already? I wish we could stay out here all night just looking up at our glorious Milky Way. Look, I think that might be the big dipper. But, you are right; we do need to go back.” Ginnie gently nudged Peanut to wake her. They held hands as they walked towards the camp, but not even halfway there Ginnie let go.

Early the following afternoon Malinda walked into the tent she shared with Ginnie, who was sitting on her cot sewing.
“What is that? “Malinda asked stepping closer.
“Oh. . .Uh. . . It’s nothing. Just a uh blanket I’m workin’ on makin’,” Ginnie stammered putting it into a bag.
“Can I look at it?” Malinda asked.
“No,” she said moving the bag behind her back.
“Why can’t I?” Malinda took several more steps closer.
“Because, nobody can look at it ‘til I am finished. Ginnie said, now standing up putting the bag away with her other various belongings.
“Not even me?” Malinda asked trying to sound offended.
“No,” Ginnie said raising her voice. “Not even you,”
“Well . . . when will you be done with it?” Malinda asked still enjoying her chance to annoy Ginnie.
“Soon, about a day or two I think,” Ginnie said once again speaking at her normal volume.
“That looked too small for you to be done with it in only two more days. How will you get done with it that quickly?” Malinda asked.
“Well, it’s for Peanut.”
“Your dog needs a blanket?” Malinda asked, this time raising her voice. What about all of those soldiers out there?” she said pointing to the area outside of their tent where the soldiers were quartered.
“Dogs can get cold too!” Ginnie snapped. “Especially if these winters are as bad as I’ve heard they are.”
Those young men have left their families to fight to keep our country together and you are more concerned with your stupid little dog!” Malinda asked in shock.
“Peanut is important to me. I need to take care of him,” Ginnie yelled back at Malinda.
“Many of those soldiers don’t even have shoes and in several weeks it will be cold enough to snow. Th . . . They could get hypothermia,” She stammered.
“I don’t want Peanut to get hypothermia either,” Ginnie responded.

“Dogs can’t get hypothermia,” Malinda shouted at Ginnie.
“Yes they can,” she yelled back
“How would . . .” Malinda started “It . . . It doesn’t matter. If that’s the way you think, that dog above your country, above people and all they’re sacrificing, I don’t even know why you’re here. You are not the person I thought you were Ginnie Moon.” Malinda then stormed out of the room.
“You have no idea Malinda,” Ginnie whispered to herself. She sat there by herself for about an hour, but was unable to sort through her many conflicting and confusing thoughts that were swirling around in her head. She got up and moved the bag that contained the small piece of fabric that had caused the argument to its normal location. She then left the tent to go make the food for the meeting.


All the food was ready for the meeting, along with some liquor. She started by bringing out the drinks, Peanut right by her side.
“Ms. Moon, why do you do so much for that dog?” asked Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Union Army and John’s close friend.
“Well” she responded “Besides lovin’ me nearly to death, this little dog here has done some pretty amazing things for me.” she said, petting Peanut
“Such as . . .?” Grant asked, waiting for her reply.
“Trust me, general, you do not want to know,” She said with a slightly mischievous laugh.
“Well, I’ll take your word for it,” he said with a chuckle, “but you do realize that you can’t stay as always.”
“Oh, I know I just wanted to bring the food and I’ll clean up too when you all are done,” she said smiling sweetly. “Now I’ll be right back with the food.”
“You are a lucky man to have a lady as fine as her John,” said Grant. She came back with a favorite dish yet very rare in the army, a dish called Idiots Delight. The dish was supposedly so simple to make an idiot could do it.
“Oooh, smell that cinnamon raison sauce,” one of the generals said excitedly rubbing his hands together with a goofy smile on his face.

“Go on ahead,” she said. “Dig in. I’ll just leave you gentlemen to your meeting now.” Then she left, and sat right outside the tent with a thinning pad of paper and wrote a letter to her brother. When the meeting was over, she went back inside the tent cleaned up everything leftover from the meal, and anything else that was left in the tent.


A few days later, early in the afternoon, Ginnie ran up to John and said, “I must leave at once.”

John’s eyes grew wide, and he asked, “Why what’s wrong?”

“I just received a letter from my brother,” She stammered. “It’s my sister. She’s become ill, almost to the point of death, and with her husband fighting in the war there’s no one to take care of her children.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. Are you all right ?” he asked standing across from her grabbing her shoulders. She nodded, avoiding his eyes looking down, “When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Now,” she answered.

“Don’t you have to pack up your things?” he asked, hoping he just might get to spend a few more minutes with his only and greatest love.

“There wasn’t much to pack,” she admitted.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be apart,” he started, “but I want you to know that I love you, and always will, and will miss you every second you are gone, and I will be waiting for you, and no one else.”

“I know you do and I know you will,” she said looking up at him. They then hugged each other, and it was several minutes before he let her go. When he did, he was too heartbroken to say anything, so she just left.


After she had made the long trip to Virginia, she entered the quarters of the Confederate General, Pierre Gustave T. Beauregard, who greeted her warmly, “Ginnie, I hope you have good news for us. And look at little Peanut. He’s gotten so much bigger,” he said petting the dog, which was wagging its tail. “So.” He stood up. “Do you have the documents?” he asked.

“I do,” she replied. Out of a fold in her dress, she pulled out a knife, which had been held in place by a hidden pocket she had sewn in. She took the knife and stabbed the dog in the side. The dog was still wagging its tail, looking lovingly into his mistress’ eyes. The general watched in horror, gasping, his eyes growing wide as she began to cut through Peanuts flesh on the side of his ribcage. Peanut, however, was unharmed as she continued to slice through his skin. Ginnie pulled the fake fur skin off of Peanut, revealing his true small size. Hidden beneath the fake fur were folded, wrinkled pieces of paper, which Ginnie handed to Pierre.

Standing up, she said, “These are the Union’s newest battle plans, And they are incredible, but they were not expecting me.”

“How do you do it, Ginnie?” He asked in utter disbelief.

“Well, first I got the man, you know the one whose close friends with, and personal advisor to Grant, to fall in love with me. It wasn’t that hard; we got engaged,” she boasted. Then I made and served food at every one of his meetings, but since I couldn’t stay for them, I sat outside and wrote letters to my dear brother, Fountain, which were really going to you, of all I and the Union had been doing. After the meeting, I would clean up, collecting papers or documents that had been left behind. When I felt it was time to leave, I told him my dear sister Lottie was ill, and I needed to take care of her children, while her husband was off at war. I hid the papers inside of Peanut in case I was ever stopped and, or searched. And that is my story.

“Ginnie you are brilliant, a true genius!” Pierre exclaimed.

“Oh, Pierre, you flatter me.” She said.

“Now, let’s go eat,” said Pierre. “That is if you’re not pretending to be engaged to me,” He finished.

“Of course I’m not pretending with you, that would be far to much work. You are the true love of my life. Then Ginnie stood up on her toes and kissed Pierre.