Malinda Blalock
The couple eventually escaped by crossing Confederate lines and joining the Union partisans in the mountains of western North Carolina.
She became a close friend of William McKesson Blalock, nicknamed "Keith" after a contemporary boxer, due to his skill at boxing.
[1]: 50 After the Civil War began, the western North Carolina communities in the Appalachian Mountains were divided over their political adherences.
When the Confederate 26th North Carolina Infantry, commanded by Colonel Zebulon Vance, showed up in the region to recruit, Keith began to plan an escape across the frontier from his local political enemies.
He was hesitant about whether to flee directly toward Kentucky or enroll temporarily with the Confederate Army to desert across the enemy lines later.
Keith also considered the consequences of an untimely escape on Malinda, fearful that local distaste of his actions would cause her to be scapegoated in his absence.
Spurred by the good pay in serving the "Greys", Keith trusted that he would receive a light military commission, possibly to northern Virginia for example, from where it would be easy to desert to the nearest "Yankee" regiment.
However, when arriving at the enlistment gathering at the town's railroad depot, someone began to walk by his side, a mysterious recruit who was wearing a forage cap and had a particularly little physique and delicate features.
[1]: 51 Malinda was officially registered on March 20, 1862, at Lenoir, North Carolina, as "Samuel 'Sammy' Blalock", Keith's 20-year-old brother.
[1]: 51 [3]: 132 This document and her discharge papers survive as one of the few existing records of a female soldier from North Carolina, from the many ones who may have actually served.
Their plan to defect proved unworkable because, already before their arrival, the regiment had fought its biggest battle, which was the loss to the Union of the town of New Bern in eastern North Carolina.
Instead of moving to Virginia's battlefront, they remained stationed far from the northern frontier at Kinston, North Carolina, on the Neuse River.
In April 1862, Keith's squad received the order to range the Neuse River's region by fording it during the night, to detect any enemy guarding-posts.
After obtaining a promise from Boykin that he would spare them some time before reporting, Keith went to a nearby field of poison ivy.
Once there, though, Keith was soon required by the local Confederate forces, which demanded that he enlist again—after noting his healthy status—and return to the front.
With Malinda next to him, Keith began in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, as one of the leaders of the guides for the Watauga Underground Railroad.
[6] During the war, some of the most ill-fated actions of Malinda and Keith were their two pillaging incursions to the Moore family's farm in Caldwell County, late in 1863.
Afterward, they joined the Republican Party where, in 1870, Keith ran unsuccessfully for a place in the Congress of the United States.
