Chapter VII: Introduction: To Woman's Work (1)

[By J. L. Underwood.]

Throughout the South the women went to work from the first drum-beat. A great deal of it was done privately, the left hand itself hardly knowing what the modest, humble right hand was doing. In nearly every neighborhood soldiers' aid societies, or relief associations, were organized and did systematic and efficient work throughout the four years. Supplies of every kind were constantly gathered and forwarded where most needed. The old men and women did an immense amount of work.

In all the railroad towns, hospitals and wayside houses were established for the benefit of the travelling soldier. These were maintained and managed almost exclusively by the women. They prepared as best they could such articles as pickles and preserves and other delicacies for the use of the hospitals. They sent testaments and other good books and good preachers to the army, and being nearly all women of practical piety, they helped greatly to infuse that spirit of patriotism which gave such strength to the Confederate army. The world has never known an army in which there were so many earnest, practical Christians like Jackson, Cobb, Lee, Polk, Price, and Gordon among the commanding officers, where there were so many ministers of the gospel of good standing who were fighting soldiers, and so many men in ranks who were God-fearing men. The world has never known an army where so many officers and soldiers came from homes where there were pious wives, mothers, and sisters. The inspiration of the knightly hearts of the Confederacy was home and the inspiration of a pious home was godly woman. The world will never know how effective were the prayers and letters of the women at home in those great religious revivals with which the Confederate army was so often and so richly blessed. Thousands of men who entered the army wicked men went home or to their graves genuine Christians. The war ended; but the good woman's work never ends. Our Confederate women began immediately to look after the soldiers' orphans and the soldiers' graves. In all directions the Confederate monuments have been erected mainly by their efforts. Soldiers' homes have been established and in some few of the States homes provided for the Confederate widows. It is safe to say that women collected two-thirds of the money raised for all these objects. It is their dead they are honoring. And they will continue to break the alabaster box. Let them alone.

THE SOUTHERN WOMAN'S SONG

[Confederate Scrap Book.]

Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Little needle, swiftly fly,
Brightly glitter as you go;
Every time that you pass by
Warms my heart with pity's glow.
Dreams of comfort that will cheer,
Dreams of courage you will bring,
Through winter's cold, the volunteer.
Smile on me like flowers in spring.

Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Swiftly, little needle, fly,
Through this flannel, soft and warm;
Though with cold the soldiers sigh,
This will sure keep out the storm.
Set the buttons close and tight,
Out to shut the winter's damp;
There'll be none to fix them right
In the soldier's tented camp.

Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Ah! needle, do not linger;
Close the thread, make fine the knot;
There'll be no dainty finger
To arrange a seam forgot.
Though small and tiny you may be,
Do all that you are able.
A mouse a lion once set free,
As says the pretty fable.

Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Swiftly, little needle, glide.
Thine's a pleasant labor;
To clothe the soldier be thy pride,
While he wields the sabre.
Ours are tireless hearts and hands;
To Southern wives and mothers,
All who join our warlike bands
Are our friends and brothers.

Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Little needle, swiftly fly;
From morning until eve,
As the moments pass thee by,
These substantial comforts weave.
Busy thoughts are at our hearts--
Thoughts of hopeful cheer,
As we toil, till day departs,
For the noble volunteer.

Quick, quick, quick.
Swiftly, little needle, go;
For our homes' most pleasant fires
Let a loving greeting flow
To our brothers and our sires;
We have tears for those who fall,
Smiles for those who laugh at fears;
Hope and sympathy for all--
Every noble volunteer.

THE LADIES OF RICHMOND

The editor of the Lynchburg _Republican_, writing to his paper in June, 1862, says:

The ladies of Richmond, as of Lynchburg, and indeed of the whole country, are making for themselves a fame which will live in all future history, and brilliantly illuminate the brightest pages of the Republic's history.

Discarding all false ceremony and giving full vent to those feelings and sentiments of devotion which make her the noblest part of God's creation and the fondest object of man's existence, the ladies of this city from all ranks have gone into the hospitals and are hourly engaged in ministering to the wants and relieving the sufferings of their countrymen.

Mothers and sisters could not be more unremitting in their attention to their own blood than these women are to those whom they have never seen before, and may never see again. They feed them, nurse them, and by their presence and sympathy cheer and encourage them. "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn," but woman's sympathy would heal every wound and make glad every heart.

THE HOSPITAL AFTER SEVEN PINES

[Richmond During the War, pages 135-136.]

On this evening, as a kind woman bent over the stalwart figure of a noble Georgian, and washed from his hair and beard the stiffened mud of the Chickahominy, where he fell from a wound through the upper portion of the right lung, and then gently bathed the bleeding gash left by the Minie ball, as he groaned and feebly opened his eyes, he grasped her hand, and in broken whispers, faint from suffering, gasping for breath, "I could-bear-all-this-for-myself-alone-but my-wife and my-six little-ones," (and then the large tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks,) and overcome he could only add, "Oh, God! oh, God!-how will-they endure it?" She bent her head and wept in sympathy. The tall man's frame was shaking with agony. She placed to his fevered lips a cooling draught, and whispered: "Think of yourself just now; God may raise you up to them, and if not, He will provide for and comfort them." He feebly grasped her hand once more, and a look of gratitude stole over his manly face, and he whispered, "God bless you! God bless you! God bless you! kind stranger!"

BURIAL OF LATANE

["The next squadron moved to the front under the lamented
Captain Latane, making a most brilliant and successful charge
with drawn sabres upon the enemy's picked ground, and after a
hotly-contested, hand-to-hand conflict put him to flight, but
not until the gallant captain had sealed his devotion to his
native soil with his blood."--Official Report of the Pamunkey
Expedition, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, C. S. A., 1862.]

[From a private letter.]

Lieutenant Latane carried his brother's dead body to Mrs. Brockenbrough's plantation an hour or two after his death. On this sad and lonely errand he met a party of Yankees, who followed him to Mrs. B.'s gate, and stopping there, told him that as soon as he had placed his brother's body in friendly hands he must surrender himself prisoner. * * * Mrs. B. sent for an Episcopal clergyman to perform the funeral ceremonies, but the enemy would not permit him to pass. Then, with a few other ladies, a fair-haired little girl, her apron filled with white flowers, and a few faithful slaves, who stood reverently near, a pious Virginia matron read the solemn and beautiful burial service over the cold, still form of one of the noblest gentlemen and most intrepid officers in the Confederate army. She watched the sods heaped upon the coffin-lid, then sinking on her knees, in sight and hearing of the foe, she committed his soul's welfare and the stricken hearts he had left behind him to the mercy of the "All-Father."

"And when Virginia, leaning on her spear,
_Victrix et vidua_, the conflict done,
Shall raise her mailed hand to wipe the tear
That starts as she recalls each martyred son,
No prouder memory her breast shall sway,
Than thine, our early lost, lamented Latane!"

MAKING CLOTHES FOR THE SOLDIERS

[In Our Women in the War, pages 453-454.]

Money was almost as unavailable as material with us for a time. "Uncle Sam's" treasury was not accessible to "rebels." Our government was young, and Confederate bonds and money yet in their infancy. We could do nothing more than wait developments, and try to meet emergencies as they trooped up before us. In the meantime, children grew apace. Our village stores were emptied and deserted. Our armies in the field became grand realities. All resources were cut off. Our government could poorly provide food and clothing and ammunition for its armies. Then it was our mothers' wit was tested and did in no sort disappoint our expectations. Spinning-wheels, looms and dye-pots were soon brought into requisition. Wool of home production was especially converted, by loving hands, into warm flannels and heavy garments, with soft scarfs and snugly-fitted leggings, to shield our dear boys from Virginia's wintry blasts and fast-falling snows. Later on, when the wants and privations of the army grew more pressing, societies were formed to provide supplies for the general demand. Southern homes withheld nothing that could add to the soldiers' comfort. Every available fragment of material was converted into some kind of garment. After the stores of blankets in each home had been given, carpets were utilized in their stead and portioned out to the suffering soldiers. Wool mattresses were ripped open, recarded, and woven into coverings and clothing. Bits of new woolen fabrics, left from former garments, were ravelled, carded, mixed with cotton and spun and knitted into socks. Old and worn garments were carried through the same process. Even rabbits' fur was mixed with cotton and silk, and appeared again in the form of neat and comfortable gloves. Begging committees went forth (and be it truthfully said, the writer never knew of a single one being turned away empty) to gather up the offerings from mansion and hamlet, which were soon cut up, packed, and forwarded with all possible speed to the soldiers.

And who can tell what pleasure we took in filling boxes with substantials and such dainties as we could secure for the hospitals. Old men and little boys were occupied in winding thread and holding brooches, and even knitting on the socks when the mystery of "turning the heel" had been passed. The little spinning-wheel, turned by a treadle, became a fascination to the girls, and with its busy hum was mingled oft times the merry strain of patriotic songs.

"Our wagon's plenty big enough, the running gear is good,
'Tis stiffened with cotton round the sides and made of Southern wood;
Carolina is the driver, with Georgia by her side;
Virginia'll hold the flag up and we'll take a ride."

THE INGENUITY OF SOUTHERN WOMEN

[Our Women in the War, pages 454-455.]

During all that time, when every woman vied with the other in working for the soldiers, there were needs at home too urgent to be disregarded. These, too, had to be met, and how was not long the question. For those very women who had been reared in ease and affluence soon learned practically that "necessity is the mother of invention," and the story of their ingenuity, if all told, might surprise their Northern sisters, who always regarded them as inefficient, pleasure-loving members of society. Whatever may have been the fault of their institutions and rearing, the war certainly brought out the true woman, and no woman of any age or nation ever entered, heart and soul, more enthusiastically into their country's contest than those who now mourn the "Lost Cause." While our armies were victorious in the field hope lured us on. We bore our share of privations cheerfully and gladly.

We replaced our worn dresses with homespuns, planning and devising checks and plaids, and intermingling colors with the skill of professional "designers." The samples we interchanged were homespuns of our last weaving, not A. T. Stuart's or John Wanamaker's sample envelopes, with their elaborate display of rich and costly fabrics. Our mothers' silk stockings, of ante-bellum date, were ravelled with patience and transformed into the prettiest of neat-fitting gloves. The writer remembers never to have been more pleased than she was by the possession of a trim pair of boots made of the tanned skins of some half-dozen squirrels. They were so much softer and finer than the ordinary heavy calf-skin affairs to be bought at the village "shoe shop," that no Northern maiden was ever more pleased with her ten-dollar boots. Our hats, made of palmetto and rye straw, were becoming and pretty without lace, tips, or flowers. Our jackets were made of the fathers' old-fashioned cloaks, in vogue some forty years agone--those of that style represented in the pictures of Mr. Calhoun--doing splendid service by supplying all the girls in the family at once. We even made palmetto jewelry of exquisite designs, intermingled with our hair, that we might keep even with the boys who wore "palmetto cockades." The flowers we wore were nature's own beautiful, fragrant blossoms, sometimes, when in a patriotic mood, nestled, with symbolic cotton balls. For our calico dresses, if ever so fortunate as to find one, we sometimes paid a hundred dollars, and for the spool of cotton that made it from ten to twenty dollars. The buttons we used were oftentimes cut from a gourd into sizes required and covered with cloth, they having the advantage of pasteboard because they were rounded. On children's clothes persimmon seed in their natural state, with two holes drilled through them, were found both neat and durable. In short, we fastened all our garments after true Confederate style, without the aid of Madame Demorest's guide book or Worth's Parisian models, and suffered from none of Miss Flora McFlimsey's harassing dilemmas.

MRS. LEE AND THE SOCKS

R. E. Lee, in his recollections of his father, General Lee, says:

"His letters to my mother tell how much his men were in need. My mother was an invalid from rheumatism, and confined to a roller chair. To help the cause with her own hands, as far as she could, she was constantly occupied in knitting socks for the soldiers, and induced all around her to do the same. She sent them directly to my father and he always acknowledged them."

It was well known in the army what great pleasure it gave the General to distribute these socks.

FITTING OUT A SOLDIER

[Mrs. Roger A. Pryor's Reminiscences of Peace and War, pages 131-133.]

When I returned to my father's home in Petersburg I found my friends possessed with an intense spirit of patriotism. The First, Second and Third Virginia were already mustered into service; my husband was colonel of the Third Virginia Infantry. The men were to be equipped for service immediately. All of "the boys" were going--the three Manys, Will Johnson, Berry Stainback, Ned Graham; all the young, dancing set, the young lawyers and doctors--everybody, in short, except bank presidents, druggists, a doctor or two (over age), and young boys under sixteen. To be idle was torture. We women resolved ourselves into a sewing society, resting not on Sundays. Sewing-machines were put into the churches, which became depots for flannel, muslin, strong linen, and even uniform cloth. When the hour for meeting arrived, the sewing class would be summoned by the ringing of the church bell. My dear Agnes was visiting in Petersburg, and was my faithful ally in all my work. We instituted a monster sewing class, which we hugely enjoyed, to meet daily at my home on Market street. My colonel was to be fitted out as never was colonel before. He was ordered to Norfolk with his regiment to protect the seaboard. I was proud of his colonelship, and much exercised because he had no shoulder-straps. I undertook to embroider them myself. We had not then decided upon the star for our colonels' insignia, and I supposed he would wear the eagle like all the colonels I had ever known. We embroidered bullion fringe, cut it in lengths, and made eagles, probably of some extinct species, for the like were unknown in Audubon's time, and have not since been discovered. However, they were accepted, admired, and, what is worse, worn.

The Confederate soldier was furnished at the beginning of the war with a gun, pistol, canteen, tin cup, haversack, and knapsack--no inconsiderable weight to be borne in a march. The knapsack contained a fatigue jacket, one or two blankets, an oil-cloth, several suits of underclothing, several pairs of white gloves, collars, neckties, and handkerchiefs. Each mess purchased a mess-chest containing dishes, bowls, plates, knives, forks, spoons, cruets, spice-boxes, glasses, etc. Each mess also owned a frying-pan, oven, coffee-pot, and camp-kettle. The uniforms were of the finest cadet cloth and gold lace. This outfit--although not comparable to that of the Federal soldier, many of whom had "Saratoga" trunks in the baggage train--was considered sumptuous by the Confederate volunteer. As if these were not enough, we taxed our ingenuity to add sundry comforts, weighing little, by which we might give a touch of refinement to the soldier's knapsack.

There was absolutely nothing which a man might possibly use that we did not make for them. We embroidered cases for razors, for soap and sponge, and cute morocco affairs for needles, thread, and courtplaster, with a little pocket lined with a bank note. "How perfectly ridiculous," do you say? Nothing is ridiculous that helps anxious women to bear their lot--cheats them with the hope that they are doing good.

THE THIMBLE BRIGADE

[From Dickison and His Men, pages 161-162.]

With prayerful hearts, the devoted women of Marion formed themselves into societies for united efforts in behalf of our gallant defenders.

At Orange Lake, we formed a Soldiers' Relief Association, playfully called the "Thimble Brigade;" and, with earnest faith in the blessing of God upon our work, we began our mission of love. With grateful hearts we labored to provide comforts for the brave soldiers, who around their campfires were keeping watch for us. The following notice will be read by our sisterhood with mingled emotions of pleasure and sadness:

"In this number of the Ocala _Home Journal_ will be found the proceedings of a meeting of the ladies of the neighborhood of Orange Lake, held for the purpose of organizing a 'Soldiers' Friend' Association. They have not only succeeded in perfecting their organization, but have already accomplished a great deal for the benefit of the soldiers. They have made thirty pairs of pants for the soldiers at Fernandina, the ladies furnishing the material from their own private stores, besides knitting socks and making other garments. The manner in which they have commenced this patriotic work is, indeed, encouraging to all who have the soldier's welfare at heart, and we know that they will labor as long as the necessities of the soldier require it."

NOBLE WOMEN OF RICHMOND

[In A Rebel's Recollections, pages 66-69.]

In Richmond, when the hospitals were filled with wounded men brought in from the seven days' fighting with McClellan, and the surgeons found it impossible to dress half the wounds, a band was formed, consisting of nearly all the married women of the city, who took upon themselves the duty of going to the hospitals and dressing wounds from morning till night; and they persisted in their painful duty until every man was cared for, saving hundreds of lives, as the surgeons unanimously testified. When nitre was found to be growing scarce, and the supply of gunpowder was consequently about to give out, women all over the land dug up the earth in their smokehouses and tobacco barns, and with their own hands faithfully extracted the desired salt, for use in the government laboratories.

Many of them denied themselves not only delicacies, but substantial food also, when, by enduring semi-starvation, they could add to the stock of food at the command of the subsistence officers. I myself knew more than one houseful of women, who, from the moment that food began to grow scarce, refused to eat meat or drink coffee, living thenceforth only upon vegetables of a speedily perishable sort, in order that they might leave the more for the soldiers in the field. When a friend remonstrated with one of them, on the ground that her health, already frail, was breaking down utterly for want of proper diet, she replied, in a quiet, determined way, "I know that very well; but it is little that I can do, and I must do that little at any cost. My health and life are worth less than those of my brothers, and if they give theirs to the cause, why should not I do the same? I would starve to death cheerfully if I could feed one soldier more by doing so, but the things I eat can't be sent to camp. I think it a sin to eat anything that can be used for rations." And she meant what she said, too, as a little mound in the church-yard testifies.

Every Confederate remembers gratefully the reception given him when he went into any house where these women were. Whoever he might be, and whatever his plight, if he wore the gray, he was received, not as a beggar or tramp, not even as a stranger, but as a son of the house, for whom it held nothing too good, and whose comfort was the one care of all its inmates, even though their own must be sacrificed in securing it. When the hospitals were crowded, the people earnestly besought permission to take the men to their houses and to care for them there, and for many months almost every house within a radius of a hundred miles of Richmond held one or more wounded men as especially honored guests.

"God bless these Virginia women!" said a general officer from one of the cotton States, one day; "they're worth a regiment apiece." And he spoke the thought of the army, except that their blessing covered the whole country as well as Virginia.

FROM MATOACA GAY'S ARTICLES IN THE _PHILADELPHIA TIMES_

In a diary kept at the time by an official in the War Department I find this entry:

_May 10, 1861._--The ladies are sewing everywhere, and are full of ardor. Love affairs are plentiful, but the ladies are postponing all engagements till their lovers have fought the Yankees. Their influence is very great. Day after day they go in crowds to the fair grounds, where the First South Carolina Volunteers are encamped, showering upon them smiles and every delicacy which the city can afford. They wine them and dine them, and they deserve it, for they are just from the taking of Sumter, and have won historic distinction. I was presented to several very distinguished looking young men, all of them privates, and was told by their captain that many of them were worth from a hundred thousand to half a million. These are the men the _Tribune_ thought would all of them want to be captains; but that is only one of the hallucinations under which the North is now laboring.

THE WOMEN OF RICHMOND

[By Phoebe Y. Pember, in Hospital Life.]

But of what importance was the fact that I was homeless, houseless and moneyless, in Richmond, the heart of Virginia? Who ever wanted for aught that kind hearts, generous hands or noble hospitality could supply, that it was not here offered without even the shadow of a patronage that could have made it distasteful? What women were ever so refined in feeling and so unaffected in manner; so willing to share all that wealth gives, and so little infected with the pride of purse which bestows that power? It was difficult to hide one's needs from them; they found them out and ministered to them with their quiet simplicity and the innate nobility which gave to their generosity the coloring of a favor received, not conferred.

Would that I could do more than thank the dear friends who made my life for four years so happy and contented; who never made me feel by word or act that my self-imposed occupation was otherwise than one which would ennoble any woman. If ever any aid was given through my own exertions, or any labor rendered effective by me for the good of the South--if any sick soldier ever benefited by my happy face or pleasant smiles at his bedside, or death was ever soothed by gentle words of hope and tender care--such results were only owing to the cheering encouragement I received from them.

TWO GEORGIA HEROINES

[Mary L. Jewett, Corresponding Secretary Clement Evans Chapter, U. D. C.]

"To such women as these should a shaft of precious stone be erected."

'Twas thus an old soldier spoke of the wife of Judge Alexander Herrington, of Dougherty County, Georgia, many years ago, when the heroism of the Southern women was mentioned. She was president of the ladies' relief association during the war, and as such had thirty machines brought to her home and the neighbors gathered together and made leggings and clothing for "our boys," as they were called. Many and many days did she work with bleeding hands, caused by the constant use of the shears, for with her own hands she did the cutting for the others to stitch. This was a work that is far beyond the understanding of the present day, for she had never known a day's toil, being the wife of a wealthy planter and slave owner. Not only did she and Judge Herrington give money, cattle, cotton, and slaves to be used in the erecting of breastworks, but he being too old, and their only son being a mere child, they bravely sent two of their daughters to the field as army nurses, one of which served through the entire war. After the war, with slaves and money gone, her husband died, and it was then that she and her children suffered through the days of reconstruction, with never a murmur from her lips for the things she had given up and lost.

THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLE

[Mrs. R. A. Pryor's Reminiscences.]

All the afternoon the dreadful guns shook the earth and thrilled our souls with horror. I shut myself in my darkened room. At twilight I had a note from Governor Letcher, telling me a fierce battle was raging, and inviting me to come to the governor's mansion. From the roof one might see the flash of musket and artillery.

No; I did not wish to see the infernal fires. I preferred to watch and wait alone in my room. And so the night wore on and I waited and watched. Before the dawn a hurried footstep brought a message from the battlefield to my door:

"The general, madame, is safe and well. Colonel Scott has been killed. The general has placed a guard around his body, and he will be sent here early to-morrow. The general bids me say he will not return. The fight will be renewed, and will continue until the enemy is driven away."

My resolution was taken. My children were safe with their grandmother. I would write. I would ask that every particle of my household linen, except a change, should be rolled into bandages, all my fine linen be sent to me for compresses, and all forwarded as soon as possible. I would enter the new hospital which had been improvised in Kent & Paine's warehouse, and would remain there as a nurse as long as the armies were fighting around Richmond.

But the courier was passing on his rounds with news to others. Presently Fanny Poindexter, in tears, knocked at my door.

"She is bearing it like a brave, Christian woman."

"She? Who? Tell me quick."

"Mrs. Scott. I had to tell her. She simply said, 'I shall see him once more.' The general wrote to her from the battlefield and told her how nobly her husband died, leading his men in the thick of the fight, and how he had helped to save the city."

Alas! that the city should have needed saving. What had Mrs. Scott and her children done? Why should they suffer? Who was to blame for it all?

Kent & Paine's warehouse was a large, airy building, which had, I understood, been offered by the proprietors for a hospital immediately after the battle of Seven Pines. McClellan's advance upon Richmond had heavily taxed the capacity of the hospitals already established.

When I reached the warehouse, early on the morning after the fight at Mechanicsville, I found cots on the lower floor already occupied, and other cots in process of preparation. An aisle between the rows of narrow beds stretched to the rear of the building. Broad stairs led to a story above, where other cots were being laid.

The volunteer matron was a beautiful woman, Mrs. Wilson. When I was presented to her as a candidate for admission, her serene eyes rested doubtfully upon me for a moment. She hesitated. Finally she said:

"The work is very exacting. There are so few of us that our nurses must do anything and everything--make beds, wait upon anybody, and often a half a dozen at a time."

"I will engage to do all that," I declared, and she permitted me to go to a desk at the farther end of the room and enter my name.

As I passed by the rows of occupied cots, I saw a nurse kneeling beside one of them, holding a pan for a surgeon. The red stump of an amputated arm was held over it. The next thing I knew I was myself lying on a cot, and a spray of cold water was falling over my face. I had fainted. Opening my eyes, I found the matron standing beside me.

"You see it is as I thought. You are unfit for this work. One of the nurses will conduct you home."

The nurse's assistance was declined, however. I had given trouble enough for one day, and had only interrupted those who were really worth something. A night's vigil had been poor preparation for hospital work. I resolved I would conquer my culpable weakness. It was all very well,--these heroics in which I indulged, these paroxysms of patriotism, this adoration of the defenders of my fireside. The defender in the field had naught to hope from me in case he should be wounded in my defence.

I took myself well in hand. Why had I fainted? I thought it was because of the sickening, dead odor in the hospital, mingled with that of acids and disinfectants. Of course, this would always be there--and worse, as wounded men filled the rooms. I provided myself with sal volatile and spirits of camphor,--we wore pockets in our gowns in those days,--and thus armed I presented myself again to Mrs. Wilson. She was as kind as she was refined and intelligent. "I will give you a place near the door," she said, "and you must run out into the air at the first hint of faintness. You will get over it, see if you don't."

Ambulances began to come in and unload at the door. I soon had occupation enough, and a few drops of camphor on my handkerchief tided me over the worst. The wounded men crowded in and sat patiently waiting their turn. One fine little fellow of fifteen unrolled a handkerchief from his wrist to show me his wound. "There's a bullet in there," he said proudly. "I am going to have it cut out, and then go right back to the fight. Isn't it lucky it's my left hand?"

As the day wore on I became more and more absorbed in my work. I had, too, the stimulus of a reproof from Miss Deborah Couch, a brisk, efficient, middle-aged lady, who asked no quarter and gave none. She was standing beside me a moment, with a bright tin pan filled with pure water, into which I foolishly dipped a finger to see if it were warm, to learn if I would be expected to provide warm water when I should be called upon to assist the surgeon.

"This water, madame, was prepared for a raw wound," said Miss Deborah, sternly. "I must now make the surgeon wait until I get more."

Miss Deborah, in advance of her time, was a germ theorist. My touch evidently was contaminating.

As she charged down the aisle, with a pan of water in her hand, everybody made way. She had known of my "fine-lady faintness," as she termed it, and I could see she despised me for it. She had volunteered, as all the nurses had, and she meant business. She had no patience with nonsense, and truly she was worth more than all the rest of us.

"Where can I get a little ice?" I one day ventured of Miss Deborah.

"Find it," she rejoined, as she rapidly passed on; but find it I never did. Ice was an unknown luxury until brought to us later from private houses.

But I found myself thoroughly reinstated--with surgeons, matrons and Miss Deborah--when I appeared a few days later, accompanied by a man bearing a basket of clean, well-rolled bandages, with promise of more to come. The Petersburg women had gone to work with a will upon my table-cloths, sheets, and dimity counterpanes--and even the chintz furniture covers. My springlike green and white chintz bandages appeared on many a manly arm and leg. My fine linen underwear and napkins were cut, by the sewing circle at the Spotswood, according to the surgeons' directions, into two lengths two inches wide, then folded two inches, doubling back and forth in a smaller fold each time, until they formed pointed wedges or compresses.

Such was the sudden and overwhelming demand for such things that but for my own and similar donations of household linen the wounded men would have suffered. The war had come upon us suddenly. Many of our ports were already closed and we had no stores laid up for such an emergency.

The bloody battle of Gaines' Mill soon followed. Then Frazier's farm, within the week, and at once the hospital was filled to overflowing. Every night a courier brought me tidings of my husband. When I saw him at the door my heart would die within me. One morning John came in for certain supplies. After being reassured as to his master's safety, I asked, "Did he have a comfortable night, John?"

"He sholy did. Marse Roger sart'nly was comfortable las' night. He slep' on de field 'twixt two daid horses."

The women who worked in Kent & Paine's hospital never seemed to weary. After a while the wise matron assigned us hours, and we went on duty with the regularity of trained nurses. My hours were from 7 to 7 during the day, with the promise of night service should I be needed. Efficient, kindly colored women assisted us. Their motherly manner soothed the prostrate soldier, whom they always addressed as "son."

Many fine young fellows lost their lives for want of prompt attention. They never murmured. They would give way to those who seemed to be more seriously wounded than themselves, and the latter would recover, while from the slighter wounds gangrene would supervene from delay. Very few men ever walked away from that hospital. They died, or friends found quarters for them in Richmond. None complained. Unless a poor man grew delirious, he never groaned. There was an atmosphere of gentle kindness; a suppression of emotion for the sake of others.

Every morning the Richmond ladies brought for our patients such luxuries as could be procured in that scarce time. The city was in peril, and distant farmers feared to bring in their fruits and vegetables. One day a patient-looking, middle-aged man said to me, "What would I not give for a bowl of chicken broth like my mother used to give me when I was a sick boy?" I perceived one of the angelic matrons of Richmond at a distance, stooping over the cots, and found my way to her and said, "Dear Mrs. Maben, have you a chicken? And could you send some broth to No. 39?" She promised, and I returned with her promise to the poor, wounded fellow. He shook his head. "To-morrow will be too late," he said.

I had forgotten the circumstance next day, but at noon I happened to look toward cot No. 39, and there was Mrs. Maben herself. She had brought the chicken broth in a pretty china bowl, with napkin and silver spoon, and was feeding my doubting Thomas, to his great satisfaction.

It was at this hospital, I have reason to believe, that the little story originated, which was deemed good enough to be claimed by other hospitals, of the young girl who approached a sick man with a pan of water in her hand and a towel over her arm.

"Mayn't I wash your face?" said the girl, timidly.

"Well, lady, you may if you want to," said the man, wearily. "It has been washed fourteen times this morning. It can stand another time, I reckon."

I discovered that I had not succeeded, despite many efforts, in winning Miss Deborah. I learned that she was affronted because I had not shared my offerings of jelly and fruit with her, for her special patients. Whenever I ventured to ask a loan from her, of a pan or a glass of water, or the little things of which we never had enough, she would reply, "I must keep them for the nurses who understand reciprocity. Reciprocity is the rule some persons never seem to comprehend." When this was hammered into my slow perception, I rose to the occasion. I turned over the entire contents of a basket the landlord of the Spotswood had given me to Miss Deborah, and she made my path straight before me ever afterward.

At the end of a week the matron had promoted me. Instead of carving the fat bacon, to be served with corn bread, for the hospital dinner, or standing between two rough men to keep away the flies, or fetching water, or spreading sheets on cots, I was assigned to regular duty with one patient.

The first of these proved to be a young Colonel Coppens, of my husband's brigade. I could comfort him very little, for he was wounded past recovery. I spoke little French, and could only try to keep him, as far as possible, from annoyance. To my great relief, place was found for him in a private family. There he soon died--the gallant fellow I had admired on his horse a few months before.

Then I was placed beside the cot of Mr. (or Captain) Boyd, of Mecklenburg, and was admonished by the matron not to leave him alone. He was the most patient sufferer in the world--gentle, courteous, always considerate, never complaining.

"Are you in pain, Captain?"

"No, no," he would say gently.

One day when I returned from my "rest," I found the matron sitting beside him.

She motioned me to take her place, and then added, "No, no; I will not leave him."

The captain's eyes were closed, and he sighed wearily at intervals. Presently he whispered slowly: "There everlasting spring abides;" then sighed, and seemed to sleep for a moment.

The matron felt his pulse and raised a warning hand. The sick man's whisper went on: "Bright fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green;" and in a moment more the Christian soldier had crossed the river and lain down to rest under the trees.

Each of the battles of those seven days brought a harvest of wounded to our hospital. I used to veil myself closely as I walked to and from my hotel, that I might shut out the dreadful sights in the streets--the squads of prisoners, and worst of all, the open wagons in which the dead were piled. Once I did see one of these dreadful wagons. In it a stiff arm was raised, and shook as it was driven down the street, as though the dead owner appealed to Heaven for vengeance--a horrible sight, never to be forgotten.

After one of the bloody battles--I know not if it was Gaines' Mill or Frazier's Farm or Malvern Hill--A splendid young officer, Colonel Brokenborough, was taken to our hospital, shot almost to pieces. He was borne up the stairs and placed in a cot--his broken limbs in supports swinging from the ceiling. The wife of General Mahone and I were permitted to assist in nursing him. A young soldier from the camp was detailed to help us, and a clergyman was in constant attendance, coming at night that we might have rest. Our patient held a court in his corner of the hospital. Such a dear, gallant, cheery fellow, handsome, and with a grand air even as he lay prostrate. Nobody ever heard him complain. He would welcome us in the morning with the brightest smile. His aid said, "He watches the head of the stairs and calls up that look for your benefit."

"Oh," he said one day, "you can't guess what's going to happen. Some ladies have been here and left all these roses, and cologne, and such; and somebody has sent champagne. We are going to have a party."

Ah! but we knew he was very ill. We were bidden to watch him every minute and not be deceived by his own spirits. Mrs. Mahone spent her life hunting for ice. My constant care was to keep his canteen--to which he clung with affection--filled with fresh water from a spring not far away, and I learned to give it to him so well that I allowed no one to lift his head for his drink during my hours.

One day, when we were alone, I was fanning him, and thought he was asleep. He said gravely, "Mrs. Pryor, beyond that curtain they hung up yesterday, poor young Mitchell is lying. They don't know. But I heard when they brought him in. As I lie here I listen to his breathing. I haven't heard it now for some time. Would you mind seeing if he is all right?"

I passed behind the curtain. The young soldier was dead. His wide-open eyes seemed to meet mine in mute appeal. I had never seen or touched a dead man, but I laid my hands upon his eyelids and closed them. I was standing thus when his nurse, a young volunteer like myself, came to me.

"I couldn't do that," she said. "I went for the doctor. I'm so glad you could do it."

When I returned Colonel Brokenborough asked no questions and I knew that his keen senses had already instructed him.

To be cheerful and uncomplaining was the unwritten law of our hospital. No bad news was ever mentioned; no foreboding or anxiety. Mrs. Mahone was one day standing beside Colonel Brokenborough when a messenger from the front suddenly announced that General Mahone had received a flesh wound. Commanding herself instantly, she exclaimed merrily: "Flesh wound. Now you all know that is just impossible."

The general had no flesh. He was thin and attenuated as he was brave.

As Colonel Brokenborough grew weaker, I felt self-reproach that no one had offered to write letters for him. His friend the clergyman had said to me: "That poor boy is engaged to a lovely young girl. I wonder what is best? Would it grieve him to speak of her. You ladies have so much tact; you might bear it in mind. An opportunity might offer for you to discover how he feels about it."

The next time I was alone with him I ventured: "Now, Colonel, one mustn't forget absent friends, you know, even if fair ladies do bring perfumes and roses and what not. I have some ink and paper here. Shall I write a letter for you? Tell me what to say."

He turned his head and with a half-amused smile of perfect intelligence looked at me for a long time. Then an upward look of infinite tenderness; but the message was never sent--never needed from a true heart like this.

One night I was awakened from my sleep by a knock at my door, and a summons to "come to Colonel Brokenborough." When I reached his bedside I found the surgeon, the clergyman, and the colonel's aid. The patient was unconscious; the end was near. We sat in silence. Once, when he stirred, I slipped my hand under his head, and put his canteen once more to his lips. After a long time his breathing simply ceased, with no evidence of pain. We waited awhile, and then the young soldier who had been detailed to nurse him rose, crossed the room, and stooping over, kissed me on my forehead, and went out to his duty in the ranks.

Two weeks later I was in my room, resting after a hard day, when a haggard officer, covered with mud and dust, entered. It was my husband. "My men are all dead," he said, with anguish, and, falling across the bed, he gave vent to the passionate grief of his heart.

Thousands of Confederate soldiers were killed, thousands wounded. Richmond was saved!

DEATH OF MRS. SARAH K. ROWE, "THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND"

[From Southern Historical Papers.]

ORANGEBURG, S. C., _June 2, 1884_.

I feel warranted in informing you of the death of Mrs. Sarah K. Rowe, which occurred yesterday, the 1st of June, at her country home in this county. Mrs. Rowe was known for four and a half years, '61 to '65, as "the soldiers' friend." I detract nothing from great women all over the South, Cornelias of heroic type, when I state that Mrs. Rowe was pre-eminently the soldiers' friend. If this should meet the eye of Hood's Texans, of Polk's Tennesseeans, of Morgan's Kentuckians, or of Pickett's Virginians, any of whom passed on the South Carolina Railroad during the war, her face beaming with benevolence, her arms loaded with food, will be remembered as one of the sunny events of a dark time. From the first note of war Mrs. Rowe gave all she had and could collect by wonderful energy to the soldiers. She had her organized squads. The gay, strong soldier to Virginia was fed and cheered on; the mangled and sick were nursed and cared for. She had a mother's blessing for the brave; a mother's tears and sympathy for the dying and the dead. Mrs. Rowe emphatically lived and spent herself for the cause, and when it failed, like a noble woman she submitted, with the remark, "It is all right." The sight of a bandaged head or limb under her soft touch was an everyday picture. The echo of a thousand cheers as the troop trains passed her was recurring every day. She bandaged and waved God-speed as well. A few days ago Mrs. Rowe showed by request a part of her great legacy--the letters from the soldiers she had nursed to life again. Truly her reward was rich. She passed away, of paralysis, at a ripe old age. The soldiers and survivors buried her. The Young and "Old Guard" lowered her remains to mother earth. When Fame makes up its roll her precious name should stand out--the soldiers' friend.

Yours truly,
JOHN A. HAMILTON.

"YOU WAIT"

[Phoebe Y. Pember, in Hospital Life.]

Pleasant episodes often occurred to vary disappointments and lighten duties of hospital life.

"Kin you writ a letter?" drawled a whining voice from a bed in one of the wards, a cold day in '62.

The speaker was an up-country Georgian, one of the kind called "Goobers" by the soldiers generally--lean, yellow, attenuated, with wispy strands of hair hanging over his high, thin cheek-bones. He put out a hand to detain me and the nails were like claws.

"Why do you not let the nurse cut your nails?"

"Because I aren't got any spoon, and I use them instead."

"Will you let me have your hair cut then? You can't get well with all that dirty hair hanging about your eyes and ears."

"No, I can't git my hair cut, kase as how I promised my mammy that I would let it grow till the war be over. Oh, it's unlucky to cut it."

"Then I can't write any letter for you. Do what I wish you to do, and then I will oblige you."

This was plain talking. The hair was cut (I left the nails for another day), my portfolio brought, and sitting by the side of his bed I waited for further orders. They came with a formal introduction,--"for Mrs. Marthy Brown."

"My dear mammy:

"I hope this finds you well, as it leaves me well, and I hope that I shall git a furlough Christmas, and come and see you, and I hope you will keep well, and all the folks be well by that time, as I hopes to be well myself. This leaves me in good health, as I hope it will find you and--"

But here I paused as his mind seemed to be going round in a circle, and asked him a few questions about his home, his position during the last summer's campaign, how he got sick, and where his brigade was at that time. Thus furnished with some material to work upon, the letter proceeded rapidly. Four sides were conscientiously filled, for no soldier would think a letter worth sending home that showed any blank paper. Transcribing his name, the number of his ward and proper address, so that an answer might reach him--the composition was read to him. Gradually his pale face brightened, a sitting posture was assumed with difficulty (for, in spite of his determined effort to write a letter "to be well," he was far from convalescence). As I folded and directed it, contributed the expected five-cent stamp, and handed it to him, he gazed cautiously around to be sure there were no listeners.

"Did you writ all that?" he asked, whispering, but with great emphasis.

"Yes."

"Did I say all that?"

"I think you did."

A long pause of undoubted admiration--astonishment--ensued. What was working in that poor mind? Could it be that Psyche had stirred one of the delicate plumes of her wing and touched that dormant soul?

"Are you married?" The harsh voice dropped very low.

"I am not. At least, I am a widow."

He rose still higher in bed. He pushed away desperately the tangled hay on his brow. A faint color fluttered over the hollow cheek, and stretching out a long piece of bone with a talon attached, he gently touched my arm and with constrained voice whispered mysteriously:

"You wait!"

ANNANDALE--TWO HEROINES OF MISSISSIPPI

[By Anna B. A. Brown, in Memphis Commercial World.]

In these hurried days, when we spend the major portion of our lives trying to keep up with the electric currents that control the universe, it is good to be able to turn aside for a while in the byways of the South and feel the restfulness of old plantation life, whether it be a reality or an echo from the past. A day spent in touch with old Southern home life is a day full of restful peace and happy memories.

In Madison County, Mississippi, one finds many bits of ante-bellum life that the turbulent tide of commerce has not yet swept away--big plantations, historic old mansions, tumble-down slave quarters--that are the abiding proofs of the prosperity and hospitality of a people who lived and loved when knighthood was yet in flower, and whose children live yet to preserve the old traditions. Many of the old plantations are still tilled by the descendants of the original owners. Many have passed into stranger's hands. Some stand tenantless and lonely, with ghostly visitants slipping at midnight down the great stairways to tread a stately measure on the ball floor, a silent assemblage of long-ago belles and beaux returned from the cities of the dead or from the still trenches of Seven Pines, Chickamauga, or Shiloh.

One of these silent homes is Annandale, a bit of historic Mississippi architecture that stands near Canton, once the home of Southern chivalry and romance, now empty, save for the memories that cluster thickly within its walls. Annandale is the property, and was until recently the home of the Mississippi branch of the Johnstone family, and preserves to memory the name of the county in Scotland that cradled the ancestors who bore this illustrious name. It is still known as their home, though Vicksburg now claims the daughter of the house, and only in the summers are the doors opened again for that lavish hospitality for which the old place was noted. Two brothers of the Johnstone family came over from Scotland in 1734, having been sent by George III, on business of great import to the colonies. One had the appointment of governor to his majesty's colony of North Carolina, the other that of surveyor-general. The Johnstone family remained loyal to their king as long as native pride would permit, and then, true to the spirit that demanded the Magna Charta at Runnymede centuries before, they went to the American settlements in the fight for liberty. They were prominent in the Revolution, and after the war took part in the political work of building up the nation.