Memories of the War [pp. 138-145]

144
MEMORIES OF THE WAR.
THE WOMEN OF TIlE CONFEDERACY.
"And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountains;
His musket falls slack-his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
And he mutters a prayer for the children asleep For their MOTHER-may heaven defend her!"
In every period of time, the sublime offerings of women upon
the altars of country have been sung by poets and noted by historians from the days of Homer and IlHerodotus to our own.
The character of the women of the South was in some respects
peculiar. The institutions of the country, whilst it fireed them in
great part from the necessity of ordinary toil, and secured to them
generally the necessaries and luxuries of life without apparent
effort, were thought to be unfavorable to the development of other
than the more delicate and effem;.nate virtues. The objects of
ceaseless caresses and adulation, and of those chivalrous attentions
from the other sex which did not admit of the wind visiting too
roughly their cheeks; removed from rude contact with the world,
and elevated as a kind of household deity, it was commonly
thought that when the stern alarums of war were sounded, and
danger lurked in every retreat. the women of the South would
shrink back in terror and dismay! How little knowledge the
thought implied of the inexplicable mysteries and exhaustless
depths of woman's heart and inner life the sequel evinced.
From the beginning of the struggle the sympathies and interests of the gentler sex were all enlisted on the side of resistance.
Upon them who counseled it they showered bouquets from the
galleries of public assemblies. and those who seemed to halt were
spurred onward by unmistakable marks of disfavor. Such was
strikingly the case in the Virginia and South Carolina Conventions,
but it occurred almost everywhere e se. If they saw, th'y di'
not shun the peril, an(l their cheeks were not seen to blanch when
its hour came. All through the long train of events the. constancy
and fervor of the women of the South never once waned. They
cheered the heroic and lashed the laggard, and never, until the
cause went down, had they time for regrets or tears. Like Hector
of old, each youth might well have felt
"I fear most
My Trojans and their daughters and their Wives,
Who through their long veils would glance scorn
If coward-like I shunned the open war."
It was a life of toil and unknown activity to these same delicately reared and firagile women. If they buckled armor upon
brothers. lovers, husbands and sons, and waved handkerchiefs to
passing heroes, if thley elaborated and presented rich and beautitilf barirers, they joyfully accepted the humblest offices of home.
lVhat activity of needle through the long wearisome days and