Possessing all the affections of the wife, the tenderness of the mother, and the sympathies of the woman, their tears flowed freely for others' griefs, while they bore their own with a fortitude which none but a woman could exercise. The entire education of her children devolved on the mother, and notwithstanding the difficulties to be encountered, she did not allow them to grow up wholly without instruction; but amidst all her numerous cares taught them to read, and instructed them in the principles of Christianity. To accomplish this, under the circumstances, was no easy task. The exciting influences which surrounded them, made the boys restless under restraint. Familiarized as they were to hardships from the cradle, and daily listening to stories of Indian massacres and depredations, and to the heroic exploits of some neighboring pioneer, who had taken an Indian scalp, or by some daring effort saved his own, ignorant of the sports and toys with which children in other circumstances are wont to be amused, no wonder they desired to emulate the soldier, or engage in the scarcely less exciting adventures of the hunter. Yet even many of these boys were subdued by the faithfulness of the mother, who labored to bring them up in the fear of God. ANECDOTE OF MRS. SLOCUMB. Our country yet remains: By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, And swear for her to live--with her to die! CAMPBELL. One of the spiciest specimens of colloquial sparring, _vis-a-vis_, in our Revolutionary annals, was between Colonel Tarleton and the wife of Lieutenant Slocumb, of Wayne county, North Carolina.[55] The Attic wit and Spartan boldness of the latter, exhibit original powers of mind, strength of will, and a degree of self-possession truly grand and ennobling. But the character of the heroine of "Pleasant Green," is most luminous in her conduct at the battle of Moore's Creek, which occurred on the twenty-seventh of February, 1776. She tells the story of her adventures on that bloody occasion, as follows: [55] _Vide_ Women of the Revolution, vol. 1. pp. 306-7, etc. "The men all left on Sunday morning. More than eighty went from this house with my husband; I looked at them well, and I could see that every man had mischief in him. I know a coward as soon as I set my eyes upon him. The tories more than once tried to frighten me, but they always showed coward at the bare insinuation that our troops were about.