The Women of the ConfederacyUnderwood, J. L. (John Levi)
History
The Women of the Confederacy
Underwood, J. L. (John Levi)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Anecdotes; Women -- Confederate States of America
Yes, these Spartan wives and mothers, with husbands or sons, or both,
at the front, directed the farming operations, supporting their
families and supplying the armies; they sewed, knitted, weaved, and
spun; then in the hospitals they were ministering angels, turning the
heated pillow, smoothing the wrinkled cot, cooling the parched lips,
stroking the burning brow, staunching the flowing blood, binding up
the gaping wounds, trimming the midnight taper, and sitting in the
stillness, only broken by the groans of the sick and wounded, pointing
the departing spirit the way to God; closing the sightless eyes and
then following the bier to Hollywood or some humble spot, and then
dropping the purest tear.
They saw the flames licking the clouds, as their homes, with their
clinging memories, were reduced to ashes; they heard of the carnage of
battle, followed by the mother's deep moan, the wife's low sob--for,
alas! she could not weep--the orphan's wail, and the sister's lament.
But amid flame, carnage, death, and lamentations, though their land
was reddening with blood, and their beloved ones were falling like
leaves in autumn, they stood, like heroines, firm, steadfast, and
constant.
Oh! women of the Confederacy, your fame is deathless; you need not
monument nor sculptured stone to perpetuate it. Young maidens, gather
at the feet of some Confederate matron in some reminiscent hour, and
listen to her story of those days, now more than thirty years past,
and hear how God gave her courage, fortitude, and strength to bear her
privations, and bereavements, and live.
TRIBUTE OF JUDGE J. H. REAGAN, OF TEXAS, POSTMASTER-GENERAL OF
CONFEDERATE STATES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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