Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"Fowler, William Worthington
History
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"
Fowler, William Worthington
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Women -- United States -- Biography
Dicey Langston, of South Carolina, also showed a "soul of love and
bravery." Living in a frontier settlement, and in the midst of Tories, and
being patriotically inquisitive, she often learned by accident, or
discovered by strategy, the plottings so common in those days against the
Whigs. Such intelligence she was accustomed to communicate to the friends
of freedom on the opposite side of the Ennosee river.
Learning one time that a band of loyalists--known in those days as
the--"Bloody Scouts"--were about to fall upon the "Elder Settlement," a
place where a brother of hers and other friends were residing, she resolved
to warn them of their danger. To do this she must hazard her own life.
Regardless of danger she started off alone, in the darkness of the night;
traveled several miles through the woods, over marshes, across creeks,
through a country where foot-logs and bridges were then unknown; came to
the Tyger, a rapid and deep stream, into which she plunged and waded till
the water was up to her neck. She then became bewildered, and zigzagged the
channel for some time, finally reaching the opposite shore, for a helping
hand was beneath, a kind Providence guided her. She then hastened on,
reached the settlement, and her brother and the whole community were saved.
She was returning one day from another settlement of Whigs, in the
Spartanburg district, when a company of Tories met her and questioned her
in regard to the neighborhood she had just left; but she refused to
communicate the desired information. The leader of the band then put a
pistol to her breast, and threatened to shoot her if she did not make the
wished-for disclosure.
"Shoot me if you dare! I will not tell you!" was her dauntless reply, as
she opened a long handkerchief that covered her neck and bosom, thus
manifesting a willingness to receive the contents of the pistol, if the
officer insisted on disclosure or life.
The dastard, enraged at her defying movement, was in the act of firing, but
one of the soldiers threw up the hand holding the weapon, and the uncovered
heart of the girl was permitted to beat on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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