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
On the morning of July 30th, 1780, the former, hearing the firing, rode to
the scene of conflict in company with her sister-in-law. Meeting three
skulkers retreating from the fight, Esther rebuked them sharply, and,
seizing the gun from the hands of one of them, exclaimed, "Give us your
guns, and we will stand in your places!" The cowards, abashed and filled
with shame, thereupon turned about, and, in company with the females,
hurried back to face the enemy.
While the battle was raging, Esther and her companion busied themselves in
dressing and binding up the wounds of the fallen, and in quenching their
thirst, not even forgetting their helpless enemies, whose bodies strewed
the ground.
During another battle, which occurred the following week, she converted a
church into a hospital, and administered to the wants of the wounded.
Our other heroine, Mrs. Slocum, of Pleasant Green, North Carolina, having a
presentiment that her husband was dead or wounded in battle, rose in the
night, saddled her horse, and rode to the scene of conflict. We continue
the narrative in the words of our heroine.
"The cool night seemed after a gallop of a mile or two, to bring reflection
with it, and I asked myself where I was going, and for what purpose. Again
and again I was tempted to turn back; but I was soon ten miles from home,
and my mind became stronger every mile I rode that I should find my husband
dead or dying--this was as firmly my presentiment and conviction as any
fact of my life. When day broke I was some thirty miles from home. I knew
the general route our army expected to take, and had followed them without
hesitation. About sunrise I came upon a group of women and children,
standing and sitting by the road-side, each one of them showing the same
anxiety of mind which I felt.
"Stopping a few minutes I enquired if the battle had been fought. They knew
nothing, but were assembled on the road-side to catch intelligence. They
thought Caswell had taken the right of the Wilmington road, and gone toward
the northwest (Cape Fear). Again was I skimming over the ground through a
country thinly settled, and very poor and swampy; but neither my own spirit
nor my beautiful nag's failed in the least. We followed the well-marked
trail of the troops.
"The sun must have been well up, say eight or nine o'clock, when I heard a
sound like thunder, which I knew must be a cannon. It was the first time I
ever heard a cannon. I stopped still; when presently the cannon thundered
again. The battle was then fighting. What a fool! my husband could not be
dead last night, and the battle only fighting now! Still, as I am so near,
I will go on and see how they come out. So away we went again, faster than
ever; and I soon found, by the noise of the guns, that I was near the
fight. Again I stopped. I could hear muskets, rifles, and shouting. I spoke
to my horse and dashed on in the direction of the firing and the shouts,
which were louder than ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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