Woman on the American Frontier Part 8

"'O, I thought,' replied I, 'you would need nurses as well as soldiers.

See! I have already dressed many of these good fellows; and here is one'--and going up to Frank and lifting him up with my arm under his head so that he could drink some more water--'would have died before any of you men could have helped him.'

"Just then I looked up, and my husband, as b.l.o.o.d.y as a butcher, and as muddy as a ditcher, stood before me.

"'Why, Mary!' he exclaimed, 'what are you doing there? Hugging Frank Cogdell, the greatest reprobate in the army?'

"'I don't care,' I said. 'Frank is a brave fellow, a good soldier, and a true friend of Congress.'

"'True, true! every word of it!' said Caswell. 'You are right, madam,' with the lowest possible bow.

"I would not tell my husband what brought me there I was so happy; and so were all! It was a glorious victory; I came just at the height of the enjoyment. I knew my husband was surprised, but I could see he was not displeased with me. It was night again before our excitement had at all subsided.

"Many prisoners were brought in, and among them some very obnoxious; but the worst of the Tories were not taken prisoners. They were, for the most part, left in the woods and swamps wherever they were overtaken. I begged for some of the poor prisoners, and Caswell told me none should be hurt but such as had been guilty of murder and house-burning.

"In the middle of the night I again mounted my horse and started for home.

Caswell and my husband wanted me to stay till next morning, and they would send a party with me; but no! I wanted to see my child, and I told them they could send no party who could keep up with me. What a happy ride I had back! and with what joy did I embrace my child as he ran to meet me!"

The winter at Valley Forge was the darkest season in the Revolutionary struggle. The American army were sheltered by miserable huts, through which the rain and sleet found their way upon the wretched cots where the patriots slept. By day the half-famished soldiers in tattered regimentals wandered through their camp, and the snow showed the b.l.o.o.d.y tracks of their shoeless feet. Mutinous mutterings disturbed the sleep of Was.h.i.+ngton, and one dark, cold day, the soldiers at dusk were on the point of open revolt.

Nature could endure no more, and not from want of patriotism, but from want of food and clothes, the patriotic cause seemed likely to fail. Pinched with cold and wasted with hunger, the soldiers pined beside their dying camp-fires. Suddenly a shout was heard from the sentinels who paced the outer lines, and at the same time a cavalcade came slowly through the snow up the valley. Ten women in carts, each cart drawn by ten pairs of oxen, and bearing tons of meal and other supplies, pa.s.sed through the lines amid cheers that rent the air. Those devoted women had preserved the army, and Independence from that day was a.s.sured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOOD AND CLOTHING SUPPLIED TO THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY BY PATRIOTIC WOMEN]

Fort.i.tude and patience were exemplified in a thousand homes from which members of the family had gone to battle for Independence. Straitened for means wherewith to keep their strong souls in their feeble bodies, worn with toil, tortured with anxiety for the safety of the soldier-father or son, or husband or brother, and fighting the conflict of life alone, woman proved in that great ordeal her claim to those virtues which are by common consent a.s.signed to her as her peculiar characteristics.

We may well suppose, too, that ready wit and address had ample scope for their exercise in those perilous times. And who but woman could best display those qualities?

While Ann Elliott, styled by her British admirers, "the beautiful rebel,"

was affianced to Col. Lewis Morris, of New York, the house where he was visiting her was suddenly surrounded by a detachment of "Black Dragoons."

They were in pursuit of the Colonel, and it was impossible for him to escape by flight. What to do he knew not, but, quick as thought, she ran to the window, opened it, and, fearlessly putting her head out, in a composed manner demanded what was wanted. The reply was, "We want the rebel." "Then go," said she, "and look for him in the American army;" adding, "how dare you disturb a family under the protection of both armies?" She was so cool, self-possessed, firm, and resolute, as to triumph over the dragoons, who left without entering the house.

While the conflict was at its height in South Carolina, Captain Richardson, of Sumter district, was obliged to conceal himself for a while in the thickets of the Santee swamp. One day he ventured to visit his family--a perilous movement, for the British had offered a reward for his apprehension, and patrolling parties were almost constantly in search of him. Before his visit was ended a small party of soldiers presented themselves in front of the house. Just as they were entering, with a great deal of composure and presence of mind, Mrs. Richardson appeared at the door, and found so much to do there at the moment, as to make it inconvenient to leave room for the uninvited guests to enter. She was so calm, and appeared so unconcerned, that they did not mistrust the cause of her wonderful diligence, till her husband had rushed out of the back door, and safely reached the neighboring swamp.

The bearing of important dispatches through an enemy's country is an enterprise that always requires both courage and address. Such a feat was performed by Miss Geiger, under circ.u.mstances of peculiar difficulty.

At the time General Greene retreated before Lord Rawdon from Ninety-Six, when he pa.s.sed Broad river, he was desirous to send an order to General Sumter, who was on the Wateree, to join him, that they might attack Rawdon, who had divided his force. But the General could find no man in that part of the state who was bold enough to undertake so dangerous mission. The country to be pa.s.sed through for many miles was full of blood-thirsty Tories, who, on every occasion that offered, imbrued their hands in the blood of the Whigs. At length Emily Geiger presented herself to General Greene, and proposed to act as his messenger: and the general, both surprised and delighted, closed with her proposal. He accordingly wrote a letter and delivered it, and at the same time communicated the contents of it verbally, to be told to Sumter in case of accidents.

She pursued her journey on horseback, and on the second day was intercepted by Lord Rawdon's scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene's army and not being able to tell an untruth without blus.h.i.+ng, Emily was suspected and confined to a room; and the officer sent for an old Tory matron to search for papers upon her person. Emily was not wanting in expedients, and as soon as the door was closed and the bustle a little subsided, she _ate up the letter_, piece by piece. After a while the matron arrived, and upon searching carefully, nothing was found of a suspicious nature about the prisoner, and she would disclose nothing. Suspicion being then allayed, the officer commanding the scouts suffered Emily to depart. She then took a route somewhat circuitous to avoid further detentions and soon after struck into the road leading to Sumter's camp, where she arrived in safety. Emily told her adventure, and delivered Greene's verbal message to Sumter, who in consequence, soon after joined the main army at Orangeburgh.

The salvation of the army was due more than once to the watchfulness and tact of woman.

When the British army held possession of Philadelphia, a superior officer supposed to have been the Adjutant General, selected a back chamber in the house of Mrs. Lydia Darrah, for private conference. Suspecting that some important movement was on foot, she took off her shoes, and putting her ear to the key-hole of the door, overheard an order read for all the British troops to march out, late in the evening of the fourth, and attack General Was.h.i.+ngton's army, then encamped at White Marsh. On hearing this, she returned to her chamber and laid herself down. Soon after, the officers knocked at her door, but she rose only at the third summons, having feigned to be asleep. Her mind was so much agitated that, from this moment, she could neither eat nor sleep, supposing it to be in her power to save the lives of thousands of her countrymen, but not knowing how she was to carry the necessary information to General Was.h.i.+ngton, nor daring to confide it even to her husband. The time left was short, and she quickly determined to make her way as soon as possible, to the American outposts. She informed her family, that, as they were in want of flour, she would go to Frankfort for some; her husband insisted that she should take with her the servant maid; but, to his surprise, she positively refused. Gaining access to General Howe, she solicited what he readily granted--a pa.s.s through the British troops on the lines. Leaving her bag at the mill, she hastened towards the American lines, and encountered on her way an American, Lieutenant Colonel Craig, of the light horse, who, with some of his men, was on the lookout for information. He knew her, and inquired whither she was going. She answered, in quest of her son, an officer in the American army; and prayed the Colonel to alight and walk with her. He did so, ordering his troops to keep in sight. To him she disclosed her momentous secret, after having obtained from him the most solemn promise never to betray her individually, since her life might be at stake. He conducted her to a house near at hand, directed a female in it to give her something to eat, and hastened to head-quarters, where he made General Was.h.i.+ngton acquainted with what he had heard. Was.h.i.+ngton made, of course, all preparation for baffling the meditated surprise, and the contemplated expedition was a failure.

Mrs. Murray of New York, the mother of Lindley Murray, the grammarian, by her ceremonious hospitality detained Lord Howe and his officers, while the British forces were in pursuit of General Putnam, and thus prevented the capture of the American army. In fine, not merely the lives of many individuals, but the safety of the whole patriot army, and even the cause of independence was more than once due to feminine address and strategy.

Patriotic generosity and devotion were displayed without stint, and women were ready to submit to any sacrifice in behalf of their country.

These qualities are well ill.u.s.trated by the three following instances.

Mrs. William Smith, when informed that in order to dislodge the enemy then in possession of Fort St. George, Long Island, it would be necessary to burn or batter down her dwelling-house, promptly told Major Tallmadge to proceed without hesitation in the work of destruction, if the good of the country demanded the sacrifice.

While General Greene was retreating, disheartened and penniless, from the enemy, after the disastrous defeat at Camden, he was met at Catawba ford by Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, who, in her generous ardor in the cause of freedom, drew him aside, and, taking two bags of specie from under her ap.r.o.n, presented them to him, saying, "Take these, for you will want them, and I can do without them."

While Fort Motte, on the Congaree River, was in the hands of the British, in order to effect its surrender, it became necessary to burn a large mansion standing near the center of the trench. The house was the property of Mrs. Motte. Lieut. Colonel Lee communicated to her the contemplated work of destruction with painful reluctance, but her smiles, half antic.i.p.ating his proposal, showed at once that she was willing to sacrifice her property if she could thereby aid in the least degree towards the expulsion of the enemy and the salvation of the land.

Pennsylvania had the honor of being the native State of Mrs. McCalla, whose affectionate and devoted efforts to liberate her invalid husband, languis.h.i.+ng in a British dungeon, have justly given her a high rank among the patriot women of the Revolution.

Weeks elapsed after the capture of Mr. McCalla, before she was able, with the most a.s.siduous inquiries, to ascertain the place of his confinement. In the midst of her torturing anxiety and suspense her children fell sick of small-pox. She nursed them alone and unaided, and as soon as they were out of danger, resumed her search for her husband.

Mounting her horse, she succeeded in forcing her way to the head-quarters of Lord Rawdon, at Camden, and obtained reluctant permission to visit her husband for ten minutes only in his wretched prison-pen. Though almost overcome by the interview, she hastened home, having altogether ridden through the wilderness one hundred miles in twenty four hours.

She proceeded immediately to prepare clothing and provisions for her husband and the other prisoners. Her preparations having been completed, she set out on her return to Camden, in company with one of her neighbors, Mrs. Mary Nixon. Each of the brave women drove before her a pack-horse, laden with clothes and provisions for the prisoners. These errands of mercy were repeated every month, often in company with other women who were engaged in similar missions, and sometimes alone.

Meanwhile she did not relax her efforts to effect the release of her husband. After many months she succeeded in procuring an order for the discharge of her husband with ten other prisoners, whose handcuffs and ankle chains were knocked off, and who left the prison in company with their heroic liberator.

Examples are not wanting, in our Revolutionary annals, of a stern and lofty spirit of self-sacrifice in behalf of country, that will vie with that displayed by the first Brutus.

We are told by the orator of the Society of the Cincinnati that when the British officers presented to Mrs. Rebecca Edwards the mandate which arrested her sons as "objects of retaliation," less sensitive of private affection than attached to her honor and the interest of her country, she stifled the tender feelings of the mother and heroically bade them despise the threats of their enemies, and steadfastly persist to support the glorious cause in which they had engaged--that if the threatened sacrifice should follow they would carry a parent's blessing, and the good opinion of every virtuous citizen with them, to the grave; but if from the frailty of human nature--of the possibility of which she would not suffer an idea to enter her mind--they were disposed to temporize and exchange this liberty for safety, they must forget her as a mother, nor subject her to the misery of ever beholding them again.

As among the early Puritan settlers, so among the women of the Revolution, nothing was more remarkable than their belief in the efficacy of prayer.

In the solitude of their homes, in the cool and silence of the forest, and in the presence of the foe, Christian women knelt down and prayed for peace, for victory, for rescue from danger, and for deliverance from the enemies which beset them. Can we doubt that the prayers of these n.o.ble patriot women were answered?

Early in the Revolutionary War, the historian of the border relates that the inhabitants of the frontier of Burke County, North Carolina, being apprehensive of an attack by the Indians, it was determined to seek protection in a fort in a more densely populated neighborhood, in an interior settlement. A party of soldiers was sent to protect them on their retreat. The families a.s.sembled; the line of march was taken towards their place of destination, and they proceeded some miles unmolested--the soldiers forming a hollow square with the refugee families in the center.

The Indians had watched these movements, and had laid a plan for the destruction of the migrating party. The road to be traveled lay through a dense forest in the fork of a river, where the Indians concealed themselves and waited till the travelers were in the desired spot.

Suddenly the war-whoop sounded in front and on either side; a large body of painted warriors rushed in, filling the gap by which the whites had entered, and an appalling crash of fire-arms followed. The soldiers, however, were prepared. Such as chanced to be near the trees darted behind them, and began to ply the deadly rifle; the others prostrated themselves upon the earth, among the tall gra.s.s, and crawled to trees. The families screened themselves as best they could. The onset was long and fiercely urged; ever and anon, amid the din and smoke, the braves would rush out, tomahawk in hand, towards the center; but they were repulsed by the cool intrepidity of the backwoods riflemen. Still they fought on, determined on the destruction of the destined victims who offered such desperate resistance. All at once an appalling sound greeted the ears of the women and children in the center; it was a cry from their defenders--a cry for powder! "Our powder is giving out!" they exclaimed. "Have you any? Bring us some, or we can fight no longer."

A woman of the party had a good supply. She spread her ap.r.o.n on the ground, poured her powder into it, and going round from soldier to soldier, as they stood behind the trees, bade each who needed powder put down his hat, and poured a quant.i.ty upon it. Thus she went round the line of defense till her whole stock, and all she could obtain from others, was distributed. At last the savages gave way, and, pressed by their foes, were driven off the ground. The victorious whites returned to those for whose safety they had ventured into the wilderness. Inquiries were made as to who had been killed, and one, running up, cried, "Where is the woman that gave us the powder? I want to see her!" "Yes! yes!--let us see her!" responded another and another; "without her we should have been all lost!" The soldiers ran about among the women and children, looking for her and making inquiries.

Others came in from the pursuit, one of whom, observing the commotion, asked the cause, and was told.

"You are looking in the wrong place," he replied.

"Is she killed? Ah, we were afraid of that!" exclaimed many voices.

"Not when I saw her," answered the soldier. "When the Indians ran off; she was _on her knees in prayer_ at the root of yonder tree, and there I left her."

There was a simultaneous rush to the tree--and there, to their great joy, they found the woman safe and still on her knees in prayer. Thinking not of herself, she received their applause without manifesting any other feeling than grat.i.tude to Heaven for their great deliverance.

An eminent divine whose childhood was pa.s.sed upon our New England frontier, during the period of the Revolution, narrated to the writer many years since, the story of his mother's life while her husband was absent in the patriot army. Their small farm was on the sterile hill-side, and with the utmost pains, barely yielded sufficient for the wants of the lone wife and her three little ones. There was no house within five miles, and the whole region around was stripped of its male inhabitants, such was the patriotic ardor of the people. All the labors in providing for the household fell upon the mother. She planted and hoed the corn, milked the cow and tended the farm, at the same time not neglecting the inside duties of the household, feeding and clothing the children, nursing them when sick and instructing them in the rudiments of education.

"I call to mind, though after the lapse of eighty years," said the venerable man, "the image of my mother as distinctly as of yesterday, and she moves before me as she did in my childhood's home among those bleak hills--cheerful and serene through all, though even with my young eyes I could see that a brooding sorrow rested upon her spirit. I remember the day when my father kissed my brothers and me, and told us to be good boys, and help mother while he was gone: I remember too, that look upon my mother's face as she watched him go down the road with his musket and knapsack.

"When evening came, that day, and she had placed us in our little beds, I saw her kneeling and praying in a low tone, long and fervently, and heard her after she had pleaded that victory might crown our arms, intercede at the throne of grace for her absent husband and the father of her children.

"Then she rose and kissed us good-night, and as she bent above us I shall never forget till my latest hour the angelic expression upon her face.

Sorrow, love, resignation, and holy trust were blended and beamed forth in that look which seemed to transfigure her countenance and her whole bearing.

"During all those trying years while she was so patiently toiling to feed and clothe us, and bearing the burdens and privations of her lonely lot, never did she omit the morning and evening prayer for her country and for the father of her children.