Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/159

 Southern Women in the Civil War. 147

soon began to congregate the maimed and torn forms of those just sent forth to glory and victory. This was the trial that tested the grain and purity of our womanhood, and left it without alloy of fear or selfishness. And some of the women who wrought in home and hospital even in trench and on the firing line for the "boys," had never before handled aught rougher than embroidery; or seen aught more fearsome than its needle-prick. Yes, these untried women, young and old, stood fire like veteran regulars! indeed, even more bravely in moral view, for they missed the stimulus of the charge the tonic in the thought of striking back!

Again, taking Richmond as an example, because Richmond was cosmopolitan and representative of every section in its phase we find the strangest familiarity of women with danger. Indeed, it lit- erally bred contempt. In the early occupation of the capital, "Pawnee Sunday," scarce became a laughing by- word. The churches were crowded, and fluttering with expectant and well- dressed femininity. At that date war was a mere shadow of a name; and rigors had paled no feminine cheek, nor denuded her .fluffiest gown or frill or flaunting ribbon. Richmond women were eager to inspect the flounces and furbelows of their incoming cousins. All the churches were packed; the one where Mr. Davis and his family sat under the then famous Dr. Hoge, literally overflowing to the streets.

[Mr. De Leon trips in this statement in his entertaining commu- nication. Mr. Davis was then at Montgomery, Ala., the first capital of the Confederacy, and was besides, an Episcopalian, and attended, while in Richmond, St. Paul's Church, under the ministration of the late Rev. Charles Minnigerode, D. D., of beloved memory.

He was seated in St. Paul's on the Sunday of April 2, 1865, when he received from General Lee intelligence of the intention to evac- uate Richmond, and this incident of the "Dies Irae " of April 3, 1865, was doubtless the occasion of the lapsus memoriae of Mr. De Leon.

The ludicrous Pawnee scare of Sunday, April 21, 1861, was only three days after the passing of the Ordinance of Secesson by the Virginia convention. The description of the consternation pre- vailing is not overdrawn ; it pervaded all classes of citizens. A well- known merchant, of diminutive stature, armed with a gun on each shoulder, and a venerable and famous divine, armed with a double- barrelled shotgun, were with the frenzied throng, seen hastening