Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/161



Southern Women in the Civil War. 149

pressing close upon the narrow little lane that let the White House family through. Then it was rumored that Mr. Davis had denied any despatch to him; but pandemonium reigned. Men 'rushed home, flew back to the Capitol Square, with shotguns, target rifles, and one stately old gentleman with his dueling pistols ! Companies fell in, under any volunteering the command; same started on the terrible march to Rocketts, full three miles off; and each courier, or staff officer lashing by, followed at a run. None paused to recall that the dreaded ship was a single one; and that she would have to pass Drewry's Bluff, eight miles below.

Still the hubbub raged, in spite of formal denial from the War Department that there was any ship above Norfolk; until woman's wit calmed the storm. Some one repeated Miss Ho well's quiet speech to her, on the steps of the White House. It flew from lip to lip, was caught by popular fancy, and laughed the bugaboo out of court " in one round." The President's sister-in-law had only said :

" How is the Pawnee coming; on wheels? These people forget that there is no water above Drewry's Bluff, and her guns do not carry half the distance."

Shame brought revulsion that reason had not, and the panic allayed itself. I may add that no one paused to analyze either the brilliant woman's hydrography or her gunnery. That was not needed.

On many a Sunday, a few months later, these same women assem- bled in their churches and worshipped calmly and unnoting, while the dull boom of great guns made dread discordance with the hymnal. Thence, bravely as gently, they moved almost as one, to Rocketts, Chimborazo Heights, or other hospital, to receive the incoming loved ones of their own kith, or with unknown faces, alike and then

" To do for those dear ones that woman alone in her pity can do." During the entire war and through the entire South it was the hospital that illustrated the highest and best traits of the tried and stricken people.

Doubtless, there was good work done by the women of the North, and much of it. Happily, for the sanity of the nation, American womanhood springs from one common stock. It is ever true to its own, as a whole and, for aught I shall deny individ- ually. But behind that Chinese wall of wood and steel blockade,