Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/116

102 In the Great War Between the States, from 1861 to 1865, the Confederate States, because of the great odds in numbers and resources of every kind, including recruits from Europe entering the armies of the Union, had to have in the Confederate armies every musket available in its defense. It was a common remark during the war that the South was "robbing the cradle if not the grave," and this was nearer true than is commonly believed, when we consider what is generally recognized as the "arms-bearing population of the country," from eighteen to forty or forty-five years of age, even when in extremity the greatest drafts are made to fill the ranks of armies in wars. The Confederate armies had in its ranks many boys from fourteen to sixteen, and men as old as sixty-five in great numbers before the close of the war.

This condition of affairs necessarily brings out the fact that the women of the South were so patriotic that their encouragement, and indeed, their efforts, was behind such movements in ours, the most bloody and costly war of the centuries. In my reading of history I learn that in all great and patriotic upheavals "women have always risen to the highest ideals of courage and devotion," and perform their duty and part in equal earnestness and sacrifice as the men who fill the ranks of the armies of war. This was the case in ancient Judea, in Sparta, in the Netherlands, in Spain and Germany, in our own Revolutionary War, and, in fact, with women all over the world. Their courage and moral heroism generally surpasses that which animated the soldiers in the front; but none in any age, in no