Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/157

130 patriots, many of them, who, under the influence of strong excitement, had started without rations of any sort, would have fallen by the way, exhausted from want of food.

Then, ere long, after the battle of Bunker Hill, came the startling intelligence of a scarcity of ammunition, and General Washington called upon the inhabitants to send to headquarters every ounce of lead or pewter at their disposal, saying that any quantity, however small, would be gratefully received. Now, it is difficult at this day to estimate the value of pewter then, as an ornament as well as an indispensable convenience. The more precious metals had not then found their way to the tables of New Englanders, and throughout the country, services of pewter, scoured to the brightness of silver, covered the board, even in the mansions of the wealthy.

Mrs. Draper was rich in a large stock of pewter, which she valued of course, as an excellent housewife would, but also much of it was precious to her as the gift of a departed mother. But the call of General Washington reached her patriotic heart and she delayed not obedience, thankful only that she was able to contribute so largely to the requirements of her suffering country. Nor was she satisfied with merely giving the material required. Her husband before joining the army had purchased a mold for casting bullets, and Mrs. Draper herself now transformed her platters, pans, and dishes into balls for the guns of the Continental Army. Such was the aid rendered by this woman whose deeds of disinterested generosity were never known beyond her own immediate neighborhood. Who shall say that such an example of moral courage and self-sacrifice was not equal to the bravest deeds of the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, and that the report of the heroism of Captain Draper's wife exercised a more powerful influence over Captain Draper's men than all of his importuning to them to stand firmly by their guns in the cause of freedom.