Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/170

Rh male messenger could be procured, but Miss Moore, then but fifteen years of age, volunteered to undertake the mission. Accompanied by her little brother and a friend named Fanny Smith, she went up the river in a canoe in the middle of the night, gave warning to Captain Wallace and through him to Colonel Henry Lee, and thus a disastrous attack on our feeble troops was averted. The next morning a young American officer, who had been below this point on some reconnoitering service, rode up to the house to make a few inquiries. These were answered by the young lady who apparently appeared as pleasing to the young officer as this handsome fellow in dragoon uniform did to her, for this was the first occasion on which Miss Moore saw her future husband, Captain William Butler. The marriage took place in 1784 and the young people took possession of a small farm near Willing which Captain Butler had inherited.

General Butler was almost constantly engaged in public service, and was necessarily absent from home a great part of the time. In Congress from 1801 to 1814, and commanding the South Carolina forces in Charleston as Major-General during 1814 and 1815, naturally the whole care not only of the large family but of his plantation devolved upon Mrs. Butler. Never were such varied responsibilities more worthily met and discharged. The support of the family depended mainly upon the produce of the small farm and in the energetic toil of wringing profit from the soil. Mrs. Butler evinced a wonderful fertility of resource. Moreover, she superintended her children's education and did what few modern mothers with all their leisure accomplish, impressed upon them the moral point of view which always gives tone to character in after life. "With a singular power of command and stern energy," it has been said of her, "she combined the softest and most womanly qualities. In her it might be seen that a superior mind, rigidly disciplined, may belong to a woman without the development of any harsh or unfeminine lineaments, and that a heart the most tender and affectionate may prompt to all generous charities of life without being allied to weakness."

Her sons did illustrious service for their country and one of them is said to have declared on the occasion of his public honor that he deserved no credit since it had been his mother who instilled in his and his brothers' minds the old Greek idea that they were born but for their country.

It has been said that in the early days of this Republic "men learned to fight and pray; the women to endure," but there are several instances in the history of the Revolutionary War in which a woman's courage was displayed by the actual adoption of man's work on the battle field. The resolution of Congress is on record in which honorable mention is made of the services of Margaret Corbin, the gunner's wife