Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/176

Rh felt herself inspired to go forth and do battle in her country's cause, exchanging her peasant's garb for the mail, the helmet, and the sword." At least Deborah Samson is a figure of brave strength and intrepid daring in the hour of her country's greatest peril.

Heroism and strength of character, which in peaceful times would have remained latent in a serene personality, were often brought forth to shine most illustriously through pressure of cruelty in the Revolutionary War. Such was the case of Margaret Gaston. She was born Margaret Sharpe into a quiet old England household in the county of Cumberland, England, about 1755, and her parents desiring her to have every advantage of education in the Catholic faith, sent her to France when a very young girl. She was brought up in the seclusion and calm of convent life. Her two brothers, however, were extensively engaged in commerce in this country and she came out to visit them. Then began for this retiring, timid young woman, a tumultuous era of New World romance and soul-trying grief. It was during her sojourn that she met Dr. Alexander Gaston, a native of Ireland, of Huguenot ancestry, to whom she was married at Newbern, in the twentieth year of her age. But the happy married life of these two young people was destined to be of brief duration and tragic end.

Doctor Gaston was one of the most zealous patriots in North Carolina, and while his devotion to the cause of liberty won for him the confidence of the Whigs, it also gained him the implacable enmity of the opposite party. At length, so actively expressed was his patriotism and so great was his influence, a price was placed on his head by the loyalists.

On the 20th of August, 1781, a body of Tories entered Newbern, being some miles in advance of the regular troops, who had come by forced marches with a view to taking possession of the town. The Americans, taken by surprise, were driven to capitulation after an ineffectual resistance. Gaston, unwilling to surrender to the foe, hurried his wife and children across the river from their home, hoping to escape with them and proceed to a plantation eight or ten miles distant. "He reached the wharf with his family," the old account runs, "and seized a light scow for the purpose of crossing the river; but before he could stow his wife and children on board, the Tories, eager for his blood, came galloping in pursuit. There was no resource but to push off from the shore, where his wife and little ones stood — the wife alarmed only for him against whom the rage of the enemies was directed. Throwing herself in agony at their feet, she implored his life, but in vain. Their cruelty sacrificed him in the midst of her cries for mercy—and the musket which found his heart was levelled over her shoulder."

It is wonderful that the convent-bred girl did not go distraught, but, instead, a fierce heroic strength seemed to animate her whole being. Even the indulgence of grief was denied to the bereaved wife for she was compelled to exert herself to protect the remains of her murdered husband while her ears rang with the