Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/198

Rh her helpless charges, set off to walk with the children and her husband—the latter pushed in his chair by a faithful servant—to an adjoining plantation. A drizzling rain was falling, and the weather was extremely chilly; moreover the firing from the boats was incessant and in a direction which was in range with the course of the fugitives. The shot falling around them cut the bushes and struck trees on every side. Exposed each moment to this imminent danger, they continued their flight with as much haste as possible for about a mile when they were at least beyond reach of the shot.

Having reached the house occupied by the negro laborers on the plantation, they stopped for a few moments to rest, and Mrs. Gibbes, wet, chilled, and exhausted by fatigue and mental anxiety, felt her strength utterly fail and she was obliged to wrap herself in a blanket and lie down upon one of the beds. Then, just when the fleeing party first drew breath freely, thankful that the fears of death were over, it was discovered, on reviewing the trembling group, that a little boy, John Fenwick, was missing. In the hurry and the terror of the flight, the child had been forgotten and left behind. Mrs. Gibbes not being equal to further effort she was obliged to see her little daughter, only thirteen years of age, set out upon the fearful peril of a return journey to the house. The girl reached the house still in possession of the enemy and persuaded the sentinel to allow her to enter. She found the child in a room in the third story, and lifting him joyfully in her arms, carried him down and fled with him to the spot where her anxious parents were awaiting her return. The shot flew thickly around her, frequently throwing up the earth in her way, but with something of her mother's intrepidity, she had pushed through in safety.

Some time after these occurrences, when the family were again inmates of their own home, a battle was fought in a neighboring field. When the struggle was over, Mrs. Gibbes sent her servants to search among the slain for her nephew who had not returned. They identified him by his clothes, his face being so covered with wounds that he could never have been recognized. Life was, however, not extinct, and under the unremitting care of his aunt, he eventually recovered.

In after years, Mrs. Gibbes was accustomed to point out the spot where her eldest son when only sixteen years old had been placed as a sentinel, while British ships were in the river and their fire was poured on him. She would relate how, with a mother's agony of solicitude, she watched the balls as they struck the earth around him, while the youthful soldier maintained his dangerous post notwithstanding the entreaties of an old negro servant who hid behind a tree.

So, we, who enjoy the liberty and peace purchased at such fearful cost, cannot fully estimate the sacrifice of the heroines of the Revolutionary War. Sarah Reeve Gibbs exhibited always the same composure and the readiness to meet every emergency with the same benevolent sympathy for all unfortunates.

Mrs. Gibbes had a cultivated mind, and in spite of her many cares, still found leisure for literary occupation. Volumes of her writings remain, filled with well-selected extracts from the many books she read and accompanied by her own comments; also essays on various subjects, poetry, and copies of letters to her friends. Most of her letters were written after the war, and beside expressing the