Page:The woman in battle .djvu/47

Rh her existence, even as a prisoner, would be a perpetual menace to them, and a perpetual encouragement to the French people to fight to the death. The statue of Joan of Arc, chiselled by the fair hands of a French princess, stands to-day in the market-place at Rouen where she suffered, and the memory of her glorious deeds as a great-hearted patriot remains to all time as an example of what a woman may do if she only dares, and dares to do greatly.

From my early childhood Joan of Arc was my favorite heroine; and many a time has my soul burned with an over whelming desire to emulate her deeds of valor, and to make for myself a name which, like hers, would be enrolled in letters of gold among the women who had the courage to fight like men—ay, better than most men—for a great cause, for friends, and for father-land.

At length an opportunity offered, in the breaking out of the conflict between the North and the South in 1861, for me to carry out my long-cherished ideas; and it was embraced with impetuous eagerness, combined with a calm determination to see the thing through, and to shrink from nothing that such a step would involve.

My opportunities and my circumstances were different from those of my ideal woman, Joan of Arc, and consequently my story has but little resemblance to hers. I did all that it was possible for me to do, however, for the cause I espoused, and the great French heroine did no more. Happily I escaped her dreadful fate, and live to relate the many adventures that befell me while playing the part of a warrior. So many per sons have assured me that my story—prosaic as much of it seems to me—is full of romance, and that it cannot fail to interest readers both South and North, that I have been induced to narrate it for the benefit of those who wish to make the acquaintance of a woman warrior, and to be entertained, and perhaps instructed, by a recital of her adventures. If there are any such,—and I am sure there are,—they will find in these pages an unaffected and unpretending, but truthful, and I hope interesting narrative of what befell me while attached to the army of the Confederate States of America, arid while performing services other than those, of a strictly military character under the pseudonyme of Lieutenant Harry T. Buford.

Hundreds, nay thousands of officers and men in the Confederate service, knew me well under this name, and although