The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1862-04-24

stoned more surprise to our loyal troops
than the virulence--we might say fiendish-
ness-of the rebel women. All the attributes
which 60 to make woman lovely and rem
der her sex sacred, seem to have given place
TO a spirit that is essentially devilish. What
are the causes which have so transformed
the fair ones of the South, we are at loss
to discover. They have always been treated
by our soldiers with respect, in spite of
their insults and abuse. In passing through
the streets of Nashville, st. Louis, Balti-
more, and other southern cities, our volun-
teers have been reviled, spit upon, and
blackguarded with volubility creditable
to the education of a fish woman, yet
they never have so far forgotten their sex
as to make ungentlemanly retorts. The
hospitals, filled with the dying and dead,
seem to have no effect in disarming the
maIignity of these "chiyalrous ladies. We
have in our midst some who have become
tainted with the secession heresy, have
drank in the spirit which animates their
friends further South, and are unwilling to
aid in relieving the suffering, unless the
sufferer is a rebel. Discretion, of course,
prevents any outspoken exhibition OF
their feelings, or we are not sure that SOL
diers would be exempt from insult on their
own soil, and near their own homes.
The hospitals in St. Louis furnished a
long sought opportunity for the fair rebels
of that city to display their rage and mall
ice, and they were prompt to seize it. For
time they diverted themselves by riding
past the hospital and prison windows, dis
playing the rebel flag, and otherwise de-
monstrating their sympathy for the in
mates. General Halleck's order con6scat-
ing the carriages and horses employed for
such purposes put stop to those kind of
rnaneuvres in short metre. But when the
secession wounded were brought to the
hospitals of that city, there was rush on
the part of their sympathizers to furnish
them with such luxuries as could be OBJ
tanned for love or money, not particle of
which was allowed to go to Union troops
in the same hospitals.
Again Gen. Halleck was compelled to step
in with an official order, preventing the re-
ception of contributions, devoted exclusive
Iy to the use of secession prisoners. The
result of this order is thus spoken of in the
st. Louis Democrat Of Tuesday last:
The order was severe check to the first
attempts of female secesh, and since then
their heads have been racked to devise some
new experiment to outWit Gen. Halleck. -
Every imaginable pretence is resorted to for
the sake of visiting the prisoners in the
hospitals, and supplying their particular
wants, and no others. The result is that
many scenes take place at the hospital
plicant for admission. On Monday last,
when wounded Union soldiers were being
carried into the Fifth street hospital, FASH
ionably dressed female appeared at the stairs
of that institution with small basket
containing delicacies and solicited permis-
sion to see some of the rebel wounded
Permission was refused on the ground that
any deicaciCs intended for the sick or
woundrd must be turned over TO the stew
ards and nurses to be served equally to all
the patients. She violently demonstrated,
and with toss of the head, remarked in
presence of a dozen individuals and in the
hearing of several af our wounded, then ly-
ing in the halls waiting the preparation of
wards, that she was willing to do all she
could for the Confederates, " but as for the
Union soldiers she Mould like TO see the last
one of them rot and die''