Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1883-11-22
WAR TIMES AT HOME.

A poem read by Mrs. Sarah Matthews
at an open meeting of Kinsman Post, No
80, G. A. R.
l am only woman, comrades,
No great thing can | achieve.
No epauletS wear on my shoulder,
No golden bands ON my sleeve;
But may | tell you story
Concerning the war at home?
Concerning the hand-w ar and heart-War
The women folk fought alone?
When our "boys" went off to the army,
We, tearfully, helped them away;
Stood watching, while we could see them
Then turned to the work of the day.
Our farms were nearly deserted,
And left for the women to till;
They planted the seed in the furrow,
They carried the grain to the mill.
They gathered the grass in the meadow,
They slowed it away in the NOW,
They hauled, too, the rails for the fencing;
And some of them followed the plow;
But these things were easy of doing,
Though our hands became sunburned
and sere;
For there were no men folk to hinder,
No critics to interfere
Then, too, there was work for the soldier
Lint, bandages socks, and the like,
Sheets, blankets and shirts for the sick
ones,
And kind hopeful letters to write
The aged, the young, and the middle
Could each find part they could do
To help on the christian Commission"
And the Sanitary too.
And once when some "boys" from our
township,
Wrote home that their flag was no more
Had succumbed to the wiles of the wealth
And the beatings of bullets that tore,
How quickly our forces were gathered,
How all worked with might and with
main,
Till "colors' of silken texture
Waved over those heroes again.
But the heart-war. Oh, the heart war.
Was when we went for the mail,
And was handed the black bordered letter
That told us the sorrowful tale
Ofhow our loved ones were fallen,
In hospital, battle or pen;
How fierce was the struggle within us,
And how bitter the conflict was then.
As yesterday do l remember
The day when they brought us the word
That our brother had fallen in battle
Shot down as boy shoots bird.
And the long, dreary nights that came
after,
When comfort seemed mOckery's frown,
And our mother was sick with her sorrow,
And hopes every sand had run down.
And when the next morning at worship
Our father broke down in his prayer,
And his trembling lips could not utter
The words that wert struggling there;
The flood gates seemed suddenly opened,
We all were so ready to cry,
And so our petitions were ended Teye.
With tears streaming down from each
The long. lonely lane to the pasture,
Grown lOnelier since he was gone,
Seemed to echo his name from the fences
As the cows plodded slowly along,
And the birds, as they sprang from the
DrancneS,
Seemed calling his name DER and DER,
And nature, above and beneath me,
Seemed Sadder than ever before.
Then vengeance rose mighty within me,
For now that my brother was dead,
l wanted to take up his musket
And stand in the ranks in his stead.
But the neighbOrs would say it is shame
full,
And fashion her proud lip would curl.
For was only woman,
Nay, then | was only girl.
And the Government wanted the fathers,
The husbands, the sons, brave and tall,
As targets for enemies bullets,
And girls wouldn't answer at all;
If they only had wanted the daughters,
Then two from our house could have
gone,
And couldn't two girls stop bullet
AS well as our brother had done?
Did they think We would fear and be
tickle,
And scamper before we were hit?
Well, maybe-but women are tested
III pldCco WlIlCll ollON GIlCy udNO Sl4Gg
And to think that our beautiful brother
(He may not have seemed so to you,
But to us, to us who so loved him,
He was beautiful, good and true)-
And then, too, to think of the thousands
OF fallen, all fallen for me!
Oh. God! L never can be worth it;
Such sacrifice ought not to be.
l might have protected one soldier
By stopping one bullet myself;
l might have saved somebody's darling,
Laid one victim less on the shelf.
And thus the heart-war ragged winin us,
With these thoughts and more of their
kind;
So we pushed the hand-war with more
vigOr
To drive the heart-war from the mind.
l have told you my simple story.
But sisters all over the land
Could tell you similar story
If asked for the same from their hand.
Western Reserve Chronicle.
SOUTHERN SENATORS.