The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-05-15

village cnurcnyard, ana his Wld0W sits
in the village church with her sweet sad
face still shaded by the widows veil.
Her resolute spirit refused TO allow her
TO remain entirely dependent on her
aged father with her four little children,
and she taught school and sewcd day and
night N the endeavor TO ease the burdens
Of his declining years. Her children
are all grown now aud settled in life.
She is not old yet, but her eyesight is
nearly gone, and in the enforced idleness
of many of her hours doubtless the bit.
terness Of that parting with her young
and talented husband is often lived over
again. When will the end of these
things be? Five in all of our boys died
soldiers death. Two of them were the
only children OF their mother, aud she
widow. One of thu survivors limps
to-day from wound r ceived in battle.
During the war there was not beau
left in Fayetteville, and ali the assistants
the girls had to depend upon when we
had tableauX, concerts, charades, &C., TO
raise money for the hospitals, were the
few officials at the Arsenal and the hos.
pital aud those of our soldiers who hap.
pened to be at home convalescent on sick
leave. The "bomb proof young gentle.
men were ell strangers in Fayetteville, if
my memory does not fail me, except two,
and they were among the six months
men, think. who had contracted i'll.
health in the Yorktown Peninsula. But
these strangers acquitted themselves
qHiFed of shegs ss ss!lsnts TO whole
town full OF bereaysd girIs. They were
very kind an, obliging, ever ready to
nit tru ha Of fhat ,,,l
their talents in all our undertakings, to
weddings. to bear our dead to the graves.
We would have been badly off without
them perhaps, and We wish to give them
due thanks.
A LAST GLIMPsE OF TIE OLD TOWN.
In these lines / have tried to give
some account Of what the war was to
somewhat isolated but not inactive com.
munity, and one which I feared would
otherwise be neglected in this series.
What have said of her women ehould
not be called egotistical as l was too
young to take O woman's part in that
troublous time. l only write what /
remember of my sister townswomen as l
saw them. 1t has been sixteen years
since saw Fayetteville. The last
glimpse caught of it was from the deck
of little river steamer bound for Viii.
mington. There was the New Bridge
and the nnattractive river hill, and
party Of my young friends who had
come to bid me good bye. As 1 waved
my handkerchief to them there stood by
my side one Of the boys in grey who had
followed Col. Robert Anderson from
Western country to the war; He, too,
had been faithful soldier, though he
had never been wounded by bullet.
But the more insidious but often not less
deadly enemies, in the coarse aud often
scanty fare, the cold winds and deep
SHOWS of the Virginia mountains, the
driving rains, the barefoot march over
the rough and rocky mountain paths, all
these left their marks upon him, aud he
struggles 70 day with constitution en-.
feebled by tue hardships of his soldiers
life.
l realize that not yet have the ankle
ties and cares occasioned by the war
ceased to sadden the hearts aud vex the
lives Of Southern women. And not till
tie last of us who remember vividly that
mighty struggle is laid to rest will the
war be thought Of aimPly ss matter Of
history, and the bitterness be past. Not
till all our disappointed hopes and al.
tered lives, our constitutions battered by
the effort to adapt ourselves to state Of
society which our education and early
training had not fitted us to encounter,
not till all are laid under the sod will the
bloody shirt be folded away forever and
real peace be given to the land. But,
though our generation may not realize
it, l believe we can see the dawning of q
new day, and our children will be better
and nobler men and women for all we
have gone through, and will be able to
understand that the war was not in vain.