Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1892-06-02

rectly understood save by the actual
participants. 1t was bad to begin with,
and it grew worse ali the way down TO
the close, two months after Lee sur
rendered Family quarrels are always
the bitterest, and next to them are
neighbors' feuds. This was a war be-
tween fellow citizens and neighbors,
and sometimes it was between kinsmen
even brothers. 1t was not war of
races or Of classes. Proletarians and
patriclans were equally divided as 70
sides. Some of the largest slave owners
were the stanchest uniOnists and fought
Cor the old flag, there were not half
dozen such cases in the state, while in
Vulnerable men who, if a slave were to
be sold by the ounce, could not buy his
little finger, lost limb and life while
fighting for the confederacy, whose
cornerstone was human slavery.
Plenty of men of northern birth and
lineage wore the gray, and the guerrilla
king, Charlie Quantrill was an Ohio
man, born and reared
/ do not know what made it so des-
perate. do not know what instigated
men who believed in God and the Bible
to go about robbing, plundering, house
burning, and numbering in cold blood,
and this is what some mesl of both sides
did. There We're all sorts of transfer
nations. Sunday-school boys, who
could repeat the b0atitudes without
skipping a word, became fierce and
cruel as Comanches, and for years did
not see the deity in the clouds nor hear
him in the wind. think it is only the
truth to say that the pro-confederates
became the more demoralized of the two
parties; perhaps this was because, after
Wilson's creek and Lexington, their
cause steadily lost, and the prospects
for its ultimate success daily waned,
and desperation comes oftener than res
ignation from defeat, and madness, hot
as vitriol, frequently succeeds the cold
est despair.
Women became as bad as their broth
ers From the sewing of bandages and
the scraping of lint came the molding
of bullets, the smuggling of caps, the
making of cartridges, and then lying
and spying and the Turing and betrayal
of men to death. In the country it was
hard to find woman, no matter how
fair her face and refined her character,
who was really non-combatant and
vas not guilty of numerous acts of hos
ility, covert and overt.
Riding along from Brunswick to
.aelede in the summer of 1868, Lieut..
William Reeves, of Daviess county, a
dnion officer of militia, drew bride at
little cabin east of Compton's ferry, in
! Charlton county A bright cheery-faced
little woman met me at the door, in one
hand a butcher knife, in the other
milestone, her face abeam, her eyes
aglow. ''Hushl" she said, "theres
reb in the back room, sound asleep. Go
in, quick, and kill him. told him | was
good secesh, too" she went on, land
he says he is bushwhacl1er and has
been two nights without sleep, and so
fed him and coaxed him to go to bed,
and he has been snoring for two hours.
Hurry in-don't mind the blood on the
bed"
:'And what were you going to do
with that knife?' asked the officer.
''As soon as l got it sharp enough,
she calmly replied, Il was going to stick
it through his heart"
Think of that And three years ago
his little woman, into whom the spirit
# Jael seemed to have entered, was
Sunday-school teacher, earnestly i'm
pressing upon children the divine in
junction: ''All things whatsoever We
would that men should do unto you do
you even so unto them
The officer secured the bushwhacker's
arms, then the bushwhacker himself,
l. I 10
stead of Staying him where he slept, to
the manifest disappointment and sor-
row of the little hostess, who petulent-
ly said: II have seen rebs after they
were dead, but l wanted to see one
killed'
There were more southern women
spies than men, and they were the
shrewdest, the most jealous, and the
most INSCRIPTIONS, Some of these I'M
derwent all sorts of experiences in their
efforts to help the southern cause.
The women of the border, where few
indeed were the neighborhoods over
which murder and rapine did not hold
sway, were, perhaps, the most democrat
lied There was Anna Ficlzel, of Lafa-
, yette, a fair young southern girl, who
made Quantrill's black silk flag from the
skirt Of her dress, and supplied the
guerrillas with so much powder shot
nd caps that Quantrill ought to have
de her his chief Of ordnance. 1t was
Ia and a woman old enou gh to be
grandmother who compassed the
rider of two Union soldiers in order
effect the release of Andy Blunt
uerilla prisoner, who was permitted to
,isit the grandmother's house. Blunt
capped for the time, but few days
ter the Saline county militia came
pom him and beat out his brains with
bacco sticks. Miss Fickell was sent
Alton prison.
In 1864 nearly every federal military
prison in the state had confederate
women inmates. They had been ar
rested for feeding guerrillas, giving
them information and assistance, spy
ing upon union troops, writing letters,
smuggling ammunition and even arms,
and for other kinds of mischief which
certain rebel ladies delighted to perpe-