Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1892-05-21
WAR "REMINISCENCES.
GIRL GUERlLLAS.

participants twas bad to begin with, |
and it grew worse all 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 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 to
sides. Some of the largest slave owners
were the stanchest unionists and fought
for 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 1t 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 men of both sides
did. There were all sorts of transfer
nations. sunday-school boys, who
could repeat the beatitudes without
skipping 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 a woman, no matter how
fair her face and refined her character,
who was really non-combatant and
tility, covert and overt.
Riding along from Brunswick to
Laclede in the summer of 1868, Lieut..
William Reeves, of Daviess county, n
union officer of militia, drew bride at a
little cabin east of Compton's ferry, in
Charlton county. A bright cheeryfaced
little woman met me at the door, in one
hand a butcher knife, in the other a
milestone, her face abeam, her eyes
lglow. "Hush!' she said there's a
reb in the back room, sound asleep. 60
IN, quick, and kill him. told him was
good secesh, too" she went on, land
he says he is bushwhacker and has
been two nights without sleep, and so
led him and coaxed him to go to bed,
md 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.
LAS soon as got it sharp enough"
The calmly replied, II was going to stick
through his heart"
Think of that And three years ago
!his little woman, into whom the spirit
,f Jael seemed to have entered, was a
pressing upon children the divine in
junction: "All things whatsoever We
would that men should do unto you do
Vou even so unto them"
The officer secured the bushwhacker's
arms, then the bushwhacker himself,
and took him to Laclede n prisoner in
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 wanted to see one
killed."
There We're more southern women
spies than men, and they were the
shrewdest, the most Jealous, and the
most unscrupulous Some of these un
derwent all sorts of experiences in theil
efforts to help the southern cause.
The women of the border, where few
indeed were the neighborhoods over
which murder and rapine did not holt
sway, were, perhaps, the most demoral
lied. There was Anna Fickel, of Lafa
yette, fair young southern girl, whc
made Quantrill's black silk flag from the
skirt of her dress, and supplied the
guerrillas with so much powder, sho,
and caps that Quantrill ought to have
made her his chief of ordnance 1t wa.
Anna and woman old enou gh to be
her grandmother who compassed the
murder of two Union soldiers in order
to effect the release of Andy Blunt, ,
guerilla prisoner, who was permitted u
visit the grandmother's house. Blum
escaped for the time, but few day.
later the Saline county militia cam,
upon him and beat out his brains will
tobacco sticks. Miss Ficliell was sen
to Alton prison.
In 1864 nearly every federal militar,
prison in the state had confederat,
women inmates. They had been ar
rested for feeding guerrillas, givini
them information and assistance, spy
ing upon union troops, writing letters
smuggling ammunition, and even arms
and for other kinds of mischief whicl
81 L.. al,