Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1897-03-11

tue leueraIistS.
Winchester" throughout the wa
meant, most of all, ''the women o
Winchester" 1t was this nobl
body Of high-souled and heroic wo
men who now looked with eyes full
of regret and longing upon Ram
seur's disappearing columns, ant
with sadness unutterable TOWARD
the battlefield nearby, whereupor
so many OF their dear Southern de
tenders were lying in their blood
With the women of Winchester
TO see suffering was to attempt cour
| ageopsly to relieve it. For Ions
years they had been accustomed tc
the war of artillery, the crash oi
small arms, the nursing the sick,
1 succoring the wounded and binding
up the bruised forms, and bleeding
beneath the chariot wheels of the
terrible demon--war. Have we not
seen them after Kernstown, hang
ing with sobs overthe death trenches,
bearing off the sorely hurt, facing
with tears of noble scorn the enc
mics who were the masters of the
moment.
That was in 1862, and be sure
that in 1864 the long years Of soul
crushing war had not abated one
particle of that proudly Defiant,
that tenderly merciful spirit which
through all coming time will re-
main the glory of their names and
the pride of those who draw their
blood from those true daughters of
Virginia.
OF the incident which we pro-
pose to relate we have had an ac-
count derived from a valued friend.
herself one Of the nobly charitable
young ladies of the border town:
also, another statement from an un-
known correspondent living in the
neighborhood of the battlefield.
Upon these our narrative is based.
Night had come, and a number
of ladies who had obtained permis-
sion to perform their pious duties
from the Federal officer in COM
mand of Winchester reached the
battlefield. 1t was one of those
marvellous nights of July, 1864,
when the heavens seemed all ablaze
with the glory of the full-orbed
moon. The field, covered with
dead and dying, slept in the light
of this great moon, and the Fede-
raj surgeons were busy at their
painful duty of amputating limbs,
probing and binding up wounds,
depositing the sufferers in ambu-
lances aud attending so far as pos
sible to the painful calls of each.
A battlefield after a hard fight is
spectacle so sad that he who has
looked upon it once never wishes to
behold it again, and the saddest of
all the terrible features of such
scenes, perhaps, Is the impossibili-
ty of promptly attending to the
wants of all. Your arm may be
shattered by a bullet, but your
neighbor's leg is torn to pieces by a
shell and he is bleeding to death.
Before your arm can be bound up
his leg must be amputated. 1t is
painful, You think, to leave you
writhing there, but each in his turn,
friend; the leg before the arm
1t was real assistance when the
Winchester ladies came to the aid
OF the Federal surgeons, thus re-
lieving the latter in q large meas
ure from the care of the Confeder-
ate wounded. They assidiously ap-
piled themselves to the painful
task before them, and were minis
ters of mercy once more to their
Southern brethren, as they had
been before, after SO many hard
fought battles in that country of
hard battles, the Valley of the Sheu :
andoah.
Among the young ladies was
Miss - 1--WE do not feel at liberty
to present her full name to the
world and to this fair daughter
of the Valley belongs the credit of
the beautiful action which we pro-
ceed to record. In passing amid
the dead and wounded, now discer-
nible only by the surgeons Ian
terms, the moonlight and the last
beams of day, Miss came all
at once upon a youth who seemed
to be suffering extreme agony. He
was moaning fearfully, and bend
ing over him the young lady saw
that he was frightfuliy wounded.