The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1900-05-03


into Washington There are plenty of
Major Andres among the women Of the
Confederacy-women who freely risked
their lives to gain information of the
most vital import to our armies in the
field, and SO risked being hung as spies
There was plenty of Emily Geigers
among the women of the C0nfederacy as
appears from the novels of John Esten
Cooke and others, and none of them were
Drawer than our own Mary Yates Snow
| den, of Charleston, who on that fearful
night, when Columbia was sacked and
burned bore, sewed up in her skirts, the
| assets Of the Calhoun monument fund.
| The saving of those assets resulted IN the
subsequent raising OF an amount sum-
cient for the monument to South Carroll
mas mighty son, which to-day looks down
| upon the Citadel, in Charleston, the finest
military school in the South. Mrs. Snow
den was one of tie leaders among the
women who cluEbed together to send
clothing and provisions to the soldiers in
camp as we'll as the sufferers in the hos
pitals.
| Ihis organized work of women was the
very beginning of women's club work in
South Carolina. But as the acorn to
the oak, how ut-reaching to-day is the
infiorescence of the idea which we see
illustrated in the Federation of Woman'S
Clubs" which met last week in Charles
ton How evident is it now that to do
effective work we must unite, we must
recognize to oneness of humanity, and
take in clearly that this great universe of
divine energy is not diverse" and that
il is impossible for US to hate or injure
another being and not be hurt ourselves.
The truth is I'VE reach infnity through
the love of one, and loving this one we
are in love with all.
| Well the women of the Confederacy
loving their own soldier husbands and
sons had love for all, and this love man
ifested in endless boxes and barrels of
clothing and provisions sent to the men
in the field and hospital.
| No count was ever kept of the number
of women who acted as nurses, which
work some did in the field and city hos
pitals and many in their homes, for sick
or wounded soldier had the entree to
every home and everywhere was nursed
and cared for by the women as SONS or
brothers. Sometimes they were buried
by women. Mrs Sarah A. Dorsey who
willed her beautiful home, "Beauvoir," in
Mississippi to Jefferson Davis, in her rem
| iniscences tells a story of dead Confed
federate soldier buried by two young
white ladies. They heard that his dead
body had been left when the Confederates
retreated after disastrous fight; so in
their dugout Ia kind of unsafe Indian
canoe) they padded down the Mississippi
river to the Federal commanders camp,
begged for the body, carried it away and
buried it.
The same girls had gone in their dug
out to give warning to Harrison's pick
cts, and suspicion of their "disloyalty"
getting into the Federal mind their home
was burned and themselves ordered to go
into the lines of the Southern army. Mrs.
Dorsey said she saw them camped by the
riverside with only board shelter to
keep off rain or sunshine, only blanket
to sleep on and a cashmere shawl to cover
with, only cornbread and bacon to eat,
but bright, brave and cheerful.
On the 31st of July, 1897, the Confeder-
ate veterans of Edgeield and Saluda un-
yelled monument to wOman-soldier,
who had fought during four years, from
1861 to 1865, beside her husband and son
in actual battles of the Confederacy. She
was as good wife, as devoted q mother,
as womanly friend to her fellow soldier
as other women of the Confederacy, who
stayed at home and spun and knit and
wove and did the cooking and washing.
And the testimony of the men who deliv-
cred the Grafton at the unveiling of the
monument to Mrs. Lucinda B. Horne,
was that "she was not only brave SOL
dier, but good, pure, lovable woman in
all the relations of life"
Mrs. Horne was elected an honorary
member of the Confederate Veterans AS
.sociation at Greenwood in 1894, and dy-
ing year later, her comrades raised
funds and paid for monument to per-
petuate her war record.
An ounce fact is worth pound OF the
ory, and the facts of Mrs. Horne'S history
prove that women can fight and not be
| de-womanized This fact is attested by
the history of the race, which shows that
in his earlier evolution the human being
shares his fighting responsibilities with
| his woman mate.
Not only is this characteristic of barba-
rous men, but of primal race conditions,
as is attested by the war now going on
between the Beers and the British in
lSouth Africa. We hear of Boer bride
and groom who spent their honeymoon
on the firing line, each with Mauser
rifle and were happy.
To return to the women OF the COnfed-
eracy-a pitiful little story is told of one
in Richmond, Va, whose husband had
been in the trenches before Petersburg
during all that last terrible winter of the
war and never had furlough to run over
to Richmond even to see his first-born-a
little son, but now he was coming home
for day or two, furloughed at last, and
the wife was expecting him, looking her
prettiest, the pretty baby costly asleep in
his cradle, smoking hot supper on the
table-the combined offerings of several
friends; juicy ham, plate of elegant
biscuits, some golden butter, plum pre-
serves and pot of genuine mocha coffee.
There came sound of wheels and hur-
ried steps on the ground. The wife flew
to open the door, to embrace her soldier
husband. A stranger stood there and
held out telegram. She read tie fatal
words: "Your husband was Killed in the
trenches before Petersburg this afternoon
at o'clock"
(which braver those who haste away
Or those who stay behind?
The soldier hurrying to the front,
| Or wife with tears half blind?
The shot that strikes the soldier down,
The gunner ne'er OWNED,
Had pierced with even deeper wound
The poor wife left behind"
Such women as the exigencies of those
terrible times developed was illustrated
in that great woman, Mrs Mary Yates
Snowden, of Charleston, s. c., who was
not only the founder of the Ladies Me
mortal Association of South Carolina"
which established the custom of decorat-
ing the soldiers graves, but the founder
of even nobler memorial-"The Con-
federate Home in Charleston for the
Widows and Daughters of Confederate
soldiers" At that Confederate home
:. school 1900 daughters of Confederate
soldiers have been educated through the
high and benevolent intent of Mrs. Snow
den, who in starting the project mort
| ro oa5 bor own homo for S1 S00 tn nav the