The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-28
SOUTHERN GIRLS IN WAR TIMES
Mountain Maids Became Hospital
Nurses.


From the Pittsburg Dispatch.
The great German who wrote
Honor to woman! to her it is given
To garden the earth with the roses Of
heaven
Precisely described Confederate condi-
tions-a century in advance. True, con-
slant, brave and enduring the men
were, but the women set even the
bravest and most steadfast an example.
Nor was this confined to any one sec
ton of the country. The girl with
the calico dress" of the lowland farms.
the merry mountain maid of the hill
country and the bellies of society in
the cities all wed with each other in
efforts to serve the men who had gone
to the front to fight for home and for
them. And there was no section of the
South where this eager desire to do all
they might and more was more in evil
dence than another In every camp
in the early days of the great struggle
the incoming troops bore trophies of
home love, and as the war progressed,
to need, then to dire want the sacri-
fees of those women at home became
a poem-and one most pathetic Dress,
miscOnceived as the feminine fetch
boys at the front; the family larder. ill
stocked at the best, was depleted to
nothingness to send to distant camps
those delicacieS, so equally freighted
with tenderness and dyspepsia, which
too often never reached destination.
And later the carpets were taken from
the floors, the curtains from the Win
dows-alike in humble homes and in
dwellings of the rich-to be cut
int
ing fellows sleeping on freezing
mud.
So wide, so universal was the rule
of self-sacrifice that no one reference
to it can do justice to the zeal and
devotion of Our Girls" And the best
proof of both was in the hospitals.
where soon began to congregate the
manned and torn forms of those just
sent forth to glory and to victory. This
was the trial that tested the grain and
purity of our womanhood and left it
without alloy of fear or selfshness.
And some of the women who wrought
in home and hospital-even in the
trench and on the firing line-for the
boys" had never before handled
aught rougher than embroidery or seen
aught more fearsOme than its needle
prick. Yes. these untried women,
young and old, stood fire like veteran
regulars; indeed, even more bravely in
moral view, for they missed the stimu-
lus of the charge-the tonic in the
thought of striking back!
Again, taking Richmond as exam
pie, because Richmond was cosmopoli-
tan and representative of every section
in its every phase, we find the strang-
est familiarity of women with danger.
Indeed, it literally bred contempt In
the early occupation of the capital,
"Pawnee Sunday scarce became
laughing byword. The churches were
crowded and f1uttering with expectant
and well-dressed femininity. At that
date war was mere shadow of a name,
and his rigors had paled no feminine
cheek nor denuded her fluffiest gown
or frill or Haunting ribbon. Richmond
women were eager to inspect the
flounces and furbelowS of their incom-
ing cousins. All the churches were
packed the one where Mr. Davis and
his family sat, under the then as ia
nous DR.. Hoge, literally overlooking to
the streets. There crowd awaited
the dismissal benediction, the men GU
rious to see the new President at close
quarters, and the men and women
eager alike to inspect-and possibly to
dissect-Mrs. Davis and her brilliant
sister, Miss Howell of Mississippi. 1t
was a balmy, breezy Sunday, the
whole face of nature and the futter
of society alike breathing peace. Sud
denly that changed to a nameless pre-
dominant and never understood war
panic. Whence coming none paused
to ask; possible the invention of some
fear-crazed brain, more probably the
cruel hoax of some thoughtless wag-
but the grewsome whisper ran round
every church simultaneously: THE
Pawnee is comng!"
That whisper was enough. 1t caused
ten times the CONSERVATION that the
close cannonading for months did a
brief year later; and it fluttered dainty
bodices as the whine of the MIME, or
the WHO'D of the shell over the field
hospital, had not done in still later
trials of the Lacquer. The "Pawnee"
was a not very terrible United States
cruiser. and her captain was reputed
to Cit onto Uncle Jeff's har!" as
member from a border state expressed
It. First singly, then I'm pairs; quickly
in battaions, the congregations melt
ed into the outer air. Making history
as they went, crowds converged TO
Capitol Hill. where the dingy doors
were tightly closed for peace.
Thence it surged into the throng
without DR.. Hoges church. That di-
vine had never paused in his reading:
from him. and the two steadfast wom-
EN- in that pew had probably never
looked upon a preacher with such
strained interest.
Still the hubbub ragged by formal de-.
NAL from the War Department that
there was any ship above Norfolk, I'M
II. woman's wit Gained the storm.
Someone repeated Miss Howells quiet
speech to her on the steps of the White
House. IL flew from lip TO lip, was
caught by popular fancy and laughed
the bugaboo out of court lin one
round +" The Presidents sister-in-law
had only said
What merely human might might
augur.
That they would run from Lookout
Mount,
who fought so well at Chlcamauga?
This poem was coincidental with
"The War Christians Thanksgiving" Of
Wallis. The brilliant ornament 10 the
baltimore bar had HE printed and dis
fributed az the churches and ~ was
probably one cause for his being sent
~ Tort Warren And. slnguarly
enough the wits ln butternuts laughed
loudly out of some ~ The darkest pflf-
oti reils The North contnYed Tor them.
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