Bloodthirstiness of Rebel Women.
No history of the war is likely to do full justice to the bitterness of the Rebel women. Female influence tempted thousands of young men to enter the Confederate service against their own wishes and sympathies. Women sometimes evinced incredible rancor and bloodthirstiness. The most startling illustration of the brutalizing effect of Slavery appeared in the absence of that sweetness, charity, and tenderness toward the suffering, which is the crowning grace of womanhood.
A southern Unionist, the owner of many slaves, said to me:
"I suppose I have not struck any of my negroes for ten years. When they need correcting, my wife always does it."
If he had a horse or a mule requiring occasional whipping, would he put the scourge in the hands of his little daughter, and teach her to wield it, from her tender years? How infinitely more must it brutalize and corrupt her when the victim is a man—the most sacred thing that God has made—his earthly image and his human temple!
The Battle of Memphis.
Before we captured Memphis, the sick and wounded Union prisoners were in a condition of great want and suffering. Women of education, wealth, and high social position visited the hospitals to minister to Rebel patients. Frequently entering the Federal wards from curiosity, they used toward the groaning patients expressions like this:
"I would like to give you one dose! You would never fight against the South again!"
In what happy contrast to this shone the self-denying ministrations of northern women, to friend and enemy alike!
In Memphis, on the evening of June 5th, General Jeff. Thompson, commanding the Rebel cavalry, and Commodore Edward Montgomery, commanding the Rebel flotilla, stated at the Gayoso House that there would be a battle the next morning, in which the Yankee fleet would be destroyed in just about two hours.