"You mean about setting the negroes free?"
"Yes."
"But how? People will not just let them walk away!
"Walk away! Oh, little woman, if it could be brought around that way the threatening clouds would not be so dark ahead! 'Just walk away.' The President is offering to find a way out. One is to 'compensate' owners out of Government funds for the release of their slaves; another is sending them to some warm country for colonization. Of course, he would ask Congress for an appropriation for this."
For long hours they sat reading the latest news in the day's paper and discussing the war reports with a very solemn foreboding of coming events.
CHAPTER V
WHEN the Civil War broke out the women of the South blanched with the terrible ordeal before them, but never for one moment doubted but that their beloved ones would come out of it all victorious. To them it was not conceivable that a cause so plainly one of individual rights could be lost. Sacrifice upon sacrifice was cheerfully made, even gloried in by these wonderful women of the South in 1861 and to the bitter end. Delicately nurtured women denied themselves comforts, sleep, food and drink; they were reduced to personal hardships which were met and borne with a sublime fortitude.
When it was all over those families which had possessed wealth and culture were in the grip of poverty, and it was then that the spirit of Southern womanhood showed its divine strength. Facing family troubles with the courage of noble resignation, those women who had been educated—some abroad—and accomplished, became school teachers at five dollars a month for a pupil, and many a woman to-day bears gratitude in her heart for the sweet influence of these school teachers, which has gone with her into every clime, into every condition, and proved an unfailing guide to the uplands and the heights. Many became seamstresses, some governesses and others traveling companions. But wherever these gentlewoman went they carried refinement and ideals.
The heroism of the Southern women in the Civil War is an Epic in American History!
Renestine was the mother now of three little daughters. Jaffray had gone to Mexico to buy up horses, saddles and commissaries for the army. Caroline and Josiah were her bodyguards and, faithful servants, they saved her little anxieties and looked after the welfare of the children.