For I found, on the fallen lintel,
This tress of my wife’s torn hair!
“With halter, and torch, and Bible,
And hymns, to the sound of the drum,
They preach the gospel of murder,
And pray for lust’s kingdom to come!”
The reports of the Confederate Committees were made long before the blackest hours of the Confederacy—long before the “march to the sea.” There is far more behind; more than can ever be told. Far be it from any of us to indict a whole people, or condemn every Northern soldier. There were, indeed, shining instances of kindness and even gentleness. But the incongruous character of the elements of which the Northern army was composed must be taken into account. It was not, perhaps, reasonable to expect that they would behave in the South as the Confederate army behaved in Pennsylvania. Doubtless the officers of the Northern army, and many of the men as well, are heartily ashamed of the conduct of their comrades. But this will not, and cannot, alter the fact. This fact it is indispensable to mention. Some hint of the atrocities of the blackguards and bullies in uniform must be given, or the record of “Our Women in the War” will be partial and incomplete.
But if there were any doubt as to the power and influence of the women of the Confederacy, that doubt would be set at rest by the full and honorable recognition they received at the hands of the victorious enemy. Long after Lee and Johnston and Kirby Smith had surrendered, officers in the uniform of the United States Army were engaged in seeking out and paroling the women in every city and town and hamlet in the South.
The Government did not feel safe until the mothers and daughters and wives of the Confederate soldiers had taken the oath of allegiance, along with the rest of the devoted army that had fought the North for four years. How to reach them in their strongholds, their homes, was the first question, but it was soon solved. Communication with absent loved ones, by mail or express, was cut off, and a woman or girl, of military age, was not allowed to take a letter out of the post office until she had sworn to cease the struggle so far as she was individually concerned. In other cases, where the family supplies had been taken for the use of the Federal soldiers, or had been wantonly destroyed, the alternative was presented of seeing their little ones suffer from hunger or of themselves accepting the hated obligation as a condition precedent to obtaining food for them. It is not necessary to go far for the proof of this assertion. With incredible blindness of perception—in almost providential ignorance of the damning character of his work—a Northern artist, the sculptor Rodgers, seized upon this novel feature of the situation, when peace had been declared, and has perpetuated in one of his familiar household groups the fact of the administration of the oath by a Federal officer to a Southern woman—the barrel of Government provisions, the empty basket, and leering negro boy, enjoying the humiliation of his mistress, constituting the remaining elements of the picture.