The Women of the Confederacy

by J. L. Underwood

“What is the nature of those acts?”

“We have been told that it is your proudest boast that you are a rebel, and that you are ever on duty to aid and abet in every possible way the wouldbe destroyers of the United States government. If this be so, we can not permit you to remain within our lines. Until Atlanta surrenders, Decatur will be our headquarters, and every consideration of interest to our cause requires that no one inimical to it should remain within our boundaries established by conquest.”

In reply to these charges, I said:

“Gentlemen, I have not been misrepresented, so far as the charges you mentioned are concerned. If I were a man, I should be in the foremost ranks of those who are fighting for rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The Southern people have never broken that compact, nor infringed upon it in any way. They have never organized mobs to assassinate any portion of people sharing the privileges granted by that compact. They have constructed no underground railroads to bring into our midst incendiaries and destroyers of the peace, and to carry off stolen property. They have never sought to array the subordinate element of the North in deadly hostility to the controlling element. No class of the women of the South have ever sought positions at the North which secured entrance into good households, and then betrayed the confidence reposed by corrupting the servants and alienating the relations between the master and the servant. No class of women in the South have ever mounted the rostrum and proclaimed falsehoods against the women of the North—falsehoods which must have crimsoned with shame the very cheeks of Beelzebub. No class of the men of the South have ever tramped over the North with humbugs, extorting money either through sympathy or credulity, and engaged 204 at the same time in the nefarious work of exciting the subordinate class to insurrection, arson, rapine, and murder. If the South is in rebellion, a well-organized mob at the North has brought it about. Long years of patient endurance accomplished nothing. The party founded on falsehood and hate strengthened and grew to enormous proportions. And, by the way, mark the cunning of that party. Finding that the Abolition party made slow progress and had to work in the dark, it changed its name and took in new issues, and by a systematic course of lying in its institutions of learning, from the lowly school-house to Yale College, and from its pulpits and rostrums, it inculcated lessons of hate toward the Southern people, whom it would hurl into the crater of Vesuvius if endowed with the power. What was left us to do but to try to relieve that portion of the country which had permitted this sentiment of hate to predominate of all connection with us, and of all responsibility for the sins of which it proclaimed us guilty? This effort the South has made, and I have aided and abetted in every possible manner, and will continue to do so as long as there is an armed man in the Southern ranks. If this is sufficient cause to expel me from my home, I await your orders. I have no favors to ask.”

Imagine my astonishment, admiration, and gratitude when that group of Federal officers with unanimity said:

“I glory in your spunk, and am proud of you as my countrywoman; and so far from banishing you from your home, we will vote for your retention within our lines.”

GIVING WARNING TO MOSBY

[From original manuscript, now in the Confederate Museum.]

My Dear Friend: * * * Soon after the Yankees went into winter quarters in Warrenton, I was requested by a soldier friend to avail myself of every opportunity to obtain and transmit information that might be of service to our scouts and guerrillas, and this of course I was 205 most willing to do. Our house was at that time within the lines in the day time, and beyond them at night. I walked up to Warrenton one bright but very cold morning, (the 22d of December) and as soon as I arrived was informed by a lady friend, who was also on the lookout, that she had just seen a negro, who looked like a newcomer, escorted by several officers to the provost marshal’s office. I immediately concluded that he was bearer of some tidings, most probably from “Mosby’s Confederacy,” and that I must know what it might be, but how could I accomplish it? A sentinel was placed always before the office. I had my purse with me. I fell into conversation with him. I offered him so much to let me pass into the basement of the house on pretense of wishing to transact some business with the negroes who occupied it. He accepted it, and I went—not into the room which the negroes occupied, but into the one adjoining it—a place very damp and dark, where I could hear, but not be seen, and suiting my purpose admirably, as it was immediately under the office. I listened; heard the negro questioned and heard him answer that he could and would guide a force to Mosby’s headquarters, to the houses where he knew many of his men boarded, to the place where the command had stored a quantity of corn. About the corn they seemed to care little, but oh! to catch Mosby,—they waxed warm at the thought—they talked long and loudly (all for my convenience, no doubt) and the result of the consultation was a plan to go “riding on a raid” with the “reliable contraband” acting as guide—to go that very night if certain reinforcements arrived in time, or should they fail to do so, the next night. I had heard enough. I came out of my cell, walked through town to a picket post, with the remaining contents of my purse bribed the faithful soldier of the Union to let me pass, then walked two miles to a neighbor’s where I thought I could get a horse, which was most gladly furnished me when my errand was made known. By this time it was late in the afternoon; it had been turning colder all day, and was now intensely cold with a blustering wind, the sky 206 covered with moving masses of black clouds. My friends wrapped me up as best they could. I mounted and rode three miles to a neighbor’s house, where I took a little boy up behind me for escort. My object now was to ride in what seemed the right direction until I met some Southern soldier to whom I could impart the information I gathered, and commission him to convey it to those whom it most nearly concerned. I rode on for miles—the country becoming entirely new to me—the cold increasing—the darkness deepening—the wind rising higher and higher. Mosby’s men were always hanging about the outposts of the enemy. Why was it that I could not meet one of them? Did they think the night too terrible to be out? Oh! how I ached with cold, and when I thoughtlessly said as much, my gallant little escort, who was not less so, I am sure, begged that he might be allowed to take off his overcoat and put it around me. Suddenly, just before me, I saw a large fire—the temptation was too great—I forgot that its light might reveal me to those whom the darkness hid, drew the reins—old Kitty Grey stood still, and I stretched out my hands toward the genial warmth. I then discovered that I was near the “View Tree” to reach which, though only four miles from Warrenton, I had traveled eight or ten. The fire, thought I to myself, was built by some Southern scouts, but they left it as I came on lest it should endanger them. The thought aroused me. I started on, but had scarcely done so when the moon came out, and almost immediately Walter called my attention to a body of men on my right, in the form of a V, each with his carbine levelled, and moving slowly toward me: I expected them to fire any moment, but I neither quickened nor slackened my pace. The moon went under a cloud and I passed into the sheltering darkness, wondering much why they did not fire. My curiosity on that point was afterwards satisfied. On I rode. It was not long before I saw a single horseman with his raised weapon just in front of me.