“Why didn’t you take some ham last night?” I asked urgently.
“Oh, I didn’t want it,” she replied.
“Now, you know you are fibbing,” I said. “Tell me the truth, won’t you?”
She blushed, and hesitated. Presently she broke down and answered frankly: “Honestly, I did want the ham. I have hungered for meat for months. But I mustn’t eat it, and I won’t. You see the army needs all the food there is, and more. We women can’t fight, though I don’t see at all why they shouldn’t let us, and so we are trying to feed the fighting men—and there aren’t any others. We’ve made up our minds not to eat anything that can be sent to the front as rations.”
“You are starving yourselves,” I exclaimed.
“Oh, no,” she said. “And if we were, what would it matter? Haven’t Lee’s soldiers starved many a day? But we aren’t starving. You see we had plenty of salad and buttermilk last night. And we even ate some of the corn bread. I must stop that, by the way, for corn meal is a good ration for the soldiers.” 100 A month or so later this frail but heroic young girl was laid away in the Grub Hill church-yard.
Don’t talk to me about the “heroism” that braves a fire of hell under enthusiastic impulse. That young girl did a higher self-sacrifice than any soldier who fought on either side during the war ever dreamed of doing.
LUCY ANN COX
[In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 22, pages 54-55. From the Richmond Star, July 21, 1894.]