mmm OFAMtRICA % Class Book. ^m B'^ CoiyrighTF ^fY ^ CfiRfRIGHT DEPOSIT. WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR HISTORICAL The Romance of American Expansion Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road PSYCHOLOGICAL The Riddle of Personality Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters Scientific Mental HeaHng MARTHA WASHINGTON. From the paintin? by Woolaston. Frontispiece. Woman in the Making of America BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Illustrated BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1912 Ker- Copyright, 1912, By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved Published, October, 1912 THE COLONIAL PRESS C. H. 8IMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. €CI.A327194 (K^ I TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. KATHERINE F. BOWES OF BOSTON ONE OF THE NOBLE ARMY OF AMERICAN WOMEN WHOSE LIVES, UNKNOWN TO HISTORY, HAVE BEEN A FORCEFUL INFLUENCE IN THE STRENGTHENING OF THE NATION, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE PREFACE The present volume is an outgrowth of studies I have for some years been making for a general history of the political, economic, social, and territorial expansion of the United States. The more I became acquainted with the facts of the national evolution, the more I was impressed by the part woman has had therein. In the determination of grave constitutional and moral issues, such as those which led to the War for Independence and the Civil War; in the great migratory move- ment by which the people of the seaboard colonies and their descendants conquered the Alleghany mountain barrier, pressed forward into the Mississippi Valley, and thence in time advanced to the Rocky Mountains, and beyond the Rockies to the shore of the Pacific [vii] PREFACE Ocean; in the growth of commerce and in- dustry, of culture, of education — in all these, and in every other phase of the nation's history, I found women playing an active part, and exercising a tremendous influence. I also found that nowhere was there available a continuous record of what woman has contrib- uted to the upbuilding of the Republic, from the earliest to the latest times; and I deter- mined, if the opportunity offered, to do some- thing in the way of supplying such a record, both as a matter of simple historical justice and because of the unquestionable historical importance of the subject. I do not pretend that in this book I have told in full the story of woman's work in America. To do that would have required many volumes, and would have necessitated far-extending researches for which I could never have hoped to find the time. My aim has been simply to indicate the various directions in which woman's activities have been most beneficial; [ viii 1 PREFACE to help in making the present generation better acquainted with some of the great American women of other times; and to provide, as it were, a starting-point from which some future historian may proceed to present a far more detailed record than I have found possible. Even as it is, the preparation of this little volume has been no light task, so manifold are the sources to which I have been obliged to resort — State papers, family records, mem- oirs, biographies, books of travel, special his- tories, publications of learned societies, etc. That I have been able to carry my labors to completion is largely owing to the courtesy of the authorities of Harvard University Li- brary, who have given me, since I began my explorations in the field of American history, the readiest access to their rich storehouse of historical material. For much helpful information I also owe a debt of gratitude to officers of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the American [ix] PREFACE Civic Association, the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and other organ- izations. But most of all I am indebted to my wife, herself an embodiment of the best in American womanhood, for many invaluable suggestions, and still more for the stimulus of a companionship that has been a constant inspiration to literary endeavor. H. Addington Bruce. Cambridge, Mass., May, 1912. x] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Preface vii I. In the Time of the Founding . . 1 II. Later Colonial Belles and House- wives 44 III. The Women of the Revolution . 81 IV. Heroines of the Westward Move- ment 115 V. The Struggle over Slavery . . 156 VI. Woman's Work in the Civil War . 188 VII. The Women of To - day ... 224 Index 253 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Martha Washington . . . Frontispiece From the painting by Woolaston . PAGE Monument to Hannah Duston, Haverhill, Massachusetts 15 The Hannah Robinson House, Saunders- town, Rhode Island 59 Old Indian Fort near Newmanstown, Pennsylvania 72 Deborah Sampson 92 From an old engraving. Fort Henry 127 From an old wood engraving. *' Mother " Bickerdyke 207 From an engraving. Julia Ward Howe in 1865 .... 214 From a photograph. WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA CHAPTER I IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING WHEN Alexis de Tocqueville made his celebrated tour of the United States, one of the things which most deeply impressed him was the respect paid to the women of the country. " In the United States," he after- wards wrote, " men seldom compliment women, but they daily show how much they esteem them. They constantly display an entire confidence in the understanding of a wife, and a profound respect for her freedom." Other foreign visitors have since made the same discovery, and have usually commented o^ it with an air of surprise. But to anybody [1] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA acquainted with what may be called the inner history of the United States — with the forces that have contributed to its steady growth and progress — there is nothing surprising in the attitude of American men toward American women. It is largely the expression of an in- herited and instinctive appreciation of the notable part woman has played in shaping the destinies of America. De Tocqueville himself had at least a glimmering of this truth. "If I were asked," he declared em- phatically, " to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of the American people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply — to the superiority of their women." Unfortunately, historians have not seen fit to bring into clear relief the wonderful person- alities and glowing achievements of the women whose lives have counted for so much in the making of the United States. They have had a great deal to say about the forefathers of America, but comparatively little about the [2] IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING foremothers. So that while the Americans of to-day, like the Americans of de Tocqueville's time, instinctively respect and appreciate the American woman, they have no very definite knowledge of what she has meant to the national development. Not everybody realizes, for instance, that the foundation stone of the great republic — the English colonization of America — was successfully laid only by the help of a little company of women. Yet this is one of the best-authenticated facts in the history of America's infancy. As is well known, the earliest permanent English settlement was established at James- town in 1607. Unlike the Pilgrims and the Puritans, who followed them a few years later, the first colonists did not come to the Amer- ican wilds because of religious persecution at home. They were sent out by a commercial corporation, the Virginia Company, which expected to reap rich profits by developing [3] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the resources of the New World. In fact, the great motive for the enterprise was the hope of finding gold and silver mines. This failing, the settlers turned to the cul- tivation of tobacco, and were soon exporting it in great quantities to England, where it found a ready market at high prices. But though rapidly making money for themselves as well as for the Virginia Company, they were far from satisfied. They suffered greatly from the climate, and still more from the mismanage- ment of the authorities placed over them. They got on none too well with their Indian neigh- bors. Most of all, they missed the joys of domestic life, the welcoming smiles and warm greetings of wives and children after the day's work was done. Not a woman had accompanied them from the old country. In the following year two arrived, a Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras. Eager suitors quickly laid siege to the latter, whose marriage to John Laydon 14] IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING is memorable as the first English wedding in the New World. Otherwise, for more than ten years, the colonists were virtually dependent on Indian squaws for feminine society. In vain they begged the Virginia Company to promote the emigration of women who should make them wives. No attention was paid to their petitions and complaints, and they constantly grew more restless, discontented, and unhappy. All the while, too, misgovern- ment increased, until at last they were ready to rise in open rebellion. Just at this time, a group of patriotic and far-sighted Englishmen obtained control of the Virginia Company. At their head was the liberty-loving Sir Edwin Sandys, who, if any one man is deserving of the honor, may fairly be called the founder of the United States. Sandys saw clearly that the colony could not thrive without self-government, and he drew up a plan which resulted in the creation of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first really [5] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA representative American legislative body. He also saw that self-government was not enough, that in order to build up a sound social organ- ization the colonists must have the helpmates they so insistently demanded. " We must find them wives," he bluntly told his associates, " in order that they may feel at home in Virginia." ^ A scheme that makes curious reading to-day was soon devised. The Virginia Company undertook to advance the passage-money of the prospective brides, but every successful suitor among the colonists was to pay to the company one hundred and twenty pounds of " best leaf tobacco," and no one was eligible to become a suitor unless he could prove that he had the means to support a wife. Under these conditions ninety " young, hand- some, honestly educated maids, of honest life and carriage," were induced to take ship for 1 "The Records of the Vh*ginia Company of London," vol. i, p. 269. [61 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING Virginia. They did not know, as we now know, that by thus adventuring with fate they were helping to lay the foundations of one of the greatest nations in the history of the world. They were merely poor but worthy girls, prayerfully hopeful that they would find good husbands among the strangers over the water. And in this they were not disappointed. The early Virginians shared to the full the feeling so well expressed by good old Gov- ernor Spottswood a century later: "Whoever brings a poor gentlewoman into so soli- tary a place from all her friends and ac- quaintances, would be ungrateful not to use her with all possible tenderness." Such was the welcome given the " leaf tobacco " brides, and so fondly were they cherished by the men whom they married, that they soon wrote home enthusiastically advising others to follow their example. More brides came, and still more, and after them whole families. There [7] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA was no longer any danger that Virginia would be a failure. Saved from the state of " soli- tary uncouthness," as one planter termed it, the settlers turned with contentment to their daily tasks and to their self-imposed mission of winning the wilderness for civilization. As in Virginia, so in every colony. Whether they came with the first or with later arrivals, women exercised a refining, ennobling, and in- spiring influence, bringing out the best that was in their husbands and sons, and sharing without a murmur the hardships inevitable in the opening up of a new country. When they left their native land, they had no illusions about the life that lay before them. They knew it would be rough, harsh, and dangerous, and that it would mean unending hazard and labor. But they faced it courageously for the sake of those they loved. The picture of the Pilgrim mothers, falling upon their knees on the deck of the Mayflower to thank God for a safe journey, and then going IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING ashore to wash clothes,^ is eloquently descrip- tive of the spirit shown by all the women of early America. They had come not for a life of ease, but to play their part earnestly in the home-making for the men. There was no task, however difficult or un- pleasant, from which they shrank. When occasion demanded they willingly went into the fields to break the ground, sow seed, or aid in harvesting the ripened grain. They lent a hand in the actual building of the rude log cabins that sheltered them; and, in Pennsyl- vania, in burrowing out the caves in which the Quaker pioneers took refuge along the banks of the Delaware River. As Deborah Morris tells us, in her narrative of the experiences of her aunt, Elizabeth Hard: " All that came wanted a dwelling and hastened to provide one. As they lovingly helped each other, the women even set them- selves to work that they had not been used to 1 " Mourt's Relation," p. 12 (H. M, Dexter's edition). [91 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA before; for few of the first settlers were of the laborous class, and help of that source was scarce. My good aunt thought it expedient to help her husband at the end of the saw, and to fetch all such water to make such kind of mortar as they then had to build their chimney." This was a typical experience of the first mothers of America, as was Mrs. Hard's un- pleasant discovery, when she left the saw and made ready to cook dinner, that the larder was empty. For a moment she felt downhearted, but only for a moment. " Didst thou not come for liberty of con- science.^ " she asked herself. " Hast thou not got it, also been provided for beyond thy expectation.'^ " Kneeling in the tattered tent which was then her home, she humbly begged the divine for- giveness and aid. As she rose from her prayer, in walked the family cat, bearing in its mouth a fine large rabbit.^ 1 A. H. Wharton's " Colonial Days and Dames," p. 68. fioi IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING Even in these first and most painful years there were compensations for the sacrifices women were called on to make, and the hard- ships they so patiently endured. They were sure of the devotion of their husbands — the colonial records are surprisingly free from refer- ences to matrimonial discord — and they were surrounded by healthy, happy, and loving children. They had the joys that come of living in a home of one's own, however humble. And, in the case of those who had emigrated for conscience' sake, they had the satisfaction of knowing that they dwelt in communities closely knit together by identity of religious belief. Thus it was that, no matter how hard the lines in which their lives were cast, the American pio- neer women were able to make the American pioneer home a center from which cheerfulness and sunshine unfailingly radiated. This, it need scarcely be said, meant much to the men, and so did the rugged, virile qualities which their fill WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA wives and sisters and daughters displayed in times of great emergency. The severest demands were made, of course, on those colonists who pressed forward from the settlements by the sea into the lonely depths of the inland forests. Here they were menaced not only by wild beasts but by the enmity of the native inhabitants, who, friendly enough at first, soon began to resent any further invasion of their ancestral lands. In face of this double danger, the women showed themselves no less resolute and courageous than the men. They learned the art of molding bullets and loading muskets, and how to use all manner of weapons of defense. Many of them became expert shots. And when the Indians at last took the war-path in earnest, and raged along the border with torch and scalping-knife, they met a brave resistance from countless heroines. Nor did defeat, the slaughter of their loved ones, and their own captivity, break the spirit of the dauntless frontiers women. fl21 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING Perhaps the most striking illustration of the truth of this is to be found in the story of Hannah Duston.^ When King William's War was at its height, a band of Canadian Indians swooped down on the Massachusetts settlement of Haverhill, killed nearly thirty of the inhabitants, and made prisoners of thirteen women and children. Among the captives were Mrs. Duston and her new-born babe, whose wailing a heartless warrior soon stilled forever by snatching the helpless infant from its mother's arms and beat- ing it to death against a tree. Others of the prisoners, who could not keep up with the ter- rific pace set by the raiders as they retreated toward Canada, were ruthlessly tomahawked. And when, at nightfall, the survivors sank wearily to the ground, and gaspingly prayed that God would preserve them, they were mocked with derisive laughter. 1 S. G. Drake's " Indian Wars," pp. 315-317 (Edition of 1837). [131 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " What need you trouble yourselves? " jeered the Indians. " If your God will have you de- livered, it shall be so." Finally, after several days of the hardest travel, the war-party broke up into several small detachments, among which the prisoners were distributed. Mrs. Duston,a friend of hers named Mary Neff, and a young boy fell to the lot of a chief who tauntingly informed the unhappy women that he intended making them " run the gauntlet " in an Indian village just across the border. In their enfeebled condition, this was the same as sentencing them to death, and at once Mrs. Duston came to a desperate resolution. " Look you," she told Mrs. Neff, " we are dead women unless we now escape. And we can escape only over the bodies of our masters. We must kill them to-night, or perish our- selves." Taking the boy, Samuel Leonardson, into her confidence, she asked him to find [14] MONUMENT TO HANNAH DUSTON, HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS. Page 15. IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING out just how to kill by a single blow. Brave and quickwitted, young Samuel readily gained this knowledge from an unsuspecting Indian. " He told me to * strike here/ " he whispered to Mrs. Duston, at the same time laying a finger on his temple. Grimly she nodded, and counted the minutes till sunset. That night while the Indians — ten or twelve in all, including some squaws — were slumber- ing soundly about their camp-fire on the bank of the Merrimac, the two women and the boy rose stealthily to their feet. Like avenging furies they bent over the sleepers, tomahawk in hand, and dealt blow after blow in rapid and fatal succession. The very Indian who had shown the boy how to make death swift and silent was the first to die under his pupil's tom- ahawk. None escaped except one young In- dian lad and a squaw, who, badly wounded, ran screaming into the forest. Then followed the gory work of scalping [15] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the dead — for Mrs. Duston was nothing if not thorough, and she knew that without the ghastly trophies no one would believe her tale — and after this a canoe was launched and the homeward voyage begun. It is pleasant to be able to add that the daring trio reached Haverhill in safety, though half dead from fatigue and hunger; that the news of their exploit sped like wild-fire through the colonies; that the Great and General Court of Massachusetts voted all three of them a goodly reward; and that even the gov- ernor of faraway Maryland sent a pewter tankard to Mrs. Duston as evidence of his ad- miration for the pluck, resourcefulness, and self-reliance she had shown. On a different order but similarly illustra- tive of the tragic experiences and sterling characteristics of the women of early New England, is the story of the captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson as told by herself in one of the most remarkable narratives coming to 116] IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING us from those long-gone times. ^ Mrs. Rowland- son was the wife of the Reverend Joseph Row- landson, pastor at Lancaster, Massachusetts, a settlement which, in February, 1676, was raided and laid in ashes by a large body of Nashua and Nipmuck Indians under the leader- ship of one of the chief lieutenants of the re- doubtable King Philip. The red men, as was their custom, attacked the place soon after dawn, and those of the settlers who had time to do so fled for protection to the Rowlandson house, the largest in Lancaster. After burning the outlying cabins and killing a number of fugitives whom they intercepted, Mrs. Row- landson tells us, in language that could scarcely be improved as a vivid portrayal of the horrors of the raid : " At length they came and beset our house; ^ " The Soveraignty and Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed. Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Written by her own Hand for her private Use, and now made Public at the earnest Desire of some Friends." First printed in 1682. [17] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA and quickly it was the dolefullest day that mine eyes ever saw. " The house stood up on the edge of a hill. Some of the Indians got behind the hill, others into the barn, and others behind anything that would shelter them; from all which places they shot against the house, so that the bullets seemed to fly like hail; and quickly they wounded one man among us, then another, and then a third. " About two hours, according to my ob- servation in that amazing time, they had been about the house before they prevailed to fire it, which they did with flax and hemp which they brought out of the barn. And there being no defense about the house, only two old flankers at two opposite corners, and one of them not finished, they fired it once; and one ventured out and quenched it. But they quickly fired it again; and that took. " Now is the dreadful hour come that I have often heard of in the time of the war, as [18] IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING it was the case of others; but now mine eyes see it. " Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head if we stirred out. " Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves and one another, ' Lord, what shall we do? ' " Then I took my children and one of my sister's girls, to go forth and leave the house; but, as soon as we came to the door and ap- peared, the Indians shot so thick that the bullets rattled against the house as if one had taken a handful of stones and threw them; so that we were forced to give back. . . . But out we must go, the fire increasing and coming along behind us roaring, and the Indians ga- ping before us with their spears and hatchets to devour us. " No sooner were we out of the house, but my brother-in-law (being before wounded in [19] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA defending the house, in or near the throat) fell down dead; whereat the Indians scornfully shouted and hallooed, and were presently upon him stripping off his clothes. " The bullets flying thick, one went through my side, and the same (as would seem) through the bowels and hand of my poor child in my arms. " One of my elder sister's children, named William, had then his leg broken, which the Indians perceiving knocked him on the head. " Thus were we butchered by those merciless heathen, standing amazed, with the blood running down our heels. " My eldest sister, seeing her William and others dead, exclaimed, * Lord, let me die with them! ' At the same moment a bullet struck her; and she fell down dead over the threshold. " The Indians laid hold of us, pulling me one way and the children another, and said, * Come, go along with us.' I told them they would kill me. They answered, ' If I were [20] - IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING willing to go along with them they would not hurt me.' " This marked the beginning of an agonizing captivity, during which Mrs. Rowlandson, separated from all her children but the wounded one, was taken from place to place in central and western Massachusetts, and up into New Hampshire. For the first week, despite the pain of her own wound, she carried her stricken child in her arms, ever praying that it would survive. But this consolation was denied her, the little one dying in an Indian wigwam on the eighth night of the captivity. For two days afterwards she hugged the tiny corpse to her breast, until the Indians, moved to some de- gree of pity by the sight of her intense grief, took it forcibly from her and buried it. And now, rallying from the shock of her bereavement and of the terrible scenes through which she had passed, and determining to make every effort to rejoin her husband, who fortunately for himself had been absent from [21] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Lancaster the day of the raid, Mrs. Rowlandson sought to gain the confidence of the Indians by accompanying them without the sHghtest pro- test in all their aimless wanderings. It was her hope that their watchfulness might suflSciently relax to allow her to make her escape. They did, it is true, become friendly and kind to her; yet at no time did an opportunity for flight present itself. To add to her trials the food supply began to run low, and she was soon put on the most meagre diet. The extent to which she suffered in this respect — but suffered un- complainingly — may readily be inferred from a passing reference in her narrative to a curious adventure she had with King Philip himself, whom she met for the first time about a month after she had been taken prisoner. " Philip," she says, " spoke to me to make a shirt for his boy, which I did; for which he gave me a shilling. I offered the money to my mistress; but she bid me keep it, and with it I bought a piece of horse-flesh. Afterwards [221 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING he asked me to make a cap for his boy, for which he invited me to dinner. I went; and he gave me a pancake about as big as two fingers; it was made of parched wheat, beaten, and fried in bear's grease ; but I thought I never tasted pleasanter meat in my Hfe." In the end the seeming misfortune of starvation proved of the happiest fortune to her. The New England authorities, spurred to action by Mr. Rowlandson's ceaseless en- treaties, offered King Philip a liberal reward for her release; and Philip, himself in urgent need of sustenance, was prompt to accept it. Once freed, Mrs. Rowlandson made her way to Boston, and there, with courage unabated and rejoicing in the similarly effected liberation of her surviving children, joined with her hus- band in the task of upbuilding a new home.^ Courage, endurance, and independence of spirit were, indeed, prime characteristics of 1 The Rowlandsons removed to Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1677, Mr. Rowlandson having been appointed pastor of the church there. [231 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the pioneer women in times of peace as well as in times of war. Though, like the women of all ages and all lands, they instinctively looked to men for support and protection, they could, if need be, make their own way in the world, and make it well. This brings us to a most interesting fact — namely, that it is a great mistake to suppose that the American " business woman " is a modern product. She was present and took a conspicuous part in the early development of every American colony. Thus, among the founders of Taunton in Massachusetts was a certain Elizabeth Poole, who, according to the inscription on her tombstone, was " a great proprietor of the township of Taunton, a chief promoter of its settlement." In fact, an entry in Governor Winthrop's journal, under date of 1637, leaves no doubt that she was one of the first settlers in that section of the Bay State. " This year," the entry runs, " a plantation was begun at Tecticutt by a [241 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING gentlewoman, an ancient maid, one Mrs. Poole. She went late thither, and endured much hard- ship and lost much cattle." A nineteen-year-old girl named Elizabeth Haddon made the long oversea journey to open up a tract of land which her father had secured in New Jersey, and her fame is perpet- uated in the name of the town of Haddonfield. Madame Mary Ferree, the widow of a French Huguenot, was the energetic cultivator of twenty-five hundred acres of land in Pennsyl- vania. Governor Winthrop of New Haven, son of the celebrated Winthrop of Massachusetts, found one of his ablest assistants in the person of Mrs. John Davenport, wife of the local minister. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia boasted " merchant princesses " while they were still little better than villages. In Vir- ginia the records remind us of several " acute, ingenious gentlewomen " who operated pros- perous tobacco plantations. But by far the most remarkable among the [251 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA first American women of business was Mrs. Margaret Brent of Maryland. Not only did she win distinction as a financier, but she was the first American " suffragette." Coming to Maryland in 1638, she so gained the confidence of her kinsman, Governor Leonard Calvert, that in his will he named her as his sole execu- trix. One of her first acts in this capacity was to quell a budding mutiny among Maryland's small army by selling some of the state cattle to meet the soldiers' arrears of pay. Lord Baltimore, the proprietor, severely reprimanded her for thus " meddling " with affairs of govern- ment, but the Assembly gallantly rallied to her support. Said they, in a joint letter to the an- gry proprietor: " As for Mrs. Brent's undertaking and med- dling with your Lordship's estate here. ... we do verily believe and in conscience report that it was better, for the colony's safety at that time, in her hands than in any man's else in the whole province after your brother's death. [261 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING For the soldiers would never have treated any other with that civility and respect, and though they were even ready at several times to run into mutiny yet she still pacified them, till at the last things were brought to that strait that she must be admitted and declared your Lordship's attorney by an order of court (the copy whereof is herewith enclosed) or else all must go to ruin again, and then the second mischief had been doubtless far greater than the former. So that if there hath not been any sinister use made of your Lordship's estate by her from what it was intimated and engaged for by Mr. Calvert before his death — as we verily believe she hath not — then we con- ceive from that time she rather deserved favor and thanks from your Honor for her so much concurring to the public safety than to be justly liable to all those bitter invectives you have been pleased to express against her." 1 1 " Archives of Maryland," vol. i, pp. 238-239. [27] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA The assemblymen themselves frowned upon her, however, when she appeared before them one day and insisted that, as " his lordship's attorney," she be given vote and voice in the House. As the report of the proceedings puts it, in the quaint phraseology of the time: " The Governor denied that the said Mrs. Brent should have any vote in the House. And the said Mrs. Brent protested against all pro- ceedings in this present Assembly unless she be present and have vote aforesaid." After which, having spoken her mind, " the said Mrs. Brent " turned on her heel, left the as- tounded legislators staring after her, and walked out to resume the management of her extensive interests. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson of Boston was another fervent advocate of woman's rights. She has, for that matter, been called the first American club- woman. But her chief claim to fame rests on the fact that she was the forerunner of an illustrious line of American women to champion [281 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING actively the great cause of freedom of thought and speech. America, it should be remembered, was not always a land of liberty. Though its early settlers were in the main refugees from bigotry and oppression, they did not as a rule bring with them any lively desire to extend to others the toleration which they themselves had been unable to find in the Old World. Rather, they frequently made life most unhappy to any who chanced to differ from them in religious and political convictions. This was particularly true of Massachusetts, where the civil and ecclesiastical authorities joined hands to build up a governmental machine of the most despotic character. Fortunately, the machine had hardly got well in motion before champions of liberty arose to oppose it and to sow in Massachusetts the seeds which were to give such a wonderful harvest to future generations. Prominent among the earliest of these champions of liberty was Mrs. Hutchin- [291 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA son, who settled at Boston with her husband in 1634. From the first she was recognized as an uncommonly gifted woman. Even Governor Winthrop, who became her deadly enemy, ad- mitted that she was " a woman of ready wit and bold spirit." Other leaders of Boston so- ciety, including the famous Sir Henry Vane, were willing captives to the brilliancy of her intellect and the charm of her manner, and liked nothing better than to spend an afternoon at her home at the corner of School and Wash- ington streets. Whatever subject might be brought up for discussion, she was always sure to illumine it with original and piquant com- ment. But her greatest interest was in helping and elevating her own sex, and this eventually led to her undoing. So long as she confined herself to assisting women who were in want, and nursing women who were ill, the authorities raised no objec- tions. But when she began to hold weekly [301 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING meetings to which women alone were admitted, official Boston looked at her askance. It was rumored that theological topics of the most delicate nature were openly debated at these meetings, and that Mrs. Hutchinson was prop- agating most unorthodox views. Taking alarm, the Court determined to investigate her doings, and upon this a pretty storm developed. It was discovered that she did actually hold novel theological opinions; but it was also discovered that she had gained a strong following, including Sir Henry Vane, who was then governor. An attempt to pros- ecute her resulted only in the formation of factions, which attacked one another in noisy controversy. With the defeat of Sir Henry Vane for re- election, and his departure for England, matters took a new turn. Vane's successor, Winthrop, was a bitter anti-Hutchinsonite, and he promptly placed Mrs. Hutchinson on trial as a person " not fit for our society." Said he, [31] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA in addressing her at the opening of the trial: ** Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches. You are known to be a woman that hath had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are causes of this trouble, and to be nearly joined not only in aflSnity and af- fection with some of those the court hath taken notice of and passed censure upon, but you have spoken divers things, as we have been informed, very prejudicial to the honor of the churches and ministers thereof; and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the General Assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for your sex; and notwithstanding that was cried down, you have continued the same." She was brought to the bar like any ordinary ■ criminal, and mercilessly bullied and brow- [321 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING beaten. She was denied counsel, and thrown entirely on her own defense, and from the first it was evident that the judges intended de- ciding against her. For some time she parried their questions skilfully, but at last she was trapped into some damaging admissions, and sentence of banishment was at once passed. Accompanied by her faithful husband, the unfortunate woman sought a new home in tolerant Rhode Island; whence, after her husband's death, she removed to a frontier settlement in New York, not far from New Rochelle. There she perished in an Indian massacre. It is said that the news of her fate was received with grim satisfaction by her persecutors. As the implacable Winthrop phrased it, they felt that she had met the just vengeance of God. But there were women who suffered even more severely in behalf of freedom of thought and speech than did Mrs. Hutchinson. In [33] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA 1656 two Quakers, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, were seized upon their arrival in Boston, thrown into prison, starved, stripped naked and searched for witch-marks, and finally shipped to Barbadoes. They were the first representatives in Massachusetts of a sect which claimed liberty of conscience as an in- alienable right of the human race. The cruelty of the reception given them did not deter others from following their example, and before long there was a veritable invasion of apostles of toleration. Converts multiplied all through the colony, while the authorities stood aghast^ rightly believing that if the Quaker ideas prevailed, they would no longer be able to rule with the iron hand of absolutism. Accordingly, they enacted a series of drastic laws, culmina- ting in one decreeing the death penalty to any Quaker who, having once been banished, should venture again into Massachusetts. Among the stanchest supporters of Mrs. Hutchinson had been a young Boston matron [341 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING named Mary Dyer and her husband, William Dyer. When the Hutchinsons took refuge in Rhode Island, the Dyers followed them, set- tling at Newport, where they soon became people of consequence. Some years later Mrs. Dyer, who is reported to have been of a " wonderful sweet and pleasant discourse, having a pier- cing knowledge in many things," made a long visit in England. While there she became a convert to Quakerism, and on returning to America by way of Boston was thrown into prison for this heinous crime. In vain she ex- plained to the Boston magistrates that she was simply passing through Massachusetts. They would not release her until her husband, who was not a Quaker, arrived from Rhode Island and promised to take her home and allow her to speak to no one until the Massachusetts boundary had been reached. This was in 1657. Two years later she was found visiting some Quaker prisoners in Boston, and this time she was formally banished with a [35] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA warning that did she return the hanging law would be enforced against her. " That is a cruel law," said she, " and ought to be repealed." Within a month she was back in Boston to demand fair treatment for the Quakers, two of whom were lying under sentence of death. Her own imprisonment quickly followed, and then came a short and speedy trial. " Mary Dyer," Governor Endicott told her sternly, " you shall go hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and there be hanged until you be dead." " The will of the Lord be done," was all she said. " Yea, and joyfully I go." In the interval between her condemnation and the day set for her execution she main- tained the same spirit of calm fortitude, and spent part of her time in writing an " Appeal to the General Court in Boston " for the re- mission not of the death sentence passed on [361 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING her but of that previously passed on her two fellow-sufferers. This document may well be quoted in part, both because of its historical importance and because of the impressive light it throws on the beautiful character of hapless Mary Dyer. " Whereas," it began, " I am by many charged with the guiltiness of my own blood; if you mean, in my coming to Boston, I am therein clear and justified by the Lord, in whose will I came, who will require my blood of you, be sure, who have made a law to take away the lives of the innocent servants of God, if they come among you, who are called by you, 'Cursed Quakers;' altho' I say — and am a living witness for them and the Lord — that He hath blessed them, and sent them unto you. Therefore be not found fighters against God, but let my counsel and request be ac- cepted with you, to repeal all such laws, that the Truth and servants of the Lord may have free passage among you, and you be kept from [37] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA shedding innocent blood, which I know there are many among you would not do, if they knew it so to be. Nor can the Enemy that stirreth you up thus to destroy this Holy Seed, in any measure countervail the great damage that you will by thus doing procure. Therefore, seeing the Lord hath not hid it from me, it lyeth upon me, in love to your souls, thus to persuade you. " I have no self -ends, the Lord knoweth, for if my life were freely granted by you, it would not avail me, nor could I accept it of you, so long as I should daily hear or see the sufferings of these people, my dear Brethren and Seed, with whom my life is bound up, as I have done these two years. . . . Wo is me for you! Of whom take you counsel? Search with the Light of Christ in ye, and it will show you of whom, as it hath done me and many more, who have been disobedient and deceived, as now you are; which Light, as you come into, and obeying what is made manifest to you therein, you will [381 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING not repent that you were kept from shedding blood, tho* it were by a woman. It's not mine own life I seek (for I chuse rather to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Egypt) but the life of the Seed, which I know the Lord hath blessed; and therefore seeks the Enemy thus vehemently the life thereof to destroy, as in all ages he ever did. " Oh, hearken not unto him, I beseech you, for the Seed's sake, which is one in all, and is dear in the sight of God; which they that touch, touch the apple of His eye, and cannot escape his wrath. ... In love and in the spirit of meekness I again beseech you, for I have no enmity to the persons of any; but you shall know that God will not be mocked, but what you sow that shall you reap from Him, that will render to everyone according to the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil." ^ The influence of this appeal on those to 1 George Bishop's " New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord," pp. 288-292. [39] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA whom it was addressed was absolutely nil. But public opinion was fast becoming aroused by the persecution of the Quakers, and even the bigoted Endicott shrank from executing the death sentence against a woman. With a refinement of cruelty, however, it was resolved to reprieve Mrs. Dyer only at the last moment. Under a strong military guard, detailed lest a rescue might be attempted, she and the two men previously sentenced were taken to Boston Common, where the gallows had been erected. One after the other her companions were ex- ecuted before her eyes; the rope was adjusted to her neck, and she began to ascend the fatal ladder. Then, and not till then, was she told that it was not intended she should die. Carried back to jail, she learned that the reprieve was contingent on her consenting to leave Massachusetts and promising to stay out of it. In simple but eloquent language she refused. " My life," said she, " is not accepted, [401 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING neither availeth me, in comparison with the lives and liberty of the Truth and servants of the living God, for which in the bowels of love and meekness I sought you; yet nevertheless, with wicked hands have you put two of them to death, which makes me to feel that the mercies of the wicked is cruelty. I rather chuse to dye than to live, as from you, as guilty of their innocent blood." ^ Now, however, the authorities had only the one thought of getting her off their hands. Despite her protests she was hurried from Boston and escorted into Rhode Island. For a few months nothing more was heard from her. Then, having definitely made up her mind that it was the Lord's will she should combat even unto death the cruel persecution of her fellow-religionists, she once more came to Boston, once more was arrested, and once more sentenced to die. This time, Endicott assured her, the sentence would be carried out. 1 Bishop's " New England," p. 311. [41] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " Listen, then," said she, " I came in obedi- ence to the will of God the last General Court, desiring thee to repeal thy unrighteous laws of banishment on pain of death; and that same is my work now and earnest request." " Away with her, away with her," com- manded Endicott. Again, as she stood at the foot of the ladder, she was told that she might yet save herself by promising to go home and to remain there. " Nay, I cannot. For in obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I abide faithful to the death." Without a tremor she stepped up the ladder, rung by rung. A great hush among the crowd, a quick motion of the executioner's hand, and her last moment had come. It is many a day since Mary Dyer, martyr of liberty, met her doom on Boston Common — many a day since Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Brent, Hannah Duston, Mary Rowlandson, and all other of the worthy women of early [421 IN THE TIME OF THE FOUNDING America passed across the stage of life. But the lessons they taught and the works they wrought have never ceased to influence for good the heart and thought of the nation. [43] CHAPTER II LATER COLONIAL BELLES AND HOUSEWIVES THERE is no period in the history of the United States about which so Httle is known as the first half of the eighteenth century. Until quite recently the general historian has never pretended to describe it in detail, but has passed rapidly from the picturesque and romantic time of the founding to the impress- ive era of the Revolution. Yet, as modern in- vestigators are beginning to make very clear, it is a period of vital interest and significance. It witnessed a really remarkable cultural and intellectual development — a breaking away from the crudities and austerities of the early colonization, and the upbuilding of a social structure which foreshadowed the distinctive traits of American society to-day. [441 LATER COLONIAL BELLES Politically, it was marked by many occur- rences and movements of profound importance when viewed in the light of later events. On the economic side, conspicuous changes took place, chief among which was the extension of the area of cultivation and settlement from the coastal country to the edge of the rock- rimmed Mississippi Basin. In a word, the so- called forgotten half-century was a period of preparation, a period wherein the road was cleared for the advent of the mighty nation of the future. And just as she had played a striking part in the foundation-laying of the previous century, so did the American woman contribute in many and various ways to this clearing of the road. Not the least of her contributions, and cer- tainly the most fascinating to her latter-day descendants who fondly piece together the scattered records of her doings, is the insistence with which she emphasized the lighter side of life. Protest though they might, and did, [451 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA such frowning citadels of asceticism as Boston and Philadelphia were forced to follow the lead of more liberal communities and surrender to her demand for gaiety and entertainment. In all the larger centers of population bright raiment replaced the sober garb of former times. As early as 1704 a traveler recorded that the Englishwomen of New York " go very fashion- able in their dress," while the Dutchwomen " set out their ears with jewels of a large size and many in number." . The century was still young when the tin- kling spinet, that curious forerunner of our modern piano, made its way across the Atlantic and into the homes of the well-to-do. By 1712 teachers of spinet-playing found it profitable to follow their profession even in the stanchest stronghold of Puritanism, and not many years afterward dancing-masters boldly advertised for patrons in the city of William Penn. In- deed, the famous Philadelphia Dancing Assem- bly was founded as long ago as 1719, when [461 LATER COLONIAL BELLES Governor Hamilton led off with the mayor's wife in the first dance of that historic series of subscription balls. Concert-going, sleigh- riding, tea-parties, and " turtle frolics " — much like the clambakes and lobster-bakes of to-day — were other popular diversions of the eighteenth century belles and beaux of the North. In Philadelphia fishing-parties constituted a special form of social amusement, as we learn from the mid-century traveler, Andrew Bur- naby. " There is," he notes, " a society of sixteen ladies and as many gentlemen called the Fish- ing Company, who meet once a fortnight upon the Schuylkill. They have a very pleasant room erected in a romantic situation upon the banks of that river where they generally dine and drink tea. There are several pretty walks about it, and some wild and rugged rocks which, together with the water and fine groves that adorn the banks, form a most beautiful [47] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA and picturesque scene. There are boats and fishing tackle of all sorts, and the company divert themselves with walking, fishing, going up the water, dancing, singing, conversing, or just as they please. The ladies wear a uniform and appear with great ease and advantage from the neatness and simplicity of it. The first and most distinguished people of the colony are of this society; and it is very advantageous to a stranger to be introduced to it, as he hereby gets acquainted with the best and most respectable company in Philadelphia." Of New York society the same observer records : " The women are handsome and agreeable, though rather more reserved than the Phila- delphia ladies. Their amusements are much the same as in Pennsylvania — viz, balls and sleighing expeditions in the winter, and in the summer going in parties upon the water and fishing; or making excursions into the country. There are several houses pleasantly situated [48] LATER COLONIAL BELLES upon East River, near New York, where it is common to have turtle feasts; these happen once or twice in a week. Thirty or forty gentle- men and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in the afternoon, fish and amuse themselves till evening, and then return home in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in each chaise." Another traveler of the same period gives us this contrasting view of the amusements of the social leaders of Boston, where dancing and similar forms of recreation made headway slowly : " For their domestic amusements every after- noon after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from there adjourn to one another's house to spend the evening, those that are not disposed to attend the evening lecture, which they may do if they please six nights in the seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green common adjoining to the south-east side of the town. The government being in the hands of dissenters [491 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA they don't admit of plays or music houses; but of late they have set up an assembly to which some of the ladies resort. But they are looked upon to be none of the nicest, in regard to their reputation, and it is thought it will be soon suppressed, for it is much taken notice of and exploded by the religious and other part of the people. But notwithstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here, they don't be dispirited or moped for the want of them, for both the ladies and gentlemen dress and appear as gay in common as courtiers in England on a coronation or birthday." In the South, where the people were settled on vast plantations rather than in compact communities, there was not such frequent op- portunity for intercourse. But, once the first difficulties of colonization were overcome, a brilliant social life speedily developed. As in the North, dancing was a favorite recreation, both on the plantations and in the towns. So, too, was card-playing, as we are reminded [501 LATER COLONIAL BELLES by William Black's all-too-brief description of a government ball which he attended at Annapolis in 1744. It was held in the council- chamber, and Black reports that in a back room " those that was not engaged in any dancing match might better employ them- selves at cards, dice, backgammon, or with a cheerful glass." The planters when at home kept open house, dispensing hospitality with a lavish hand, while their wives and daughters, in silks and satins and brocades, greeted the coming and sped the parting guest with all the graciousness of a cultured womanhood. Weddings were made the occasion of prolonged and notable festivities, and race-meets early became a feature of Southern life, especially in the Old Dominion. All this, of course, was bitterly denounced by the severer type of moralists, who rightly held the women of the colonies chiefly respon- sible for the revolt against the former order [51] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of things. But, as we of the present can see clearly enough, the change was for the better. It meant the creation of an atmosphere of refinement and moral and intellectual freedom. It encouraged the growth of cheerfulness and contentment in a country where life was still in many ways hard and savage and depressing. Thus it was an important element in preparing and equipping the people for the great struggle that was to be the paramount fact of the second half of the century. In fact, it was directly productive of leadership for that struggle, as is shown by the number of Revolutionary he- roes born of mothers who delighted in manners and customs at which even to-day the puritan- ically minded look askance. Let us make no mistake. The Puritan point of view was, and is, of the greatest value to the Republic. But so is the capacity for enjoying the little things of life, so long as it does not de- generate into mere frivolity. And the eighteenth century girls and matrons, who glided through [52] LATER COLONIAL BELLES the graceful minuet, went gaily on sleigh-rides and turtle frolics, or cheered the victory of some favorite horse, were assuredly not frivolous. It needs only a hasty reading of contempo- rary letters and memoirs, our main reliance for the social history of the period, to appreciate their essential earnestness and seriousness. They were the best of housewives, and almost invariably superintended in person the prep- aration of the dainty dishes set forth at wedding- feast and dance-supper. The beautiful gar- ments in which they look down at us from the pictured canvas on the wall, were often fash- ioned by their own hands. If, as in the South and on the forgotten plantations of Rhode Island, they were the mistresses of noble man- sions and of a small army of dependents, they keenly appreciated the duties as well as the privileges which this entailed. They cheerfully looked after the manifold affairs of household management, taught their servants and slaves the domestic sciences, and were untiring in [531 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA works of charity. To their children they were always the best of mothers. Nothing can illustrate more clearly the spirit prevailing among the women who moved in the " fashionable " circles of eighteenth century America than the story of Eliza Lucas Pinck- ney, the mother of Thomas and Charles Cotes- worth Pinckney of Revolutionary renown. Mrs. Pinckney ^ was the daughter of Colonel George Lucas, an English officer who, about 1738, settled near Charleston in one of those magnificent South Carolina plantation homes of which Drayton Hall is a surviving example. He had hoped to pass his days in peaceful and prosperous retirement, but when war broke out between England and Spain he was ordered on active service, and was obliged to sail hur- riedly for the West Indies, leaving his young daughter in charge of his Carolina interests. 1 The life story of Mrs. Pinckney is told in detail by Mrs. H. H. Ravenel in "Eliza Pinckney," an admirable little biography. [54] LATER COLONIAL BELLES Although not more than sixteen or seventeen years old, and of a lively and fun-loving dis- position, the little Eliza rose splendidly to the occasion. A letter written to a friend not long after her father's departure gives a vivid glimpse of the way in which she appreciated the responsibility thrust upon her. " I have a little library," she writes, " in which I spend part of my time. My music and the garden, which I am very fond of, take up the rest that is not employed in business, of which my father has left me a pretty good share; and indeed 'twas unavoidable, as my mama's bad state of health prevents her going thro' any fatigue. I have the business of three plantations to transact, which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine. But lest you should imagine it to be burdensome to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to assure you that I think myself happy that I can be useful to so good a father." [55] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Any hope that Colonel Lucas would soon return to America was dispelled by his ap- pointment as governor of Antigua, and the temporary stewardship which his daughter had so cheerfully undertaken thus became a stew- ardship of years. But instead of complaining or shirking her duties, she enthusiastically gave herself ^to the task of developing the plantations along not merely profitable but also novel lines, embarking on a series of agricultural experiments unlike any formerly attempted in South Carolina. At her request, her father sent her the seeds of indigo, ginger, and other tropical plants, which she cultivated with remarkable success. Moreover, she freely distributed seed to other planters who wished to carry on similar experiments, and in this way she actually became the founder of a new agricultural regime, the cultivation of indigo for export proving so remunerative that it was soon a staple product of the South. The growing of flax and hemp, and, at a [561 LATER COLONIAL BELLES later period, the development of a silk industry, were other activities of the tireless IViiss Lucas. And that she was not only extremely diligent but exceedingly far-sighted is strikingly evi- denced by the fact that she laid out an entire plantation in oaks, in anticipation of the time when the colonies would need more ships and would turn to ship-building themselves. Thus her days were spent largely in the open, and in occupations usually left to men. But, as her correspondence proves, she lost none of her early fondness for books and music. Her letters also abound in references to " festal days " at Drayton Hall, and other of the man- sions on the Ashley. She was a frequent vis- itor to Charleston, and always a welcome guest in the town houses of such social leaders as the Middletons and the Pinckneys. It was there that she made the acquaintance of her future husband. Chief Justice Pinckney, whose sudden death in 1758 left her a widow at the early age of thirty-six, with three small [571 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA children to care for, and several plantations to manage. As in her girlhood, she showed her- self equal to the emergency. Even while still " bitterly oppressed with grief " she began to plan for the future of her little ones, and just as she had labored for her father's interests, so now she labored for theirs. Not until her sons had grown to manhood did her vigilance and diligence relax. Passing imperceptibly into a gentle old age, she still made her influence felt. And when she died — nearly twenty years after the American colonies had become a free and independent nation — wide was the circle that mourned her loss. Washington, we are told, and it is pleas- ant to believe, paid his tribute to this noble American mother by begging to be one of those who should have the privilege of bearing her to her last resting-place. In every colony were to be found women like Eliza Lucas Pinckney — possessed of the ad- vantages of wealth and position, ardent, light- [581 n "" — ^^ " ■ ■..A • «ast^ i*^ ^rX.-: Z;!^^^^ ^ ■■'' V ' ^"^^^^ M '":■ ♦- _v • > -:dfe. : v^^^^i ^B 't ^i'-i^^^ ^iS "^'-'-^ . ■ : i •■.'>,.'_;' *;^i.«^»^ ^^^^^^^ '0^Wi ^•v^ ^^3 iSslSs^^'-^ 1 , m3\ ^^rtl:!;if. «■■ •■Sgi*- ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^'"^"1 ^■1 31 ■ • ' ' .il'lifi'^' , . ^vf^ ^^,;^: ^ l;:#g ■l^^^ ^^^£M ' .'": V;.Jr"^ , Is^^S m^^'^'' i'~ • ^p-^"^jfc^ ^^^^^^& M: ': ~- :* j^^m ^:^ — ^ p ms>y^wmm BMt ' !Sv' 'i^^m^m in^m^'- «*.§•.- ^ ;:3 aE- ^ ' if vr ■- LATER COLONIAL BELLES hearted, high-spirited, but right-minded and earnest and brave. They were women of fine ideals and fine achievement. Even when their dreams did not come true, when fate was adverse to them, they left traditions that have powerfully, however unconsciously, influenced the thought and conduct of posterity. I am reminded of the tragic tale of Hannah Robinson,^ which I heard for the first time in the shadow of her old home overlooking the waters of Narragansett Bay. She was the daughter of a typical Rhode Island planter, Rowland Robinson, whose ample acres in- cluded much of the country round about the present village of Saunderstown. It was, like the South, a region of vast estates, landed gentry, and slave labor. To-day it has to a considerable extent relapsed into wilderness, but at that time it was the scene of a picturesque 1 This account follows the version given in W. Updike's " History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett " (edition of 1847). [591 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA social activity, with a constant coming and going between the plantations, and an abundance of hunting, feasting, and dan- cing. Into this gay life Hannah Robinson was intro- duced at an early age, to be instantly acclaimed the reigning belle of Narragansett, and be- sieged by a throng of eager suitors. Her father, who had set his heart on marrying her into one of the great families of the neighborhood, saw with delight the popularity of his beautiful and talented daughter, and spared no pains to impress on her the desirability of making a brilliant match. It then developed, to his horrified amazement, that she had already secretly plighted her troth to a young and ob- scure Newport man named Simons, whom she had met at a dancing-school. " Look you, father," said she, calmly, in answer to his torrent of furious protestation, ** you need not storm. He may not be a rich man, but he is a good man, and nothing will [60] LATER COLONIAL BELLES induce me to break the vow I have taken, or to betray the faith he has placed in me. Then began a bitter persecution. Deter- mined that she should neither see nor com- municate with her lover, the irate Rowland Robinson kept a constant watch on his daughter. If she took a walk or a ride, a slave was sent to follow her. Did she wish to visit friends, permission was given only after it had been made absolutely certain that Simons would have no opportunity of meeting her. Once, the story goes, after she had started on a journey to New London, her father chanced to spy from an upper window a vessel sailing from Newport. Though he had no knowledge of its destination, he immediately imagined that it was bound for New London, and that Simons was one of its passengers. Rushing down-stairs, he called for a horse, galloped post-haste after his daughter, and compelled her instant return. 161] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA For all of this, the lovers managed to outwit him, sometimes meeting even on the Robinson grounds, and renewing their pledges in the peaceful shelter of the dense shrubbery about the house. And, so soon as the long strain began to tell on the fair Hannah's health, they found allies among her relatives, particularly in an uncle. Colonel Gardiner, who bluntly informed Rowland Robinson that he had the option between seeing his daughter die by inches or allowing her to wed the man of her choice. But the grim old planter only squared his jaw, and increased the rigor of his oppo- sition. Convinced at last that she need never hope to gain his consent, the unhappy girl yielded to her sweetheart's pleadings for an elopement. Under the pretext of visiting an aunt at Wick- ford, she met him there, leaped into a carriage with him, and galloped off to Providence, while her body-servant looked on aghast, para- lyzed by the thought of the reception awaiting [62] LATER COLONIAL BELLES him when he returned to the Robinson house without his mistress. As they drove madly along the Providence road that pleasant afternoon, the lovers doubt- less planned the good old-fashioned ending to their romance. But fortune had decreed other- wise. At news of the elopement and subse- quent marriage, which took place that same evening, Rowland Robinson was seized with an insane fury, vowed never to forgive his daughter, and threatened Simons with a fearful vengeance. Given a timely warning, the young couple went into hiding, and for a few brief months enjoyed the happiness of which they had dreamed. Then, worn out by prolonged anx- iety and grief at her father's bitter attitude, the winsome Hannah fell a victim to the dread malady of the hectic flush and the racking cough — that terrible scourge of modern civil- ization. Day by day she grew weaker, and as the disease progressed she begged pitifully [63] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA to be allowed to die in the home of her child- hood. Only when it was too late, did old Rowland relent. On a litter borne by four weeping slaves she was carried back to the beautiful Narragansett country, to take a last fond look at its well-remembered scenes, and in a little while to find repose amid its verdant fields. This was many, many years ago, but even to-day the sturdy farmers and weather-beaten fisherf oik, who dwell in the land of the vanished planters, cherish the memory of the " unfortu- nate Hannah Robinson." From generation to generation they have handed her history down, as the precious and inspiring record of one who cheerfully sacrificed life itself for the sake of love.^ ^ It is only fair to say that there is another version of the story, and one far more favorable to Rowland Robinson. According to this account, the latter was justified in his op- position to the marriage, as Simons was a worthless scamp, whose treatment of her broke his wife's heart. And her father, instead of refusing to receive her, went to her so soon as he learned of her desperate condition, and brought her home, where she died the night after her return. [64] LATER COLONIAL BELLES Of course, there were other phases in the history of the forgotten half-century than those which I have described. If it was a period in which the advantages that go with wealth be- gan to make themselves felt, it was also a period of difficulty, struggle, and hardship. As in the time of the founding, there was a constant pioneering movement, a perpetual advance into the wilderness. In this not only the English but colonists of many nationalities took part — men and women who, like the Pilgrims and Puritans before them, were refugees from re- ligious and political oppression. Huguenots from France, Palatines from Germany, High- landers from Scotland, and Scotch-Irish by the thousand, united to swell the steadily rising tide of immigration. Coming for precisely the same object that had actuated the English pioneers of the seven- teenth century — to make permanent homes for themselves in the New World — the later arrivals boldly struck into the unoccupied [65] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA lands of the interior, planting their settlements chiefly in the foot-hill region of the Alleghanies, then known as the " back country " of Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. It was the beginning — though none realized it at the time — of that westward movement which was eventually to carry the American people to the shores of the Pacific; and, as in the case of each successive forward step, it was attended by many dangers and difficul- ties. What it meant to the home-seekers them- selves — the discomforts they underwent, the perils imaginary and real by which their cour- age was tried — is well exhibited in an account written by Robert Wither spoon, who emi- grated from Ireland with his father's family in 1734 and settled in inland South Carolina, where some relatives had preceded them two years earlier. After describing the hardships of the trans-Atlantic voyage, which was more then two months in duration, owing to severe [661 LATER COLONIAL BELLES storms and the general unseaworthiness of their ship, Wither spoon relates: " We landed in Charleston three weeks be- fore Christmas, and found the inhabitants very kind. We staid in town until after Christ- mas, and were then put on board of an open boat, with tools and a year's provisions. . . . The provisions were Indian corn, rice, wheaten flour, beef, pork, rum, and salt. We were much distressed in this part of our passage. As it was the dead of winter, we were exposed to the inclemency of the weather day and night; and (which added to the grief of all pious persons on board) the atheistical and blas- phemous mouths of our patroons and the other hands. They brought us up as far as Potatoe Ferry and turned us on shore, where we lay in Samuel Commander's barn for some time, and the boat wrought her way up to the ' King's Tree ' with the goods and provisions, which is the first boat that I believe ever came up so high before. [67] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " While we lay at Mr. Commander's our men came up in order to get dirt houses to take their families to. . . . What help they could get from the few inhabitants in order to carry the children and other neces- saries up they availed themselves of. As the woods were full of water, and most severe frosts, it was very severe on women and chil- dren. . . . When we came to the BlufiF, my mother and we children were still in expecta- tion that we were coming to an agreeable place. But when we arrived and saw nothing but a wilderness, and instead of a fine timbered house nothing but a mere dirt house, our spirits quite sank; and what added to our trouble our pilot left us when we came in sight of the place. " My father gave us all the comfort he could by telling us we could get all those trees cut down, and in a short time there would be plenty of inhabitants, so that we could see from house to house. While we were at this, our fire we [68] LATER COLONIAL BELLES brought from Bog Swamp went out. Father had heard that up the river swamp was the ' King's Tree.' Although there was no path, neither did he know the distance, yet he fol- lowed up the swamp until he came to the branch, and by that found Roger Gordon's. We watched him as far as the trees would let us see, and returned to our dolorous hut, expecting never to see him or any human person more. But after some time he returned and brought fire. " We were soon comforted, but evening coming on the wolves began to howl on all sides. We then feared being devoured by wild beasts, having neither gun nor dog nor any door to our house. Howbeit we set to and gathered fuel, and made a good fire, and so passed the first night. The next day being a clear warm morning, we began to stir about, but about mid-day there rose a cloud southwest attended with a high wind, thunder and lightning. The rain quickly penetrated through between the poles and brought down the sand that covered [69] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA them over, which seemed to threaten to bury us aHve. The hghtning and claps were very awful and lasted a good space of time. I do not remember to have seen a much severer gust than that was. I believe we all sincerely wished ourselves again at Belfast. But this fright was soon over, and the evening cleared up, comfortable and warm. " The boat that brought up the goods arrived at the ' King's Tree.' People were much oppressed in bringing their things, as there was no horse there. They were obliged to toil hard, and had no other way but to convey their beds, clothing, chests, provi- sions, tools, pots, etc., on their backs. And at that time there were few or no roads, and every family had to travel the best way they could. . . . We had a great deal of trouble and hardships in our settling, but the few in- habitants continued still in health and strength. Yet we were oppressed with fears on divers accounts, especially of being massacred by the [701 LATER COLONIAL BELLES Indians, or bitten by snakes, or torn by wild beasts, or being lost and perishing in the woods. Of this last calamity there were three in- stances." ^ From the first this migration into the dense, untraveled wastes of the Alleghany foot-hills bred a race of heroes — and of heroines. Cour- age, self-reliance, and the spirit of initiative were by no means confined to the men who in those painful years of the mid-eighteenth century conquered the forests and invaded the mountains. Frenchwoman and German, Scotchwoman and Irish lass, all played a won- derful role. Often they set brilliant examples of individual courage and hardihood. Thus, Christine Zellers, the wife of a German immigrant who, in 1745, settled near Lebanon in Pennsylvania, is credited with having planned and superintended the construction of a fort, or " house of refuge," built to protect the col- ^ C. A, Hanna's " The Scotch-Irish in America," vol. ii, pp. 26-28. [71] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA onists of the vicinity. She is also the heroine of a piquant tale of Indian adventure. One day, when the settlers were at work in the fields, the fort was raided by a band of red men, who fancied that it was unoccupied and that they could plunder it at their leisure. Mrs. Zellers was quite alone at the time, but instead of calling for help, she calmly picked up an ax and awaited the entrance of the in- truders. Luckily for her, instead of attempting to break through the door, which was stoutly bolted, they decided to climb in by an open window. The first to show himself was felled with a blow that brought instant death. A second was served in like fashion, and so was a third. Believing that the fort was strongly garrisoned after all, the rest now fled in terror, leaving the victorious Mrs. Zellers at liberty to throw down her blood-stained ax and return to the household duties which their coming had interrupted. The Indian was, indeed, a still greater menace [721 OLD INDIAN FORT NEAR NEWMANSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA. Page 72. LATER COLONIAL BELLES to the settlers of the inland hills and valleys than he had been to the early colonists of the tide- water region. And for the reason that, be- ginning in 1689 and continuing more than sev- enty years, he was systematically incited to attack by the authorities of New France, who rightly feared that, unless checked, the people of the English colonies would in time overflow into the fertile Mississippi Valley, to which the French laid claim. Throughout the forgotten half-century, and even after the conquest of Canada, the Ameri- can border north and south was harried by Indian war-parties. It is impossible to say how many lives were sacrificed in this cruel conflict, how many peaceful settlements blotted out. But it is certain that, for all his cunning and savagery, the red man was unable to terror- ize the people of the frontier into abandoning their foothold in the wilderness. When the storm was most severe, the colo- nists might, it is true, bend before it, and seek [73] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA refuge among the more populous settlements nearer the sea. But always they returned to rebuild their ruined homes, and assume once more their task of extending the limits of civil- ization. Always they mocked at the buffetings of fate, and faced the future with sublime hope and confidence. True of the men, this was fully as true of the women. There are many narratives that might be told to illustrate their unfailing op- timism under the most discouraging circum- stances. As impressive as any is the tale of Mrs. Hannah Dennis's escape from captivity among the Ohio Indians.^ In its way, her achievement was no less remarkable than that of the more celebrated Mrs. Hannah Duston of early days. Mrs. Dennis was the wife of Joseph Dennis, a settler who came to Virginia about the middle of the eighteenth century, and built a home 1 A. S. Withers's " Chronicles of Border Warfare " (Edi- tion of 1831). [74] LATER COLONIAL BELLES in the beautiful but at that time sparsely settled region around the headwaters of the James River. Hither, shortly before the sign- ing of the treaty which brought to a close the long war between the English colonists and the French and their Indian allies, came a band of Shawnees, who passed with great ra- pidity from farm to farm, and left behind them a trail of blood and ashes. The Dennis homestead was among those ravaged, Mr. Dennis and their only child being slain, and Mrs. Dennis taken prisoner and forced to accompany the Indians on the hard journey to their distant village in Ohio. From the first her mind was busy plotting means of escape, but she soon realized that escape would be impossible unless she found a way of inducing the Indians to relax the vigilant watch they kept over her. To this end, she pretended that she had lost all desire to rejoin her kindred across the moun- tains. She learned the Indian language, dressed [75] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA in Indian garb, and painted herself like any squaw. Still her captors remained suspicious. She then resolved to work on their superstitious terrors, and one day proclaimed that she had acquired magical powers and could heal the sick. A few lucky cures, brought about by the use of simple herbs, worked a complete change in the attitude of the Indians. They no longer kept her under a close guard, but permitted her to roam at will, in search of the herbs which she told them were essential for her " incan- tations." At first, fearing that they might be secretly spying on her, Mrs. Dennis was careful to re- turn to the village every evening. But at last, nearly two years after her captivity had begun, she felt satisfied that she had completely lulled suspicion, and that the time had come to make her bid for freedom. One beautiful June morning she left the village as usual, waving a gay farewell to its inhab- itants. Between her and " home " stretched [761 LATER COLONIAL BELLES hundreds of miles of wilderness. Pursuit, she knew, would be swift and certain; and she was confronted besides with the risk of death in many forms. Yet she did not for an instant lose hope. With a cunning born of long contact with the savages, her first care was to " break " her trail as much as possible; and for this purpose she three times crossed the Scioto River, on which the Indian village was located. Early in the morning of the next day, when she was about to cross the river for the fourth time, she heard exultant shouts on the other side, and, looking up, saw a group of warriors awaiting her. As she turned to flee, she slipped on a stone and fell, cutting her foot badly; at the same moment the Indians fired, but not a bullet so much as grazed her. Plunging into the undergrowth, her quick eye espied a huge, hollow sycamore, and into this she hastily crawled. For hours her pursuers searched through the surrounding forest, and, as she [77] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA afterward related, were often within touching distance of her. Finally, satisfied that she had eluded them, they gave over the hunt and started for the Ohio, thinking to intercept her when she reached its banks. For three days Mrs. Dennis remained hidden in the sycamore, coming out only to seek food and dress her wounded foot. Then, already greatly exhausted but courageous and hopeful as ever, she once more started on her flight. Traveling only at night, she reached the Ohio in safety, and succeeded in crossing it with the aid of a log of driftwood. Thereafter she had comparatively little fear of recapture by the Indians, but she still had to cope with many perils, of whicli starvation was not the least, as she had been able to bring no supplies with her. Herbs, roots, green grapes, wild cherries — such was the food on which she lived for almost three weeks, and not merely lived but contrived to make head- way in her long pilgrimage. Always, however, [781 LATER COLONIAL BELLES her steps grew more feeble; but always she struggled on, confident that she would reach her journey's end. And her confidence was not misplaced. Dragging herself wearily along, a pitiful shadow of the sturdy woman who had so bravely set out from the Indian village in the far-away Ohio country, she one morning heard the wel- come sound of English voices. It was a party of settlers who had gone into the wilderness to hunt. Joyfully she called to them, and tenderly they cared for her when they heard her pathetic story. A little later and, strengthened and re- freshed, she was again among friends who had long mourned her as dead. Now, Hannah Dennis was an exceptional woman only in so far as she proved herself equal to an exceptional test. All over the coun- try — in the cities and towns of the North, on the plantations of the South, and among the rude settlements of the far-reaching frontier — were women who, in their own way, were as [79] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA buoyant, determined, and resourceful. These women, of every section and every walk in life, were the mothers of the men who won the American Revolution. It is surely unnecessary to point out that the sons of such mothers could not but be good fighters. [80 CHAPTER III THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION THE American woman of colonial times, as we have already seen, was conspicuous for many notable characteristics. She was pre- eminently courageous and resourceful, able to depend on herself and think for herself. Whether in the older communities along the Atlantic, or among the straggling settlements of the mountain frontier, she displayed a won- derful readiness in adapting herself to condi- tions, and in meeting emergencies. There was no peril which she did not face dauntlessly, no obstacle she deemed too great to be over- come. If occasion demanded, as was often the case, she did not shrink from tasks and dan- gers usually falling to men. And, for all her hardihood and energy, she remained essentially [811 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA womanly, finding her chief interest in her home, her husband, and her children. It was for them she toiled and sacrificed, directing her every effort to the upbuilding and preservation of a happy home life. All these traits became manifest in the Ameri- can woman at a very early date, and with the passage of time they were accentuated rather than diminished. The truth of this is strikingly shown by the course she pursued during the great struggle which ended only with the com- plete separation of the colonies from the mother country, and the establishment of the free and independent United States of America. From the first mutterings of the approaching storm, women were quick to urge their hus- bands and sons to oppose vigorously the slight- est infringement of what they held to be their rights. Women were enthusiastic supporters of the early measures of resistance — non-im- portation agreements and the like — by which it was hoped to convince the British govern- [82] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION ment of the folly of attempting to impose on the colonists laws not of their own making and contrary to their desire. V In every colony, matrons and maids resumed the old-fashioned industry of making home- spun clothing, and banded themselves into associations to forego, at no matter what per- sonal inconvenience, the use of imported goods. " Liberty tea," brewed of loosestrife, sage, ribwort, strawberry, currant, raspberry, or plantain leaves, became a popular beverage. No discomfort was too great for the women of America to undergo in their effort to help the men prove that England need not expect to do business with her colonies so long as she dealt with them unjustly and oppressively^ And when this usually powerful argument of appeal to the purse failed — when England, instead of yielding gracefully and meeting the colonists in a conciliatory spirit, chose instead to send over troops to dragoon them into sub- mission — the wives and daughters of the [831 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " rebels " were zealous as before in counseling resistance, if need be to the death. Nor did they falter when the gage of battle was actually thrown down — when the news from Lexington, carried by swift riders from colony to colony, announced that war had at last become inevitable. With splendid prompt- ness of decision, they hastened to make ready their men for the fray, to send them forth well- armed, well-clothed, and strengthened by the knowledge that they were leaving at home not weeping and despairing women, but women whose greatest hope was that their loved ones would indeed acquit themselves like men. Typical of the prevailing spirit is a letter written by a Philadelphia lady in the first year of the war, and addressed to a British officer with whom she was well acquainted. In part she wrote to him: " I will tell you what I have done. My only brother I have sent to the camp with my prayers and blessings. I hope he will not dis- [84] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION grace me; I am confident he will behave with honor, and emulate the great examples he has before him; and had I twenty sons and brothers they should go. I have retrenched every superfluous expense in my table and family; tea I have not drunk since last Christmas, nor bought a new cap or gown since your defeat at Lexington; and, what I never did before, have learned to knit, and am now making stockings of American wool for my servants; and this way do I throw in my mite to the public good. " I know this — that as free I can die but once, but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life. I have the pleasure to assure you that these are the sentiments of all my sister Ameri- cans. They have sacrificed assemblies, parties of pleasure, tea drinking and finery, to that great spirit of patriotism that actuates all degrees of people throughout this extensive continent. If these are the sentiments of females, what must glow in the breasts of our husbands, brothers, and sons! They are [851 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA as with one heart determined to die or to be free. . . . Heaven seems to smile on us; for in the memory of man, never were known such quantities of flax, and sheep without number. We are making powder fast, and do not want for ammunition." Many a tale is told ^ of the Spartan spirit shown by the women of the American Revol- ution. Mary Draper, of Dedham, Massachu- setts, at the first call to arms, not only bade her husband hurry to his country's aid, but strapped a knapsack on the back of her son, a lad of six- teen, and thrust a gun into his hands with the remark that, young as he was, America needed him and he must go. In South Carolina, when Judge Gaston's many sons volunteered in a body, Mrs. Katherine Steel, who already had one son in the patriot army, ordered his younger brother to enlist, telling him: " You must go now and fight the battles of our coun- 1 Especially in Mrs. E. F. Ellet's " Women of the American Revolution," from which the above letter is quoted. rsei THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION try with John. It must never be said that old Squire Gaston's boys have done more for the Hberty of their country than the Widow Steel's." Another Revolutionary mother, whose name has faded from recollection, in- sisted that her two young sons volunteer, and when one complained that he had no rifle, she grimly assured him that he would find plenty of spare weapons on the battle-field. It is pleasant to recall, too, the brave words spoken by Mrs. Sidney Berry, of New Jersey. Her home was for a time the headquarters of Washington, and her husband was one of Washington's officers. One morning the order was issued to march to an attack, and to Mrs. Berry's mortification the command of her hus- band's men had to be given to another, as Berry was away from home on some private business. Shortly after the departure of the troops, however, he came galloping up, eagerly inquired which road the soldiers had taken, obtained a fresh mount, and started after them. [871 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA As he rode off, Mrs. Berry threw open an upper window, leaned out, and cried: " Sidney! Sidney! " Back he galloped to receive her parting admonition: " Remember, Sidney, to do your duty. I would rather hear that you were left a corpse on the field than that you had played the part of a coward." Thus, throughout the long years of warfare, the patriot soldiery were spurred to countless deeds of valor by the self-sacrificing devotion of the heroic and liberty-loving women of America. And it was not simply moral support that they received from the women, who la- bored actively in many ways for the suc- cess of the American cause, at times going so far as to fill the warrior's role them- selves. An instance of this occurred at the very be- ginning of the war. After the battle of Lex- ington, when the minutemen of the Massachu- setts-New Hampshire border had started for Boston in response to the appeal for troops, [881 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION a rumor spread that British regulars were ad- vancing to destroy the border towns. Scarcely one able-bodied man was to be found fot miles around, but the women of Groton, Pepperell, and other neighboring places, promptly made it evident that they did not need men to defend them. Meeting in convention, exactly as the men were accustomed to do, they elected a com- mander — Mrs. David Wright, of Pepperell — dressed themselves in suits belonging to their absent husbands, seized whatever arms they could find, and marched to a bridge over the Nashua River between Groton and Pepperell, where they awaited the foe. Luckily rumor, as is so often the case, proved false; no enemy ap- peared, and the day ended without a battle. But before dispersing to their homes, the fair volunteers had the satisfaction of capturing a well-known Tory, who was carrying des- patches to the British authorities at Boston. His despatches they forwarded to the Committee [89] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of Safety, and himself they brought in triumph to Groton as a prisoner. This, of course, was an impromptu affair, as was most of the fighting done by women during the Revolution. Not even the case of the famous " Captain Molly " is exceptional in this respect. She was the wife of a gunner in the patriot army, a young Irishwoman of twenty-two, sturdy, red-haired, and freckled, but handsome nevertheless. Following the army for months, she gave a signal display of bravery at the defense of Fort Clinton, when, her husband having abandoned his gun and joined in the retreat, she took his place and discharged the last cannon fired before the fort fell into the hands of the British. Still more dramatic was her conduct on the field of Monmouth. While carrying a bucket of water to her husband — in fact, when al- most at his side — a shot from the enemy stretched him dead at her feet. With the cry of an enraged tigress, she dropped the bucket, [901 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION seized the rammer from his stiffening fingers, and swore to avenge his death. All through the battle she worked his cannon desperately, to the wondering admiration of her fellow-gun- ners, and the amazement of every officer who chanced to see her. There was at least one woman, however, who regularly enlisted for the war, served in the ranks several months, was seriously wounded, and in the end was given an honorable discharge. This was the Massachusetts heroine, Deborah Sampson. Just what motives led her to don man's clothing and enter the army will in all probability never be known. Patriotism, we may feel sure, was among them, as also a zest for adventure and novelty; for, from her ear- liest youth, she had shown herself uncommonly adventurous and daring. Of humble birth, the daughter of a hard-working fisherman who lost his life at sea while she was still a little girl, Deborah was obliged to earn her own living at a tender age, and found employment as a [91] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA household servant with a Middleboro family. Here she remained until she was eighteen, when, having contrived to pick up a smattering of education, she turned school-teacher for a couple of years. By this time the Revolution was far advanced and all the land was ringing with war's alarms. Deborah — always bold, enterprising, and fear- less — listened breathlessly to the tales of feats at arms performed by the sons of liberty; and secretly longed to strike a blow for her country and for freedom's sake. Out of this longing there gradually grew the resolution to pose as a man and wear a soldier's uniform. One or two preliminary trials in masculine attire — including, it is said, a night excursion to a near-by tavern — convinced her that she would have little difficulty in concealing her sex; and accordingly, late in May, 1782, she sought a recruiting-officer and enlisted for three years under the assumed name of Robert Shurtliffe. [92] DEBORAH SAMPSON. From an old engraving. Page 92. THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION Mustered in at Worcester, she was soon sent to West Point with some fifty other fledgHng soldiers; and from West Point, clad in the picturesque blue and white uniform of the Fourth Massachusetts, she was immediately ordered on scouting duty in the country around New York. None for a moment suspected that the good-looking, lithe, beardless young soldier was a woman. On the contrary, it was felt that one so vigorous and alert was peculiarly qual- ified for the hazardous work of a scout. Thus it came about that, although the last important campaign of the Revolutionary War had been fought before Deborah enlisted, she still found adventures in plenty. On her very first expedition she was badly wounded during a skirmish near Tarrytown between her company and a contingent of Delancy's cavalry. For a skirmish, it was quite a sanguinary affair. Deborah's left-hand neighbor was shot dead at the enemy's second volley, and she herself received a bullet in [93] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the thigh, besides a flesh-wound in the head. Her first thought was that discovery of her sex could no longer be avoided; but, by pretending that the flesh-wound was her only injury, and personally dressing the wound in her thigh, she managed to keep her secret from even the hospital surgeon. Dread of discovery, however, hurried her back into the service long before the thigh wound had properly healed. As she afterward declared: "Had the most hardy soldier been in the condition I was when I left the hospital, he would have been excused from military duty." Fortunately, soon after returning to camp she obtained permission to nurse a sick com- rade, and this gave her opportunity to recu- perate. After which she again went scout- ing — or raiding, to be exact — and displayed great zeal in ferreting out and capturing loyal- ists. Still later, in November of 1782, she took part in Schuyler's expedition against the [94] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION Indians of upper New York, an expedition which sorely taxed both her courage and her strength. Then followed an uneventful winter and spring; in the early summer, a journey to Philadelphia with troops sent for the purpose of repressing the mutinous soldiers who threat- ened to compel Congress at the bayonet's point to pay their arrears of wages; an attack of fever while on duty in Philadelphia, and the long-dreaded discovery that Robert Shurt- liffe was a woman, not a man. Happily for Deborah the discovery was made by a prudent, kind-hearted surgeon named Binney, who instead of noising abroad the sen- sational fact confided it only to the matron of the hospital. Indeed, so soon as Deborah was well enough to be moved she was taken to Doctor Binney's house and shown every kind- ness by him, her secret being guarded so well that ere long she actually found herself in- volved in a love-affair with a Baltimore girl, [95] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA who had fallen a victim to the pseiido Robert Shurtliffe's fascinating ways. This had the effect of increasing Deborah's desire to leave Philadelphia and rejoin her regiment; but, on the eve of her departure, Doctor Binney gave her a letter — addressed to General Patterson, at West Point, whither she was bound — containing the revelation of her sex. Naturally, her discharge from the army speedily followed. Accepting it philo- sophically, though with sincere regret, the re- markable young woman — she was still less than twenty-three years old — laid aside her handsome uniform, returned to Middleboro, and settled down to domestic life, within a few months marrying Benjamin Gannett, of Sharon, where she made her home until her death in 1827.^ From the point of view of concrete helpful- ness in encouraging and stimulating the sol- * A biography of Deborah Sampson under the title of " The Female Review," was published by H. Mann in 1797. f961 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION diers of America, it need hardly be pointed out that Deborah Sampson's bravery counted for extremely little, for the sufficient reason that at the time nobody knew she was a woman. Far greater value attaches to the courage and endurance of a little group of officers' wives who, without taking up arms, exposed them- selves to the horrors of war for the sake of being near and being of aid to their husbands. Bonnie Catharine Greene, wife of General Nathanael Greene, was one of this number, sustaining the hardships of that terrible winter at Valley Forge as cheerfully as, at an earlier day, she had turned her beautiful Rhode Island home into an army hospital. Lucy Knox, who separated from her loyalist rela- tives to share the fortunes of her " rebel " lover, afterward General Henry Knox, was another who graced army headquarters with her genial presence. So, too, was Martha Washington, whose proud boast in after years was that it had been [97] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA her fortune to hear the first gun at the opening and the last at the closing of the most important campaigns of the long war. It would be im- possible, in the space at my command, to give an adequate account of the manifold services rendered to the cause of America by this noble wife of the great commander. Some idea may be gained, however, by glancing at two pic- tures of her life at headquarters, as drawn by women who were brought into intimate contact with her. The first of these sketches was given to Mrs. Washington's biographer, Benson J. Lossing, by a Mrs. Westlake, a resident of the Valley Forge country. " I never in my life," Mrs. Westlake told Lossing, " knew a woman so busy from early morning until late at night as was Lady Wash- ington, providing comforts for the sick soldiers. Every day, excepting Sunday, the wives of officers in camp, and sometimes other women, were invited to Mr. Potts' — Washington's Valley Forge headquarters — to assist her in [98] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION knitting socks, patching garments, and making shirts for the poor soldiers, when materials could be procured. Every fair day she might be seen, with basket in hand, and with a single attendant, going among the huts, seek- ing the keenest and most needy sufferers, and giving all the comforts to them in her power. I sometimes went with her, for I was a stout girl, sixteen years old. On one occasion she went to the hut of a dying sergeant, whose young wife was with him. His case seemed to par- ticularly touch the heart of the good lady, and after she had given him some wholesome food she had prepared with her own hands, she knelt down by his straw pallet and prayed earnestly for him and his wife with her sweet and solemn voice. I shall never forget the scene." No less impressive, in its way, is the viva- cious description given by Mrs. Troupe, of Morristown, of a visit paid to Mrs. Washing- ton when the latter was living with her hus- band in winter quarters at the Arnold Tavern. [99] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " Several of us," said Mrs. Troupe, in re- lating her experience to the wife of the Rev- erend Joseph F. Tuttle, to whom the present generation owes this interesting side-light on Revolutionary history, " several of us thought we would visit Lady Washington, and as she was said to be so grand a lady we thought we must put on our best bibs and bands. So we dressed ourselves in our most elegant ruffles and silks, and were introduced to her ladyship. And don't you think! We found her knitting and with a specked apron on ! She received us very graciously and easily, but after the com- pliments were over she resumed her knitting. There we were without a stitch of work, and sitting in state, but General Washington's lady with her own hands was knitting stockings for herself and husband. " And that was not all. In the afternoon her ladyship took occasion to say, in a way that we could not be offended at, that at this time it was very important that American ladies flOOl THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION should be patterns of industry to their coun- trywomen, because the separation from the mother country will dry up the sources whence many of our comforts have been derived. We must become independent by our determina- tion to do without what we cannot ourselves make. Whilst our husbands and brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be pat- terns of industry." Throughout the country were women who shared to the full this sentiment of Martha Washington's, and as a result the Revolution- ary period was distinctly a time when women toiled at every imaginable sort of task. In all the colonies were women who — like Dorcas Matteson and Anne Aldrich, of Rhode Island — thought nothing of cradling their infants among , the branches of a tree, while they labored in the fields, making hay, harvesting corn, hoeing potatoes, and in many other ways doing the work of their absent farmer husbands who had answered their country's call. [101] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Bertha Louise Colburn, who has made a special study of the part played by New Hamp- shire women in the Revolution/ mentions particularly the wives of James Aiken, of Bed- ford; William Hawkins, of Wilton; Charles Glidden, of Northfield, and George Reid, of Londonderry, as skilful and energetic adminis- trators of their husbands' farms while the latter were at the front. Mrs. Abigail Butler, of Nottingham, managed not only a farm but a tavern during the absence of her husband and two sons, all of whom were in the patriot army. So did Mrs. Abigail Reed, whose hus- band and two oldest sons fought at Bunker Hill and elsewhere. Of another remarkable New Hampshire wife and mother, Mrs. Peter Coffin, of Boscawen, the same investigator reports in more detail: " Mrs. Coffin was a woman of firm convic- tions and intensely patriotic, so when the duty was laid upon tea she put away the few ounces * In The New England Magazine, February, 1912. [1021 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION she had in her caddy, and would not have any of it used until the tax was repealed. " At the time when the men were hurrying away to Ticonderoga, in July, 1777, Mrs. Coffin heard that two soldiers who had been ordered to march the next morning had no shirts. She had a web partially woven in her loom. Seizing her shears, she cut away what she had woven, and sitting up all night, cut and made the two shirts ready for the men in the morning. " Ten days later she gave birth to her fifth child, Thomas, and in a month, at the news of Bennington, her husband, who had been out in the previous campaign, started once more, leaving to her the care of the farm. The wheat was dead-ripe, and the birds were de- vouring it, but how was it to be harvested.? Nearly every able-bodied man in town had hastened to Vermont to drive away the enemy. " Then Mrs. Coffin remembered that Mr. Enoch Little had older boys. So leaving her [103] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA four oldest children under the care of a boy of seven, she took her infant in her arms, mounted her horse, and proceeded towards the cabin of Mr. Little. Three sons were away in the army, and there was left at home only Enoch, a lad of fourteen. " ' He can go,' said Mrs. Little, * but he has no clothes.' " Mrs. Coffin looked at Enoch, clad in worn tow-and-linsey trousers and ragged shirt. " ' I can provide him with a coat,' she said. " Taking a meal-bag she cut in it three holes, X j one for his head and two for his arms, and in the latter she sewed for sleeves the legs of two of her own stockings! Then she went out into the field, and, laying her infant under a tree, bound the sheaves; and thus the grain was harvested." Mary Draper, the Dedham matron of whom we have heard already, was a woman of the same resourceful type. No sooner had she started her husband and son on their way to [1041 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION the front, than she summoned her daughter and began to bake loaves by the score for the hun- gry soldiers, who soon were passing her door on their way to Boston. Again it was Mary Draper who, when Washington appealed to the people of New England to sacrifice their lead and pewter for the purpose of giving the army an adequate supply of ammunition, not merely contributed generously from a store of pewter ornaments that included many heir- looms, but herself molded the precious ma- terial into bullets. Nursing wounded and invalid soldiers, vis- iting patriots immured in British prisons, and providing the army with clothing and other necessaries, formed another noteworthy phase of woman's work in the Revolution. Not a few women paid with their lives for their sub- lime devotion to the demands of pity, charity, and patriotism. Andrew Jackson's mother was one of these, for she was stricken with fever after a journey [105] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA to Charleston to carry clothes and provisions to friends on the prison-ship in that port. Only a few months before, following the rout and slaughter of Buford's men by Tarleton's troop- ers, she had fled from her home on the Waxhaw. Now, in a ragged tent in the midst of the Caro- lina wilderness, she breathed her last and was buried in an unmarked grave by the roadside, leaving to her little Andrew, the future hero of New Orleans and President of the United States, a legacy of naught but bitter and un- ending hatred for England and all things Eng- lish. Another woman who laid down her life for America — a heroine who literally wore her- self out by good works — was Esther Reed of Philadelphia. It was her distinction to or- ganize the women of Philadelphia in their con- certed and wonderfully successful efforts to raise funds for the relief of Washington's distressed army in the gloomy year 1780. As president of the relief association, the brunt of [1061 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION its labors fell on Mrs. Reed, but she bore them cheerfully, and in fact enthusiastically. At her solicitation contributions poured in from many sources — ranging in amount from the few shillings offered by a poor colored woman to the hundred guineas in specie donated by Lafayette, in behalf of his wife, in a character- istically gallant letter. Lafayette wrote, ad- dressing Mrs. Reed: " Madame, in admiring the new resolution in which the fair ones of Philadelphia have taken the lead, I am induced to feel for those American ladies who, being out of the continent, cannot participate in this patriotic measure. I know of one who, heartily wishing for a per- sonal acquaintance with the ladies of America, would feel particularly happy to be admitted among them on the present occasion. Without presuming to break in upon the rules of your respected association, may I most humbly present myself as her ambassador to the con- federated ladies, and solicit in her name that [107] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Mrs. President be pleased to accept of her offer- ing." This letter was written on the twenty-fifth of June, 1780. Less than three months later, her frail body shattered by her unremitting exertions in behalf of the American army, Esther Reed ended her earthly career at the early age of thirty-four. All Philadelphia sin- cerely mourned the passing of her gentle spirit, patriot and loyalist for the moment sinking their differences and uniting in a common senti- ment of earnest grief. Yet another way in which the women of America advanced the cause of freedom, was by conveying timely intelligence of the enemy's plans and whereabouts to the leaders of the American army; and, when occasion offered, by deceiving the enemy as to the movements of the patriot forces. Many instances of such service are on record, but one or two illustra- tions must suflSce. As impressive as any is the story of the Phil- [1081 THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION adelphia Quakeress, Lydia Darrah. ^ At the time — December, 1777 — the British under Howe were in possession of Philadelphia, and Wash- ington was encamped with his army some fifteen miles north of that city at a place called White Marsh. The Darrah house in Philadelphia was a roomy, comfortable building, and was frequently used by the British officers as a council-hall. One day, Mrs. Darrah was noti- fied that a meeting would be held that evening, and the officer informing her added signifi- cantly: " You need not await our departure. In fact, be sure to go to bed early, you and all your family. When we are ready to leave, I will knock at your door, that you may rise and close after us." It needed nothing more to convince the quick- witted Quakeress that business of special im- ^ First made public in The American Quarterly Review, and there stated as given on the authority of several of Lydia Darrah's friends. [109] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA portance was on foot; and, being at heart a " rebel " of the deepest dye, she resolved to play eavesdropper. Waiting impatiently until the secret council was well under way, she left her bedroom, stole down-stairs in stockinged feet, and put her ear to the keyhole. At first she heard only a confused murmur of voices. Then, suddenly, some one read an order re- lating to an expedition which, in twenty-four hours, was to be unexpectedly launched against the American camp at White Marsh. Here, clearly, was the purpose of the con- ference — to arrange the details of the pro- jected surprise. Slipping back to bed, Mrs. Darrah vehemently told herself that Washing- ton must be warned. But how? She could trust her message to no one. All night she tossed and fretted, but by morning her mind was made up. Pretending that she wished to procure some flour from the mill at Frankford, she readily obtained a pass through the British lines, and once outside of Philadelphia made [110] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION all haste toward the American camp. On the way she met one of Washington's aides, who knew her well, and promptly asked what had brought her so far from the city. " I have something to tell you," said she, in a whisper; " follow me closely as I walk, yet not too closely, for you must not seem to be with me, as otherwise my life might be forfeit. The British plan to attack you to-morrow." And, speaking hurriedly, she told him all she had overheard. Late that night, as she lay in bed, the sound of receding hoof-beats came to her ears, and she knew that the secret expedition was leav- ing Philadelphia. But she also knew that Wash- ington was expecting it, and that on the morrow the British would return — as they did — a thoroughly discomfited army. As the oflScer who had notified her of the meeting, afterward said to her, in a tone of mingled amazement and wrath: " I cannot imagine who carried news of [1111 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA our intended attack to General Washington. When we got near his camp, we found cannon mounted, gunners ready, and troops under arms — everything so well prepared that there was nothing for us to do but face about and ride back like a parcel of fools." In similar fashion, Mrs. Jane Thomas, of the South Carolina backwoods, chanced one day to hear of a projected raid against a patriot camp at Cedar Springs, leaped on a horse, rode nearly sixty miles, and arrived in time to alarm the " rebels," who included several of her own large family of sons. By the time the loyalist raiders made their appearance a counter- surprise was arranged, with the result that although greatly superior in numbers the in- vaders were repulsed with heavy loss. This Jane Thomas, by the way, was a veri- table Amazon. Once, after her husband and some of his friends had hastily fled before an oncoming party of loyalists, Mrs. Thomas and her daughters, aided by a Josiah Culberson [112] THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION who had refused to seek safety by flight, beat back the assailants when they attempted to take the Thomas log cabin by storm. Unquestionably, she was animated by the same spirit which, also in South Carolina, found expression in Isabella Ferguson's bold defiance of her loyalist brother-in-law. Colonel James Ferguson: " Yes, I am a rebel! My brothers are rebels! And our dog Trip is a rebel, too! " Finally, it must not be forgotten that not all the women of America sympathized with the patriot cause. There were many who, like their husbands and sons, clung steadfast in their allegiance to the British Crown, and suffered fearfully for their faithfulness. As historians are now beginning to realize, the patriot men and women had no monopoly of heroism in the stirring years of the Revolu- tion. The loyalists for their part — and the women equally with the men — proved that, so far as spirit, endurance, and bravery were [113] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA concerned, they, too, were of the stuff of true Americans. It was true Americanism that prompted the loyalist women of New York to subscribe money for the fitting out of a privateer to be called the Fair American — a name which evoked from a local bard these effusive lines: Assured be that every honest man Will idolize the Fair American. Brave loyal tars, with hearts of oak, will vie, For you to fight, to conquer, live, or. die. Like true Americans, the loyalist women served the cause to which they had given them- selves with a zeal, earnestness, and unselfish- ness fittingly comparable with that shown by the patriot wives and daughters. And when the end came, when victory had definitely crowned the patriot cause, and independence was finally achieved, these loyalist heroines unfalteringly followed their loved ones into a bitter exile. Patriot or loyalist — the women of the Ameri- can Revolution were indeed superb. [1141 CHAPTER IV HEROINES OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT IT is a most impressive coincidence that the year which witnessed the beginning of the War for Independence also saw the conquest of the mountain barrier that had so long con- fined the American people to the country bor- dering on the sea. In 1775 — the year of Lexington, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill — Daniel Boone and his daring little company of trail-makers blazed the famous Wilderness Road leading from the rock-ribbed region of the lower Appalachians to the rich lands of the Mississippi Valley. It was as though Des- tiny, in nerving the Americans to strike for freedom, had been careful to prepare the way for their future growth as a nation. Certainly, the opening of the Wilderness Road was the signal for the commencement [115] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of a mighty migratory movement. It began the year the Road was cleared, and it exercised a distinct influence on the outcome of the Rev- olution; since, thanks to those over-the-moun- tain settlers who took up arms under the leader- ship of such men as George Rogers Clark and John Sevier, the British and their Indian allies were prevented from dealing deadly rear at- tacks against the insurgent colonies. After the Revolution, the westward move- ment increased so rapidly in volume that the traveler, Morris Birkbeck, watching a long line of caravans passing through the Pennsyl- vania forests, could wittily declare that " Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward." The significant fact was that the passage of the mountains was not a retreat but an advance, an unconscious serving of notice that the nation had outgrown its earlier limits and had begun its forward march to the waters of the Pacific. Nor, especially in the first years of the move- [116] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT ment, could anything testify more forcibly to the courage, hardihood, and virility of the men and women of America. If the people of the coast and of the foot-hills were menaced by the British redcoat and the Hessian hire- ling, those who turned their faces toward the West and plunged into the ocean of forest and mountain were confronted by far more for- midable dangers. Death in an agonizing form at the hands of the savage Indian, at the fangs of some wild beast, from exhaustion or from starvation, was a constant peril. And this no matter what road they took, whether the long, tortuous Wilderness Road from the Watauga settlements of North Caro- lina to the Falls of the Ohio, where Louisville stands to-day, or the easier but more dangerous Ohio River route from Fort Pitt in western Pennsylvania. When their journey's end was reached, danger still overshadowed them. They had to be ceaselessly on guard against the cruel, copper-colored foe; had to build forts, block- [117] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA houses, houses of refuge; had, often, to trust to the bounty of nature to supply them with food, cut off as they were from the well-devel- oped East by hundreds of miles of wilderness. Yet in they came — at first by little companies, but soon by hundreds and thousands. History, in fact, was repeating itself in this great movement across the mountains, with the single but important difference that the new generation of emigrants, unhke those who had flocked from Europe to America in the time of the founding, were not fugitives from oppression. Like their predecessors, however, they were essentially home-seekers, a circum- stance which more than any other has had a determining influence on the history of the United States. They were in quest not of gold or of adventure, but of land which they might call their own, untilled wastes which they could convert into profitable pastures and grain- fields. This was their ideal — to make a home and to own it. And, as they well knew, it was [118] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT an ideal that could not be fully realized with- out the loving assistance of their wives, who gladly volunteered to face the perils of the unknown wilds by the side of those they loved, and were indeed women worthy of remembrance as makers and winners of the West. Many pressed forward even after they had learned by some tragic experience the immen- sity and danger of their undertaking. It was thus, for example, with the Boones, perhaps the most celebrated of all pioneer families. Daniel Boone, the head of the family, was a native of Pennsylvania, but emigrated at an early age to the fertile Yadkin Valley in north- western North Carolina. There he met, wooed, and married Rebecca Bryan, a bonnie, black- eyed Scotch-Irish lassie of seventeen. For some years they lived quietly on the Yadkin, but in 1769, fired by the tales of a wan- dering fur-trader, Boone organized an exploring expedition to visit Kentucky, at that time a [1191 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA no-man's land, without a single white inhab- itant and used by the Indians merely as a hunting-ground. What he saw so delighted him that he resolved to make Kentucky his home, and on returning East induced a number of his neighbors to remove thither with him. September 25, 1773, the start was made, the emigrants forming a picturesque cavalcade as, mounted on horses and driving a herd of cattle before them, they waved a last farewell to their Yadkin Valley friends and wound their way up a steep mountain trail. Travel by wagon was impossible, for the route lay mainly by Indian paths and buffalo traces through a mountainous and heavily wooded country. Nor, for the same reason, could they take with them anything except the barest necessaries — simple household goods, farm implements, and the like. All of these were transported on the backs of pack-horses, where the children too small to sit a saddle but too big to be carried in their mothers' arms, [120] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT were also stowed away, securely strapped among bedding, pots, and pans. At night the entire company slept around a camp-fire under the open sky. It was primitive traveling, by a primitive but great people. The first feeling of depression at leaving their old homes soon wore away, and by the time Powell's Valley was reached, and they approached Cumberland Gap, the broad gate- way to the West, all were in the highest spirits, eagerly anticipating their arrival in Kentucky, which Boone had pictured as an earthly para- dise. But it chanced that, all unknown to them, an Indian war-party was passing through Powell's Valley, fresh from a raid against the villages of some hostile tribe. Sighting some of the emigrants, who had temporarily sepa- rated from the main body, and seeing in them not peaceful travelers but their hereditary foes, the inevitable happened. Boone's oldest son, a bright, sturdy youth of seventeen, fell [121] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA at the first fire, and several other men were killed. Here was a speedy and fatal intimation of the many similar tragedies to be enacted in later times along the blood-won road to Ken- tucky. Boone himself, notwithstanding the death of his son, wished to proceed, and his faithful wife, drying her tears like the mothers of ancient Sparta, announced her readiness to accompany him. But in spite of entreaties the others turned back, leaving the Boones, who took up their residence in a deserted cabin, to await another opportunity of recruiting volunteers for the opening up of the Western lands. More than a year passed before the chance came. Then Boone was engaged to serve as pilot and road-maker for a company of wealthy Carolinians who had undertaken to colonize Kentucky. Setting out at the head of a care- fully chosen party of thirty expert backwoods- men, he traveled for nearly a month, painfully [122] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT hewing out the historic Wilderness Road ^ over which so many thousands of sturdy pio- neers were to adventure within the next few years. Onward Boone's men marched and chopped and fought — for the Indians were eager to shut up the path — until, on April 1, 1775, they reached the Kentucky River. There, in the heart of the Blue Grass region, they built a settlement which they fittingly named Boones- borough; and thither, so soon as he had cleared a patch of land, sown some corn, and built a cabin, Boone brought his wife and their seven boys and girls. " My wife and daughters," as he was proud to recall in his old age, " were the first white women to set foot on the banks of Kentucky." But he had brought them to a hard and peril- 1 A detailed account of the opening up of this first great highway to the West will be found in the present writer's " Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road/' a book intended to serve the dual purpose of a biography of Boone and a his- tory of early Western settlement. [123] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA ous life. The killing of their son had been a warning of what might be expected in Kentucky; the narrow escape of fourteen-year-old Jemima Boone from Indian captivity, showed still more plainly the vital need for constant watch- fulness. Indeed, it was the first notification received by the settlers of Boonesborough, which had grown rapidly, that they were threatened by a disastrous Indian war. One summer afternoon in 1776, Jemima Boone and two sisters named Callaway, while boating on the Kentucky, allowed their canoe to drift close to the opposite bank. Here, behind a bush, five Shawnee warriors were in hiding, and although the spot was not more than a quarter of a mile from Boonesborough, one of the Shawnees struck boldly out into the water, seized the canoe, and dragged it to shore with its screaming occupants. Once in the power of the Indians, however, these youthful daughters of the wilderness betrayed a wonderful self-possession and re- [124] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT sourcefulness. They knew enough of In- dian customs to reahze that if their strength failed them, and they should prove unequal to the long march to the Shawnee towns on the Ohio, they would be slaughtered mercilessly. So they stifled their sobs, and calmly accom- panied their captors without protest or struggle. At every opportunity, though, they secretly tore little pieces from their clothing and attached them to bushes on the trail. Nothing more was needed to inform Boone and his fellow settlers, who had quickly started in pursuit, that they were on the right track, and on the second day of the captivity they caught up with the Indians. A volley laid two Shawnees low, the rest fled, and by the close of another day the girls were safe in the arms of their thankful mothers. This was but the beginning of unnumbered woes for the people of Boonesborough, Harrods- burg, and the other hamlets and forts which by this time dotted central Kentucky. Indian [125] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA skirmishes, raids, battles, and sieges became part of the daily routine of life, and great were the losses inflicted by the red men, roused to fury by the invasion of their ancestral hunting- grounds and, at all events during the Revolu- tion, incited against the settlers by the British authorities at Detroit. But the storm of their hostility did not blot out the pioneers and their habitations. Meet- ing the foe unflinchingly, both men and women rose at times to sublime heights of heroism and devotion. There was many a woman who, like Rebecca Boone, learned to do and dare as much as, and sometimes more than, a man would in the face of dire need and impending catastrophe. For these mothers of the frontier were not easily daunted. Rather, the harder pressed they were, the more conspicuously they rose to the occasion. This was demonstrated time and again in the seven years of almost perpetual warfare waged between the Western settlers and the [126] P5 o '^ e o ' ^'W^ THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT Indians during the Revolution. One of its most striking instances was the heroism shown by EHzabeth Zane ^ at the time of the second siege of Wheehng, to-day the chief city of West Virginia. The Zanes were among its founders, Eben- ezer Zane, EHzabeth's brother, having been the first pioneer to build a cabin at the spot where Wheeling Creek empties its waters into the Ohio. Five years later, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, some twenty-five fam- ilies were living there protected by Fort Henry, a stockaded structure located on a hill overlook- ing the settlers' cabins and corn-fields. It had no armament other than a single cannon, a relic of the French and Indian War, but with its stout palisades, its overhanging block-houses, and its many port-holes manned by unerring ^ There are several versions of this heroic exploit. I have followed that most generally accepted, and found in Wills De Hass's " History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia," published at Wheehng in 1851. [1271 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA marksmen, it was quite strong enough to with- stand Indian raiders, and it proved its worth in 1777, when four hundred redskins laid siege to it in vain. Thereafter the people of Wheeling, unlike the people of the Kentucky settlements farther south, were comparatively free from Indian alarms until near the close of the Revolution. But early in September, 1782, a mixed force of Shawnees, Delawares, and soldiers from the British post at Detroit, nearly three hundred men in all, under the command of a Captain Andrew Pratt, made a sudden descent upon the fort. Luckily for the settlers, half an hour earlier scouts had brought word of the enemy's approach, and this gave time for all to seek shelter behind the stockade. For some reason Ebenezer Zane and his family did not accompany the rest. The tradi- tion is that Zane's house had been burned by the Indians at the siege of 1777, and that this so exasperated the impetuous woodsman that [1281 THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT he vowed he would never again abandon his dweUing-place to the torch. It was a thick- walled, substantial building, a miniature cita- del in itself, and was moreover well within range of the fort's cannon, a circumstance which aided greatly in its defense. But it had a pitifully small garrison, including only Ebenezer Zane, his brother Silas, two bor- derers named Green, and a negro slave, together with three women, Mrs. Ebenezer Zane, Eliz- abeth Zane, and a Molly Scott. All, men and women alike, prepared for a desperate struggle. Before making any attack, however, the inva- ders marched through the corn-fields about the deserted cabins, and into an open space at the foot of the fort hill. A halt was ordered and the commanding oflScer demanded the surrender of the fort, promising, rather ambig- uously, " the best protection King George could afford." The sinister hint of possible inability to restrain his savage followers from an indis- [129] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA criminate massacre, even if the settlers should surrender, was not lost on them; and in any event they had no intention of yielding. With mocking cries and jeers they bade Pratt do his worst, emphasizing their remarks by an oc- casional rifle-shot. A second summons to surrender met with a similar response, and just before sundown an attack in force was ordered. The Indians had not failed to note the soli- tary cannon mounted on a platform which overtopped the stockade, but they imagined it was simply a " Quaker cannon " — that is to say, a log fashioned and painted in the like- ness of a cannon. So, without giving it a mo- ment's thought, they advanced in a compact body. Finger on trigger, the garrison patiently waited until certain that every shot would count. Then, from the line of port-holes, tongues of fire burst forth, while at the same instant the dull boom of the cannon resounded overhead, venting a ball that plowed through the crowded ranks. [130] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT " Stand back! " cried Captain Pratt. " Stand back! There's no wood about that! " To quicken the retreat came an angry buzzing from Ebenezer Zane's house, a hornetlike sing- ing of bullets, every one of which found its billet in some red man's breast. Baffled, but not beaten, the attacking army fled to cover, whence, in small parties, they presently emerged to renew, not once but many times, the attempt to storm the fort. Always they were driven off, with heavy loss. Nor did they fare better when they tried to silence the incessant rifle-fire from the Zane house, where the women with tireless dexterity loaded the rifles almost as fast as the men could dis- charge them. Thus the night passed, without rest to besieged or besiegers, and not until noon of the next day did the enemy cease firing for the purpose of taking a brief sleep. It was then that Elizabeth Zane performed the feat which won for her imperishable renown in the annals of the border. So continuous [131] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA had been the battle that the supply of ammu- nition in her brother's house had become almost exhausted. The only source of a fresh supply was the magazine in the fort, and there was not an inch of sheltered ground between the Zane house and the hill on which the fort stood. It seemed madness to attempt the journey, but one of the Greens promptly vol- unteered. Then Elizabeth Zane spoke up. " No," said she, " none of you men shall go. I will. I am only a woman, and should I be killed, I can better be spared than any of you." Her brother and the rest sought vainly to dissuade her. Every cabin, as they pointed out, was now filled with Indians, who would almost certainly kill or capture her. But her mind was made up. Throwing open the door, she ran at utmost speed to the stockade-gate, while the Indians, as though stupefied by her audacity, stood watching her in silent wonder. Friendly hands grasped her, drew her into the fort-yard, and shut fast the gate. [132] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT " Powder," she whispered, to the amazed men and women who crowded about her, " give me powder, all I can carry in my apron." Ten minutes more and the brave young woman was again in the open, darting toward the house. Now the bullets began to fly after her, while the men at the port-holes blazed angrily back, seeking to cover her return. Nearer she came, steadily nearer, and still un- harmed. A moment more and she would be safe. Ebenezer Zane, working his rifle with desperate intensity, shouted words of loving encouragement. Again the bullets sang past her head. Not once faltering, Elizabeth Zane fled on, reached the house, and fell forward, breathless but un- hurt, into her brother's arms. It is good to be able to add that the powder secured at such hazard enabled the Zanes to hold out until relieved of all danger by the hasty retreat of the enemy at news that a powerful expedition was advancing against them. [133] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA But it was in Kentucky — and particularly against the cluster of settlements in the Blue Grass region, connected with the farthermost settlements of the East only by the thin, two- hundred-mile thread of the Wilderness Road — that the Indians delivered their deadliest blows. Even after the Revolution it was years before Kentucky — veritably a dark and bloody ground — became entirely free from the danger of Indian raids. Every little fort and station had its history of battle and siege, its death- roll of slaughtered victims. Nevertheless, the settlers manfully held their ground, led by such famous Indian fighters as Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Benjamin Logan, and Simon Kenton. There were Indian fighters, too, among the women, though comparatively few of their ex- ploits have come down to us.^ A raid on Innis' * The stories that immediately follow are based on accoimts found in two old works, Lewis Collins* " History of Ken- tucky," and John A. McClung's " Sketches of Western Ad- venture." [134] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT settlement, three or four miles from Frankfort, was rendered memorable by the bravery of the wives of Jesse and Hosea Cook, two brothers who had imprudently built their cabin homes at an isolated spot. Surprised by Indians while shearing sheep, Jesse Cook was shot dead, and Hosea mortally wounded. But he man- aged to stagger to the cabin where his wife and sister-in-law then were with their infant chil- dren, and with his last breath called to them to secure the door. Ordinary women thus bereft would have been incapable of action, but the Cooks were ex- traordinary women. While Mrs. Hosea vainly sought to revive her husband, who had fallen just inside the entrance. Mrs. Jesse barred the door, which fortunately was unusually strong. Outside, the Indians hammered upon it, in- sistently demanding admittance. Picking up a rifle, Mrs. Jesse Cook loaded it, peered through a chink in the wall, and sighting an Indian seated on a near-by log, [1351 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA took careful aim and fired. The Indian leaped into the air with a horrible yell and fell dead, while his companions, threatening a fearful vengeance, climbed nimbly upon the cabin roof and set fire to it. Calling to her sister-in- law to hand her a bucket of water, Mrs. Jesse rushed up the ladder leading to the cabin attic, and put out the flames. Again the Indians kindled a blaze, and again she extinguished it. And so for a third time. More than once the Indians sent bullets through the cabin walls, but without doing any injury. Finally, afraid that if they lingered longer they might be surrounded by a strong force of settlers, they descended from the roof and vanished into the forest, leaving the heroic women to bury their dead husbands. Mrs. John Merrill, of Nelson County, was another Kentucky woman who met and over- came the Indian foe, by her unaided strength and quick wit defeating no fewer than six red men, if tradition speaks the truth. One night, [136] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT when she and her husband were alone in their cabin, they were awakened by a loud barking of their dog, and upon opening the door Mr. Merrill received the fire of half a dozen Indians who were in hiding outside. Badly, though not fatally wounded, he fell to the floor, while his wife sprang out of bed and closed the door just in time to shut out the whooping savages. She knew that it would take them only a few minutes to cut an entrance, ^and seizing an ax she made ready for a defense to the death. As the first Indian forced his way in through the narrow opening made by their tomahawks, she swung her ax with Amazonian strength, and down the Indian tumbled, dead at the instant. Two others she similarly killed. The rest then tried to enter by way of the chimney, but Mrs. Merrill proved herself no less resource- ful than courageous. Ripping open a feather bed she set fire to the feathers, making a furious blaze and dense smoke which brought down two Indians gasping for breath. [137] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA With a couple of powerful blows she des- patched them, and turned in time to meet the single surviving Indian, who had crept in un- noticed through the break in the door. Leaping at him with the fury of a wildcat, she swung her ax once more, laid open his cheek to the bone, and sent him out into the night shrieking dismally. Some months afterward a returned prisoner from the Shawnee towns brought word that the wounded Indian had spread far and wide marvelous tales of the prowess and ferocity of John Merrill's " long-knife squaw." Even little girls became imbued with phenom- enal bravery and strength in those grim years of warfare. One morning a Lincoln County pioneer named Woods, who had settled on a lonely heath, paid a visit to the nearest station, leaving at home a family consisting of his wife, his daughter, scarcely in her teens, and a crippled negro servant. No Indian " signs " had been seen for some [138] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT time, and Mr. Woods felt that all would be well during his absence. But toward noon his wife, while working in an outbuilding, saw several Indians running toward the house. Screaming loudly to give the alarm she sought to reach the house before them, but could not run fast enough to enter and close the door before the arrival of the nearest Indian. As soon as he came in, the crippled negro heroically grappled with him, and together they rolled about the floor, the negro holding the Indian so tightly that he could do no damage. But neither could the negro free a hand to kill him. Mrs. Woods, meanwhile, was exerting all her strength to keep the door closed against the other Indians. Seeing that she could not possibly come to his aid, the negro called to her young daughter: " Get that sharp ax under the bed and chop this man's head off." Trembling with nervousness, but pure grit in every ounce of her little body, the girl picked [139] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA up the ax, while the Indian, in a panic, strove madly to shake off his black antagonist. The first blow of the ax missed him completely, but the little girl struck again, and this time inflicted so severe a wound that the negro was able to rise and make an end of the Indian. At the same moment the sound of firing was heard outdoors. A party of white hunters had heard the tumult and had galloped to the rescue. By all odds the most notable display of female heroism during the Indian wars in Kentucky, however, was made in connection with the siege of Bryan's Station in 1782. This stockaded settlement had been founded three years previously by four brothers of that name from North Carolina, and stood on the North Fork of the Elkhorn, a few miles from Lexing- ton. In 1780 the original settlers had abandoned it, following Indian raids on neighboring stations, and the killing of the oldest Bryan brother; but it was soon re-occupied, this time [1401 THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT by immigrants from Virginia, and at the time of the siege it contained twelve famihes, be- sides twenty-five or thirty men — scouts, hunt- ers, and surveyors — who were temporarily making it their headquarters. Until midsummer of 1782 it had almost entirely escaped attack, and its occupants were beginning to feel that the Indians, who had been comparatively quiet since an invasion of their country by George Rogers Clark two years before, would no longer menace the pros- perity of that part of Kentucky. But, at sunset of August 15, a messenger arrived with news that a large force of Wyandots and Shaw- nees had surprised and defeated a party of settlers from another station, and that every available man was expected to turn out the next day to hunt for, and give battle to, the savages. No one dreamed that the real object of the Indians in thus entering once more the Blue Grass region was to conquer and destroy Bry- [1411 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA an's Station itself, at that time the largest and one of the most strongly fortified stations in Kentucky. In blissful ignorance of the fate threatening them, the garrison began to make preparations for an early departure. In the overhanging, port-holed block-houses, which stood like many-eyed sentinels at the four corners of the stockade, men took down their rifles from the racks on the walls, filled bullet pouches and powder-horns, and vigorously sharpened their hunting-knives. In the inter- vening cabins, by the light of buffalo-tallow candles, bare-armed women molded bullets, prepared food, and mended clothing. Thus every one toiled, far into the hot summer night; and meantime, approaching ever closer, crept an army of five hundred copper-colored warriors headed by a British oflScer named Caldwell and a notorious American renegade, Simon Girty. Sunrise found the station on the Elkhorn completely surrounded by the Indians, not one of whom, however, was visible from the [142] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT stockade. Girty, never suspecting that the settlers were planning to march out of their own accord, and thus clear the way for an easy victory, had devised a crafty scheme to lure them to destruction. At his orders the main body of the invaders remained concealed in weeds, long grass, and growing corn between the back of the station and the river, while a small company was posted along the trail that led past the front gate of the stockade, the inten- tion being that they should keep hidden until daylight, when they were boldly to show them- selves. It was thought that the garrison would then rush out to attack them, and would pursue them along the trail, while their comrades at the same time would storm the station from behind. A few years earlier this scheme would un- doubtedly have proved effective. But the Kentuckians had learned wisdom from bitter experience, and, instead of blindly rushing out, orders were at once issued to make ready to [143] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA withstand a siege. More than this, a counter- plot was quickly formed. Ten or twelve vol- unteers were to be sent to engage the Indians on the trail, while the rest of the garrison, posted at the port-holes facing the river, were to reserve their fire until the real assault from the rear was made. Then the assailants were to be greeted with a volley which, it was not doubted, would greatly decimate their ranks and send them scurrying back to cover. One problem remained, and a most serious one. Like most of the Kentucky settlements of that early time, Bryan's Station depended for its water supply on a spring some distance from the stockade, the custom being for the women and girls to go to the spring early in the morning and carry in enough water to last through the day. In the case of Bryan's Station, the spring was located at the foot of a slope leading from the stockade to the river, and in the very midst of the trees and shrubs, cane and weeds where the Indians lay concealed. [144] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT Yet water the defenders must have. But how to obtain it? If a party of men went out it was certain the Indians would fall upon and overwhelm them. If, on the other hand, the women of the settle- ment were to make the attempt, visiting the spring in accordance with their daily custom, there was a bare possibility that they might not be molested if they could only deceive the Indians into thinking that their presence was still undetected. Of course, though, the risk would be great, and the question was would the women be willing to take it. Called together in one of the block-houses to discuss the situation, and being plainly in- formed that without water it would be hopeless to attempt a defense, their decision was soon made. Stepping forward without a moment's hesitation, one of them — Mrs. Jemima Suggett Johnson, the mother of five children, including the future hero of the Battle of the Thames and Vice-President of the United States, Richard H451 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA M. Johnson, then an infant peacefully slumber- ing in a rough-hewed cradle — put her hand on the shoulder of her ten-year-old daughter, Betsy, and said: " I will go for water, and my girl Betsy will go with me. And we shall not have to go alone." The half-challenge, half-invitation in her words was instantly accepted by the other women of the station. One after another they promised to follow her, and pledged the assist- ance of their daughters. From cabin to cabin they ran in search of water vessels, heavy pails for the grown women and the older girls, and for the younger ones little piggins and nog- gins with their quaint single and double up- right staves for handles. When all was in readiness the back gate of the stockade was opened, and out they walked — twenty-eight women and girls, chatting and laughing and singing as though they had not the faintest suspicion that their deadliest foes were hovering near. Down the sloping hill- [146] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT side they made their way, through the tall weeds and charred stumps of the clearing, by a path so narrow that two could not walk abreast. A few moments more, and they were lost to sight in a cane-brake high enough to give cover to a man on horseback. Still their voices rang merrily, carrying assurance to the anxious men in the stockade, and completely deceiving the Indians, who crouched lower in their hiding-places. It was a marvelous display of self-control, of resolute intrepidity, but it was hard indeed for the women and girls to keep up their show of unconcern. Here and there, in the cane and weeds and long grass, they caught the glitter of a rifle barrel, the tremulous quivering of a war feather, the gleam of an evil eye. They could hear a low whispering, which they rightly interpreted as the furtive consultation of the Indians, perplexedly asking one another whether it was not wiser to make a beginning of the struggle there and then. Small wonder if, as [1471 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA they neared the spring, the laughter of some died away, the voices of others grew more sub- dued. Swiftly, yet without appearance of haste, they bent to their task. The girls, some of whom were not much older than little Betsy Johnson, were the first to fill their piggins and noggins and buckets and start on the homeward journey. After them came the women, several, like Mrs. Johnson, returning with a pail in each hand and a third on the head. Through the cane they hurried back, with firm tread, glancing neither to the right nor to the left, lest, in their now intense excitement, the merest glimpse of a tawny form might betray one of them into a shriek that would bring the Indians upon them. And thus, with their hearts ever beating faster beneath their shabby linsey- woolsey dresses, they regained the clearing, passed up the hill to the stockade gate, and through the gate, their noble deed accomplished. With their return the defenders hastened [1481 THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT into action. Each man leaped to his appointed post, in block-house or by stockade port-hole, the front gate was opened wide, and out dashed the squad of volunteers, blazing away at the Indians on the trail, who answered with a volley, then fled with taunting cries. After them sped the volunteers, firing as they ran, shout- ing and hallooing, and, in short, contriving to make as much noise as though they were half a hundred instead of but a dozen men. Inside the stockade perfect silence reigned. Then the expected happened. Up from the the grass and weeds, out from the corn and cane-brake, lithe, hideously-painted forms emerged, Girty at their head. Up the hill they raced, at first in a wide, semi-circular line, but massing together as they neared the gate. On they came, until every detail of their gaunt, malevolent features was plainly visible. Not until then did the cry ring out: "Fire!" With that first volley victory was practically [149] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA assured. When the smoke cleared, fallen Indians dotted the hillside, inert shapes or writhing horribly, while the uninjured had once more vanished into the thickets by the river. The volley, too, was the signal for the return of those who had sallied out to give sham battle to the decoy detachment. Not at once, to be sure, did the Indians give over the attempt that had begun so disastrously for them. Urged by Girty, they returned again and again to the attack, until a warning reached them that a powerful relief expedition had been raised and was on its way to the station.^ Such an exhibition of unflinching valor ob- viously presupposed innate characteristics of great forcefulness, and it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the pioneer women of the early West brought with them from the East qual- ities of the utmost importance to the welfare ^ Colonel Durrett's " Bryant's Station," published as No. 12 of the Filson Club's publications, contains accounts of this siege by both Colonel Durrett and George W. Ranck, two Kentucky historians. [150] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT of the prosperous, progressive commonwealths which they assisted to upbuild. For the most part the early West — by which is meant West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ten- nessee—was settled from the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas, and by people of the so-called Scotch-Irish race. The women of this stock were a strong-limbed, clear-eyed folk. Their predominant trait was a stubborn, unflinching courageousness, manifest alike in times of great crisis, and in the ordinary vicis- situdes of life. W^en Mrs. Joseph Davies of Virginia, to give an illustration, broke her arm at the cross- ing of the Cumberland River, but continued on the road to Kentucky, riding her horse and carrying her baby as though no injury had be- fallen her, she but typified the innate pluck and determination common to the women who settled the West. There were no weaklings among them — weaklings could never have crossed the well-nigh trackless mountains, to [151] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA say nothing of withstanding the ordeals of the wilderness existence. They were, too, wonderfully self-reliant women, and women in whom the spirit of in- itiative was strongly developed, as we already know from our study of the border women of the " forgotten half -century." Many were in- strumental in inducing their husbands and sons to seek new homes in the West. It was thus that William Whitley, the noted Indian fighter, was led to settle in Kentucky. Reports of the remarkable fertility of the Blue Grass country had reached the Virginia settle- ment where he had always lived, and one night, after a hard day's work on the farm, Whitley remarked to his wife that if Kentucky were all it was painted it would pay them to remove to it. " Well, Billy," was her quick response, " if I was you, I would go and find out." In two days he was Westward-bound, with rifle and ax and plow. Similarly, Rebecca Boone gave a signal dis- [1521 THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT play of the self-reliant, enterprising spirit of the Western women, when her husband was cap- tured by the Indians in 1778 and taken to Detroit to be put on exhibition as one of the most redoubtable of border fighters. Believing him dead, she decided to return with her chil- dren to the North Carolina home of her kins- folk, packed her belongings, loaded them on horses, and actually traversed without assist- ance the difficult and dangerous Wilderness Road and the equally arduous trails from Cum- berland Gap to the Yadkin Valley. It was there that Boone found her after his escape from captivity, and thence, willingly as ever, she again accompanied him to Kentucky, even while the Indian wars were still raging. The mother of Sam Houston was another woman who, for the sake of her children, haz- arded the dangers of the wilderness journey without the protection of a man's strong arm. She must have justified to the full the eulo- gistic description penned of her by Houston's [153] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA friend and biographer, C. Edwards Lester, who portrayed her as "an extraordinary woman, distinguished by an impressive and dignified countenance, and gifted with intellec- tual and moral qualities which elevated her in a still more striking manner above most of her sex." The death of her husband left Mrs. Houston in rather poor circumstances and with a grow- ing family of six sons and three daughters. Knowing that many of her neighbors who had gone West had prospered exceedingly, she de- termined to follow their example in order that her children might get a good start in life, sold her Virginia farm, and journeyed to Tennessee, ending her migration only when within eight miles of the boundary between the settlements of the whites and the wigwams of the Cherokees. There she erected a rude cabin, with the help of her oldest boys, and there she labored diligently to bring up her children to be useful men and women. It was for them that she [154] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT toiled and prayed and denied herself, person- ifying in her devotion another trait of the mothers of the early West. However poor they might be, they were women of lofty ambitions and high ideals. Their huge sunbonnets and faded gowns re- flected only the exterior poverty of their lives; in their motherly love, their capacity to sym- pathize with the sick and suffering, their pro- found religious faith and noble moral principles, they were truly rich. And this is why, despite all the hardships and privation that attended the westward movement, the children of the pioneers were born to a goodly inheritance, if not of the things of this earth, assuredly of the greater blessings of a strong physique, a sane, healthy outlook on life, and a real greatness of soul. [155] CHAPTER V THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY THE distinctive traits of the American woman — her abihty to rise subhmely to great occasions and meet a crisis unflinchingly, her willingness to give the best that is in her for the sake of those she loves and for the noble cause of patriotism, and her marvelous ca- pacity to endure hardship, suffering, and pri- vation — have never been more convincingly revealed than in the long struggle over slavery, which gradually divided the nation into two hostile camps and at last culminated in a co- lossal war. On both sides in that terrible conflict, the women of the country proved themselves worthy descendants of the splendid matrons who had wrought so nobly for America in bygone times. [156] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY And even in the earliest stages of the struggle, in the period of agitation from 1820 onward, when the American people were only dimly beginning to perceive that the presence of the bondsman on American soil involved problems which menaced the peace and welfare of the republic, women were to the fore in pointing out the path of destiny and duty. Anti-slavery agitation, of course, was by no means confined to the forty years immedi- ately preceding the Civil War. Protests were heard almost so soon as the first slaves were imported into the English colonies in 1619, and throughout the colonial period the subject was intermittently discussed. It formed a ground for heated controversy in the Constitu- tional Convention of 1787, and for a time threatened to wreck the labors of the constitu- tion makers. But, although the process of emancipating slaves steadily continued in the States of the North, there was no systematic movement looking to the abolition of slavery [1571 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA throughout the United States until Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison began the crusade that speedily drew upon them the wrath of those who believed that the holding of slaves was morally, politically, and eco- nomically justifiable. On the other hand, from the moment that Garrison raised his powerful voice and wielded his trenchant pen in behalf of the slave, recruits hastened to enlist under the standard he had raised, and within a re- markably short time hundreds of ardent ad- vocates of universal emancipation were to be found in all parts of the country. The rapidity with which the movement spread may be indicated in a few sentences. In 1831 Garrison founded his emancipation newspaper, The Liberator, and within another twelve months a New England Anti-Slavery Society was established. During the next year subsidiary societies sprang up in so many cities and towns that by December, 1833, it was deemed advisable to organize an American [1581 THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY Anti-Slavery Society for the purpose of uniting and concentrating the agitation of the entire country. By 1840 this central organization was directing the work of no fewer than two thousand local societies, with a membership of between one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand men and women. And this, be it clearly understood, despite the bitterest opposition in the North as well as in the South — an opposition that in many instances took the form of mob violence, in response to the cry of the politician and the pro-slavery advocate that the Union could not endure unless the abolitionists were silenced. In New York, for instance, there was a riot as early as October, 1833, when Clinton Hall, the place selected for an abolition meeting, was raided by opponents of the movement.^ 1 A. B. Hart's " Slavery and Abolition," published as vol. xvi of the " American Nation " co^roperative history of the United States. This book may be recommended as giving an excellent modern account of the development of the ab- olition movement. [159] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Other riots in July of the following year re- sulted in the sacking of the home of Lewis Tappan, a wealthy New York abolitionist, and the destruction of several other houses and churches. In similar riots in Philadelphia there was even greater damage to property, forty-four houses being injured or totally des- troyed in a single outbreak in 1834. Four years later, in the same city, a mob burned Pennsylvania Hall, a handsome structure which the abolitionists had erected because of the difficulty experienced in leasing suitable quar- ters for their meetings. It had been officially opened only three days when the mob, not- withstanding the pleadings of the mayor, broke in by a side door, started a fire, and then fought off the firemen sent to save the build- ing. In Boston, anti-abolition feeling rose to fever heat upon the arrival, in the autumn of 1834, of a forceful English abolitionist, George Thompson, who came from abroad in the hope [1601 THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY of helping Garrison arouse a more favorable public sentiment by the power of his remark- able oratory. The announcement that he was to speak at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society brought out, on the morn- ing of the day set for the meeting, a vicious hand -bill that was distributed throughout the city. It openly incited its readers to violence, in these words: " That infamous foreign scoundrel Thomp- son will hold forth this afternoon at the Liberator office, No. 48 Washington Street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson out! It will be a contest between the abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A purse of one hundred dollars has been raised by a number of patriotic cit- izens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant! " Thompson was not present at the meeting, [161] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA but Garrison was, and on him fell the fury of the mob. After wrecking the office of The Liberator, they tied a rope around Garrison and dragged him through the streets to the city hall, where the mayor comniitted him to jail, ostensibly as a " disturber of the peace," but in reality to save his life. A similar scene was enacted at Cincinnati in 1836, when the office of The Philanthropist was gutted, and a determined effort made to kill its editor, James G. Birney. And the next year, at Alton, 111., anti-abolition hatred actually culminated in murder, Elijah P. Lovejoy, the editor of a little abolition paper, being deliberately shot down by a mob, twelve of whom were afterward tried for the crime but acquitted after only ten minutes' deliberation by the jury. In spite of all this — perhaps partly on account of it, for persecution has always strengthened worthy causes — the abolition movement, as was said, grew apace, being carried forward by an ever increasing army [162] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY of enthusiasts, both men and women. Women, indeed, were among the most earnest, eloquent and indefatigable champions of emancipation. They formed societies of their own — chief among which was the already mentioned Bos- ton Female Anti-Slavery Society, of whose leading spirit, Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman, the gifted and beautiful wife of a wealthy Boston merchant, it has been said that she was " second to none in her lieutenancy to Garrison, the captain of the great reform " — and at the cost of no matter what personal sacrifice they labored to promote a cause which appealed to their profoundest moral instincts. Strange as it may seem, the two women who were especially prominent at the time when abolition was most in disfavor — from 1833 to 1840 — were Southerners, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, the daughters of Judge John F. Grimke, of Charleston, one of the most in- fluential men in South Carolina. That South- ern women generally did not sympathize with [163] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the emancipation movement is not at all sur- prising, neither is it to their discredit. Like the men of the South, they had been brought up to consider slavery a fixed and necessary institution; they saw little or nothing of its worst side, and they were disposed to re- gard the condition of the negro in slavery as infinitely better than would be his lot were he liberated and compelled to shift for himself. To put it otherwise, training and environment alike constrained the Southern women to look at the question from a point of view dif- fering radically from that of the women of the North. But Sarah and Angelina Grimke, notwith- standing that they were born into a family of slaveholders, and at one time owned slaves of their own, seem to have viewed slavery with abhorrence from early youth. " Slavery," wrote Sarah, " was a millstone about my neck, and marred my comfort from the time I can remember myself." They left home and re- [164] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY moved to Philadelphia, where they joined the Quakers, and where, in 1836, Angelina, the younger but the more talented of the two sis- ters, wrote a pamphlet entitled " An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South." It was a vigorous anti-slavery document, and caused a tremendous sensation. The profound impression it made on abolitionists may be judged from a letter written to its author by Elizur Wright, then secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. " I have just finished reading your Appeal, and not with a dry eye," wrote Mr. Wright. " Oh, that it could be rained down into every parlor in our land. I know it will carry the Christian women of the South if it can be read, and my soul blesses that dear and glo- rious Saviour who has helped you to write it." And, according to Catherine H. Birney, the biographer of the Grimke sisters, Mr. Wright also spoke of it as "a patch of blue sky breaking through the storm-cloud of public [1651 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA indignation which had gathered so black over the handful of anti-slavery workers." Published as an official pamphlet of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the " Appeal " was sent broadcast through the land, and es- pecially through the South. Of its reception in Miss Grimke's native State, and of the in- dignation it stirred up against her, an inter- esting contemporary account is in existence, written by the man whom she afterwards married, the abolitionist Theodore Weld: " When it came out, a large number of copies were sent by mail to South Carolina. Most of them were publicly burned by post- masters. Not long after this, the city authci- ities of Charleston learned that Miss Grimke was intending to visit her mother and sisters, and pass the winter with them. Thereupon the mayor called upon Mrs. Grimke and de- sired her to inform her daughter that the police had been instructed to prevent her landing while the steamer remained in port, [166] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY and to see to it that she should not communi- cate, by letter or otherwise, with any persons in the city; and, further, that if she should elude their vigilance and go on shore, she would be arrested and imprisoned until the return of the vessel. " Her Charleston friends at once conveyed to her the message of the mayor, and added that the people of Charleston were so incensed against her that if she should go there despite the mayor's threat of pains and penalties, she could not escape personal violence at the hands of the mob. She replied to the letter that her going would probably compromise her family, not only distress them, but put them in peril; which she had neither heart nor right to do; but for that fact, she would certainly exercise her constitutional right as an American cit- izen, and go to Charleston to visit her relatives, and if for that the authorities should inflict upon her pains and penalties, she would willingly bear them, assured that such an outrage would [167] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA help to reveal to the free States the fact that slavery defies and tramples alike upon consti- tutions and laws, and thus outlaws itself." ^ Thenceforward both sisters became active workers in behalf of abolition, laboring for the great cause by word of mouth as well as by word of pen. In fact, it was as speakers that they embarked on their joint crusade, when, a few months after the publication of the " Ap- peal," they accepted an invitation from the American Anti-Slavery Society to visit New York and lecture on slavery as they had seen it in South Carolina. At the time it was not customary for women to take the platform at public gatherings, and accordingly the Grimkes held their meet- ings in private, and admitted only their own sex. But those who attended carried home such glowing reports, particularly of Angelina Grimke's eloquence, that men began to slip in quietly to hear them, and soon their lectures 1 Catherine H. Bimey's " The Sisters Grimke," pp. 149-150. [168] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY became public in the fullest sense. Bitter opposition at once developed, some Congrega- tional clergymen of Massachusetts taking the lead in denouncing " women preachers." But the Grimkes valiantly persevered, with the result of gradually forcing public acquiescence in the right of women to free speech. They spoke throughout the Eastern States, and so large did their audiences become that it often was necessary to hold overflow meetings in a separate hall, Sarah Grimke addressing one meeting while Angelina was addressing an- other. " At one place," says their biographer, " where over a thousand people crowded into a church, one of the joists gave way; it was propped up, but soon others began to crack, and, although the people were warned to leave that part of the building, only a few obeyed, and it was found impossible to persuade them to go, or to consent to have the speaking stopped. [1691 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA " At another place ladders were put up at all the windows, and men crowded upon them, and tenaciously held their uncomfortable po- sitions through the whole meeting. In one or two places they were refused a meeting- house, on account of strong sectarian feeling against them as Quakers. At Worcester they had to adjourn from a large Congregational church to a small Methodist one, because the clergyman of the former suddenly returned from an absence, and declared that if they spoke in his church he would never enter it again. " At Bolton, notices of their meetings were torn down, but the town hall was packed not- withstanding, many going away, unable to get in. The church here had also been refused them. Angelina, in the course of her lecture, seized an opportunity to refer to their treatment, saying that if the people of her native city could see her lecturing in that hall because every church had been closed against the cause of God's down-trodden creatures, they [1701 THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY would clap their hands for joy, and say : * See what slavery is doing for us in the town of Bolton.' " Like most abolitionists of the period, they had some thrilling experiences. More than once they were attacked by angry crowds, armed with sticks, stones, and rotten eggs. They were witnesses of the burning of Pennsyl- vania Hall. In fact, the night before the burn- ing, Angehna — who had been married to Mr. Weld just three days previously — addressed a crowded audience in the doomed edifice, while a mob raged outside, shouting, jeering, and hurling stones through the windows. *' With deep solemnity," we are told, " and in words of burning eloquence, she gave her testimony against the awful wickedness of an institution which had no secrets from her. She was frequently interrupted by the mob, but their yells and shouts only furnished her with metaphors which she used with unshrink- ing power. More stones were thrown at the [1711 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA windows, more glass crashed, but she only paused to ask: " ' What is a mob? What would the break- ing of every window be? Any evidence that we are wrong, or that slavery is a good and wholesome institution? What if that mob should now burst in upon us, break up our meeting, and commit violence upon our per- sons — would this be anything compared with what the slaves endure? No, no; and we do not remember them ** as bound with them " if we shrink in the time of peril, or feel unwilling to sacrifice ourselves, if need be, for their sake. . . .' " Here a shower of stones was thrown through the windows, and there was some disturbance in the audience, but quiet was again restored, and Angelina proceeded, and spoke for over an hour, making no further reference to the noise without, and only showing that she no- ticed it by raising her own voice so that it could be heard throughout the hall. Not once [1721 THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY was a tremor or change of color perceptible, and though the missiles continued to fly through the broken sashes, and the hootings and yellings increased outside, so powerfully did her words and tones hold that vast audience that, im- minent as seemed their peril, scarcely a man or woman moved to depart. She sat down amid applause that drowned all the noise outside." ^ This was her last appearance in public. Soon afterward she had an accident that so severely injured her nervous system as to make retirement to private life inevitable; and in her withdrawal from the arena of public agitation and controversy she was accompanied by her sister. Compared with other advocates of abolition, theirs was a brief career; but while it lasted it was meteoric, and contemporary judgment is unanimous as to its influence in shaping pub- lic opinion. Moreover, too much credit cannot be given the sisters for the sacrifice they made 1 Catherine H. Bimey's "The Sisters Grimke," pp. 240-241. [173] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA in renouncing for all time the happiness and advantages of their luxurious Southern home. It may be added that both lived to see the dream of their youth realized and the negro set free, Sarah Grimke living until 1873, and Angelina until 1879. Another woman who made a very real sac- rifice in championing the slave was Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. Perhaps no other sacrificed so much. Unlike Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose " Uncle Tom's Cabin " — published at a far later day, when abolition had become more popular — was the making of her literary reputation, Mrs. Child's hopes and plans as a writer were irretrievably ruined by her advocacy of freedom for the negro. She was easily the favorite authoress of the day up to the time she brought out her " Appeal in Favor of that Class of American called Africans." In speaking of her work even the conservative North American Review said: " We are not sure that any woman of our [174] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY country could outrank Mrs. Child. This lady has been before the public as an author with much success. And she well deserves it, for in all her works nothing can be found which does not commend itself by its tone of healthy morality and good sense. Few female writers if any have done more or better things for our literature in the lighter or graver depart- ments." Wherever in the Union books were read, she commanded an enthusiastic following. But the moment her " Appeal " was issued, the market was closed against her writings, and obloquy took the place of adulation. In the preface to the " Appeal " occurs a pathetic little passage which shows how clearly Mrs. Child appreciated the penalty she would have to pay. " Should it be the means," she bravely wrote, " of advancing even one single step the inevitable progress of truth and jus- tice, I would not exchange that consciousness for all of Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's [175] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA fame." There were indeed those to whom the " Appeal " came with convincing force. John A. Andrew, afterward the celebrated war governor of Massachusetts, bought it, wept over it, and gave it to his sisters to read. Samuel J. May, who became one of abolition's stanch- est supporters, testified publicly that it made an abolitionist of him. *' After reading it," said he, " I could not be anything but an abo- litionist." Mrs. Child herself, having taken the first and most difficult step, entered enthusiastic- ally into the struggle to promote the spread of abolition ideas. For a while she edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and under her direction it became an increasingly vigorous organ. Besides which, innumerable pamphlets and articles contributed to other periodicals testify to the energy with which she worked. To the end of her long and useful life she retained a particularly warm spot in her heart for " the oppressed African." In 1864, the [176] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY waning of anti-abolition prejudice in the North having allowed her to regain in some measure her former popularity as an author, she pub- lished a book, " Looking Toward Sunset," designed, as she put it, " to present old people with something cheerful." It was issued during the holiday season and proved unexpectedly successful, four thousand copies being sold within a very short time. Although by no means a woman of wealth, Mrs. Child is said to have devoted every penny of the profits to the freed negroes of the South, sending four hundred dollars as a first instalment.^ Besides this, she prepared a volume, " The Freedman's Book," which she published at her own ex- pense, and of which she gave twelve hundred copies to the freedm_en. The story is also told that she once sent Wendell Phillips a cheque for one hundred dollars for the freedmen's fund, and on his protesting that, as he well knew, 1 S. C. Beach's " Daughters of the Puritans." This work contains several excellent biographical sketches of notable American women of the Civil War period. [177] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA she could not afford to give such a sum, re- sponded by insisting on doubhng the amount of her contribution. As still further indicating the intensity of her devotion to the cause of the negro, a passage may well be quoted from a letter written by her to a friend during the Civil War: " Every string that I can get sight of I pull for poor Sambo. I write to the Tribune about him; I write to the Transcript about him; I write to private individuals about him; and I write to the President and members of Con- gress about him; I write to Western Virginia and Missouri about him; and I get the articles published too. This shows what progress the cause of freedom is making." Most of the women, however, who attained distinction as pioneers in the movement to set free the slaves, carried on their propaganda from the public platform rather than from the quiet of the library or editorial sanctum. It was thus with Lucretia Mott, Abby Foster, [178] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY and Sallie Holley, who were three of the most conspicuous standard-bearers of emancipation. Mrs. Mott was an abolitionist even before Garrison entered the hsts, having been a reader of Benjamin Lundy's newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, ahnost from its start in 1821. She was a Pennsylvania Quaker, and a woman of great eloquence. Some idea of the ardor with which she devoted herself to abolition may be gathered from the fact that in a single tour she traveled more than twenty-four hundred miles, mostly by stage- coach, and spoke at seventy -four meetings. Mrs. Foster, better known to her own gen- eration as Abby Kelley, was another member of the Society of Friends, that religious body which, since the days of the unfortunate Mary Dyer, has done much to advance ideals of freedom in America. She was the first woman, after the Grimke sisters and Mrs. Mott, to enter the field as an anti-slavery lecturer; and she was a familiar figure on abolition platforms [179] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, playing a particularly prominent role in the organization of the Western Anti- Slavery Society. Sallie Holley was the daughter of Myron Holley, the New York reformer who was one of the principal originators of the Liberty party, the forerunner of the Republican party. Bom in 1818, she was too young to take part in the abolition crusade during its stormiest days, but from 1850 onward she was an indefatigable worker in the ranks of the Anti-Slavery So- ciety, having become interested in the eman- cipation movement while a student at Oberlin College. Nor did her interest in the negro cease with his complete emancipation. After the Civil War she removed to Virginia, and, in conjunction with Carolina Putnam, also a veteran abolitionist, opened a school for colored children. The reception she met from the former slave- holders of the vicinity was in striking contrast flSOl THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY with that accorded another woman, Prudence Crandall, who, some years before, attempted to conduct a similar institution not in the South but in one of the " free " States of the North. Her story forms one of the most pa- thetic chapters in the history of early anti- slavery days. She was a Connecticut woman, a resident of the town of Canterbury, where, in 1832, she established a girls' school. From the start it promised to be a great success, being patron- ized by Canterbury's leading citizens. One day a young colored girl applied for admission, explaining that she wished to fit herself to teach the neglected children of her race. She was promptly received, and as promptly the parents of the white pupils informed Miss Crandall that they would withdraw their daughters if she did not dismiss the colored girl. Refusing to do this, she soon found herself the mistress of an empty school. Now, for [181] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the first time, she began to appreciate the dif- ficulties in the way of every negro, free or en- slaved, who sought an education; and she determined henceforth to do her part toward meeting what she felt to be a very real need. Advertising in Garrison's Liberator that she was about to open a school at Canterbury " for young ladies and little misses of color," she was before long giving instruction to twenty col- ored girls from New York, Philadelphia, Bos- ton, and Providence. Their arrival caused a lively commotion, and a deputation of prominent residents waited upon Miss Crandall to protest formally against having a " nigger school " planted in their midst. But she quietly replied that she was only doing her duty, and intended to continue doing it. Then began a campaign of bitter and unrelenting persecution. Trades- men refused to supply her with provisions, former " friends " crossed the street to avoid speaking to her, she and her pupils were hooted [182] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY at whenever they appeared in pubhc. It was a whole town against one friendless woman. Still she refused to surrender. In despair, the people of Canterbury appealed to the Connecti- cut legislature for aid, and actually succeeded in securing the enactment of a law forbidding the establishment of any school for colored persons not inhabitants of the State, unless first written permission were obtained from the selectmen of the town where such a school was to be located. This law, though general in its terms, was aimed directly at Miss Crandall, and she was forthwith arrested and hurried to jail, being thrown into a cell that had just been vacated by a condemned murderer. News of the outrage quickly spread, and a wealthy New Yorker, fired with indignation, subscribed a large sum for her defense. When put on trial the jury disagreed, but her persecutors were merciless, and a second trial resulted in a verdict of guilty. An appeal was at once taken to the Supreme [1831 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Court, whose members, to their everlasting credit, refused to sustain the conviction. Mean- while lawlessness had succeeded where legal measures failed, a mob armed with clubs and iron bars breaking into the school and almost completely demolishing it. Realizing that it was useless to keep up the struggle, and being without further means. Miss Crandall reluc- tantly abandoned her philanthropic undertaking and left Canterbury.^ The spirit of unreasoning, savage animosity which thus manifested itself was in evidence everywhere until about 1840, when the growing gulf between North and South was appreciably widened by the conflict over the annexation of Texas. Thereafter the people of the North viewed with steadily decreasing rancor and bitterness those who insistently demanded the emancipation of the slave. By 1850 it required only some unusual stimulus to provoke a pop- 1 A more detailed account of Miss Crandall's experiences will be found in John C. Kimball's " Connecticut's Canter- bury Tale," published, as a pamphlet, at Hartford in 1886. [184] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY ular upheaval along the lines of abolition teach- ings ; and such a stimulus, as everybody knows, was provided by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. Fast on its heels, and appearing at precisely the moment to produce the great- est effect, came " Uncle Tom's Cabin," with its heartrending pictures of the life of the slave. There can be no question that with this single volume the daughter of Lyman Beecher accomplished more than had any or all of her predecessors — the Grimke sisters, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Mott, and their greatly sacrificing, greatly daring fellow-workers. They, however had prepared the way. Had it not been for their preliminary labors, " Uncle Tom's Cabin," in spite of all its inherent power and interest, would have been given scant attention. As it was, it became epoch-making. Tn vain the people of the South protested that it grossly maligned them, and that it con- veyed a wildly distorted idea of the conditions of slavery. The people of the North brushed [185] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA their protests aside, and insisted on accepting Mrs. Stowe's book at face value. Within three weeks of publication twenty thousand copies were sold, and within three months the sales had risen to eighty thousand. Before the year was out eighteen English editions were on the market, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's fame had become world-wide. The work of a woman, " Uncle Tom's Cabin " made an especial appeal to women. It found its way into hundreds of thousands of homes, not merely in the larger cities and towns but in remote and isolated hamlets where the cry of the abohtionist had never penetrated. Among Northern women it both extended and intensified anti-slavery sentiment, and it helped them to contemplate the coming crisis with equanimity and determination. Once the crisis had actually been reached, with the firing on Fort Sumter, they did not need any incentive other than love of country to inspire them to an instantaneous and effect- [186] THE STRUGGLE OVER SLAVERY ive response. Like the women of the Revolu- tion, one hundred years before, they bade their husbands and sons and brothers go forth and fight; and, having started them on the journey from which so many were never to re- turn, they bravely set to work, in a thousand different ways, to strengthen and sustain them. [187] CHAPTER VI woman's work in the civil war THE Reverend Henry W. Bellows, head of the United States Sanitary Commission which did such excellent work throughout the Civil War, did not exaggerate when he de- clared that as soon as a resort to arms became inevitable there was no more general uprising among the men of the Northern States than among the women. Soldiers' aid societies sprang up simultaneously with the enlisting of troops in every city, town, and village, the distinction of having been the first to organize for systematic work in behalf of the army fall- ing to the women of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Charlestown, Massachusetts, where, on April 15, 1861, the day on which the President's [188] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR call for troops was issued, the women of those cities formed societies for the purpose of afford- ing relief and comfort to the volunteers. A few days later similar societies were formed in the Ohio city of Cleveland and in Lowell, Massachusetts; and within ten days after the call for troops, so clearly and readily was the need for united effort appreciated, the Woman's Central Association of Relief was organized in New York, to guide and supervise the labors of all local aid societies. After a time this associ- ation became subsidiary to the Sanitary Com- mission, with branches established in all the larger cities and managed almost without ex- ception by women.i ^'hen it is said that these branches and the different minor organizations 1 " Among the numerous and devoted women who labored in the forming and 'directing of these auxiliaries," says Doctor Bellows, in his account of the Sanitary Commission, it may be allowed without invidiousness to name Miss May and Miss Stevenson at Boston, Miss Collins and Miss Schuy- ler at New York, Mrs. Grier and Mrs. Moore at Philadelphia Mrs. Rouse and Miss Brayton at Cleveland, Miss Campbell at Detroit, and Mrs. Hedge and Mrs. Livermore at Chicago. [189] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA collected and distributed money and supplies amounting in value to more than fifty million dollars, the magnitude of woman's work in the Civil War will be better understood. The Sanitary Commission itself was essen- tially the product of woman's enterprise. It was established by the Government in response to a petition presented by a committee of the Woman's Central Association of Relief, the idea being to maintain careful oversight of the health of the United States forces by means of " a scientific board, to be commissioned with ample powers for visiting all camps and hospitals, advising, recommending, and, if need be, enforcing the best-known and most approved sanitary regulations in the army." As finally organized, it became the great national channel through w^hich the women of the North worked with the Government in promoting the war. Nothing was left undone to achieve its great aim of maintaining the soldiers' health. [190] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR It established depots for the receiving of sup- plies of clothing, medicine, and delicacies for the camps and hospitals, and for forwarding them promptly to the points where they were most needed. It employed experts to coop- erate with the regimental surgeons in choosing sites for camps, regulating the drainage, and inspecting the cooking. It fitted up hospital steamers on the Mississippi, and established a system of soldiers' refuges, where the sick and convalescent would receive the best of care on their way home from the front. Wherever the army went, officers and help- ers of the Sanitary Commission followed, with wagons, food, medical supplies, and nurses for the care of the wounded. Perhaps its most notable service in the field was rendered after the battle of Antietam, when the train carry- ing the regular medical stores of the army was blocked near Baltimore. For four days the ten thousand wounded at this great battle had as their only means of relief the provisions [1911 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of the Sanitary Commission, whose wagons were quickly on the battle-ground, so well equipped that they were able to provide over twenty-eight thousand shirts, towels, pillows, etc.; thirty barrels of lint and bandages, three thousand pounds of farina, two thousand pounds of condensed milk, five thousand pounds of beef stock and canned meats, three thousand bottles of wine, several tons of lemons, and an abundance of crackers, tea, sugar, rubber cloth, tin cups, and other necessaries. In the whole course of the war, it has been estimated, the Sanitary Commission furnished four million five hundred thousand meals to sick and wounded soldiers. And all this, bear in mind, was rendered possible through the tireless devotion of the women of the Union. It is out of the question to attempt to depict in adequate language the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism that animated those who, worl:- ing in groups or as individuals, contributed so nobly to the common cause. Many a woman, fl921 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR obliged to toil all day to earn her livelihood, sat up until late into the night, for months together, making bandages and shirts and socks for the boys in blue. Others who had no money to contribute, cheerfully surrendered precious heirlooms to swell the relief fund. In numerous instances women denied themselves meat and tea and sugar in order to be able to give some- thing to the army — something that might, who could tell, save a wounded soldier's life, or make his last moments comfortable. Even the aged and infirm vied in generous rivalry with the young and strong. In many barrels of hospital clothing, socks were found having inscriptions like the following: "The fortunate owner of these socks is secretly in- formed that they are the one hundred and ninety-first pair knit for our brave boys by Mrs. Abner Bartlett, of Medford, Massachu- setts, now aged eighty -five years." A home- spun blanket was ticketed: "This blanket was carried by Milly Aldrich, who is ninety- [193] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA three years old, down-hill and up-hill, one and a half miles, to be given to some sol- dier." Innumerable anecdotes might be related illustrative of this universal eagerness to do and give for country's sake. In a lonely and mountainous New England farming section lived a widow and two daughters who, although desperately poor, were resolved that nothing should prevent them from aiding in the relief work. They learned that at the county-seat, twelve miles away, a depot had been opened where women might obtain material to make into hospital clothing. Borrowing a neighbor's horse, they drove to town by an almost im- passable road, secured some cloth, and hastened home. Two weeks later they were back for a fresh supply; and thus they came and went, regularly once a fortnight. Anxious to ascer- tain the secret of their zeal, the manager of the local Relief Association drew the daughters aside one day and asked them: [194] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR " I suppose you have a relative in the war — your father, or a brother? " " No," they answered, " not now. Our only brother fell at Ball's Bluff." " Then," said the manager, " why do you feel so deep an interest in this work? " " Our country's cause," came the reply, ** is the cause of God, and we would do what we can for His sake." Another impressive incident, made public by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, of the Northwestern Branch of the Sanitary Commission, affords convincing proof of the determination with which women, no matter how unfavorably situated, contrived to give effect to their patriotic impulse. " Some farmers' wives living in the north of Wisconsin, eighteen miles from a railroad," said Mrs. Livermore, in telling the story, " had given to the Commission of their bed and table- linen, their husbands' shirts and drawers, their scanty supply of dried and canned fruits, till [195] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA they had exhausted their abihty to do more in this direction. Still they were not satisfied. So they cast about to see what could be done in another way. They were all the wives of small farmers, lately moved to the West, all living in log cabins, where one room sufficed for kitchen, parlor, laundry, nursery, and bed- room, doing their own housework, sewing, baby-tending, dairy-work, and all. What could they do.^ *' They were not long in devising a way to gratify the longings of their motherly and patriotic hearts, and instantly set about carry- ing it into action. They resolved to beg wheat of the neighboring farmers, and convert it into money. Sometimes on foot, and some- times with a team, amid the snows and mud of early spring, they canvassed the country for twenty and twenty-five miles around, everywhere eloquently pleading the needs of the blue-coated soldier boys in the hospitals, their eloquence everywhere acting as an open [196 J WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR sesame to the granaries. Thus they labored till they had accumulated nearly five hundred bushels of wheat. This they sent to market, obtained the highest market-price for it, and forwarded the proceeds to the Commission. As we held this hard-earned money in our hands, we felt that it was consecrated, that the holy purpose and resolution of these noble women had imparted a sacredness to it." The holding of gigantic fairs was another means by which the women of the North raised money to carry on relief work among the sol- diers. In this they followed the example set by the early abolition women, particularly of Boston and other New England cities, whose annual " anti-slavery fairs " are memorable as having brought to America many articles that had never before been imported — rare Honiton laces, magnificent Paisley shawls, fine porcelain figures, costly Swiss carvings, and much else contributed by foreign sym- pathizers. But where the " anti-slavery fairs " [197] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA had raised one dollar, the " soldiers' aid fairs " raised a hundred, so vast was the scale on which they were conducted, and so generous the response. The first of these fairs was held in Chicago, where the women of that city hoped to raise by it a contribution of twenty-five thousand dollars. The proceeds enabled them to send to the Sanitary Commission three times that amount. The women of Cincinnati at once followed with a fair by which they proposed to raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and they did it. More than a million dollars was raised by fairs in New York and Brooklyn, and another million by a fair in Philadelphia. Altogether upwards of five million dollars was added in this way to the resources of the San- itary Commission. Besides the fairs, the women of many cities interested themselves in the establishment and maintenance of soldiers' hospitals and ** homes," while in Philadelphia a unique chan- [198] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR nel for patriotic enterprise was found in the so-called " refreshment saloons," where sol- diers passing through the city were given meals. There were two of these saloons, both being in the vicinity of the navy yard, and whenever a regiment reached Philadelphia a cannon was fired. At the signal, whether it came in the daytime or in the middle of the night, scores of women hastened to the saloons to prepare and distribute food. More than six hundred thou- sand meals were served at one saloon, and four hundred thousand at the other. Both had hospitals attached to them for sick and wounded soldiers. Mrs. Eliza Plummer, a widow who turned her home into a soldiers' hospital, Mrs. William M. Cooper, Mrs. Sarah Ewing, Mrs. Elizabeth Vansdale, Miss Anna M. Ross, Mrs. Mary Wade, Mrs. Ellen Lowry, Mrs. Margaret Boyer, and Mrs. Priscilla Grover were among the women most prominent in this work. The manner in which they cared for the soldiers who came to their " saloons " is quaintly [1991 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA depicted in Doctor James Moore's " History of the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon," a now little known volume published almost immediately after the close of the war: " In the extensive area of the Cooper Shop were placed six tables, of which, with a space between their ends, but in a continuous line, three ran the entire length of the saloon. On the left side, in like manner, ran two tables two-thirds the length of the saloon, while on the right of the entrance was a table for the officers. The room was strictly clean and tidy, and every article shone by the careful hands of the active housekeepers who ministered to our braves. In the extensive fire-place was a huge boiler for preparing the coffee, one for boiling hams, etc., and all the required utensils of the culinary art. " While the vegetables were cooking, and the viands preparing, each table was laid with a clean white linen cloth, on which were arranged plates of white stone china, mugs of the same, [2001 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR knives and forks, castors, and all that was nec- essary to table use. Bouquets of flowers, the gifts of visitors, were frequently added, and lent their fragrance to the savory odors. The bill of fare consisted of the best the market could supply, and was not, in the articles provided, inferior to that of any hotel in the country. At all meals the fare was abundant; consisting of ham, corned beef, Bologna sau- sage, bread made of the finest wheat, butter of the best quality, cheese, pickles, dried beef, coffee and tea, and vegetables. " The ladies were always in attendance. The viands were placed in dishes on a side- table, from which due distribution was made. In a word, when all was ready, the commanding oflScer being notified, the men formed in line at the ready word of command, and the hardy veterans, whose heroic valor never hesitated to obey the strictest order, marched, in all the order of dress parade, to the well-supplied table, and, deploying to the right and left, took their [2011 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA stand, each in his place, before the table, and partook of the meal so invitingly spread before them. " The committee, constantly anticipating their wants, produced a fresh supply of what- ever was required, and, in the words of Homer, * No desire was unfulfilled in the well-propor- tioned banquet.' Meanwhile, the officers at another table partook of the fare thus pro- vided. The renewed vigor imparted by timely nourishment enabled them to proceed refreshed in mind and body. When one table was served, another was prepared, and none were sent away empty." Then, too, there was the noble army of nurses, that heroic and devoted band of women who, conquering their instinctive horror of warfare and bloodshed, ministered to the stricken soldier, often amid the thunderous crashing of shot and shell. In the military hospital, on the trains and boats transporting the wounded, in tents by the side of the road [2021 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR that led to the battle-field, and on the battle- field itself, they were to be found — black- robed and gentle-faced Sisters of Mercy, daugh- ters of the rich and of the poor, widows, school- teachers, farmers' wives — all coming together with but one thought, the relief of suffering. It was difficult work, arduous, dangerous work, but there was no lack of volunteers. From the moment the Woman's Central As- sociation of Relief was organized, it was flooded by hundreds of applications from women eager to serve. The difficulty was not to secure nurses, but to select only those best fitted to stand the terrific strain they would have to undergo. Confronted by this problem, the United States Government, as every American woman should remember with a thrill of pride, solved it by entrusting the task of selection to a woman — Dorothea L. Dix. As the sequel proved, a better decision could not have been reached. Miss Dix was a keen judge of human nature, and a woman [2031 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of rare executive ability, with a remarkable talent for mastering details. She was a born philanthropist, and had all her life been en- gaged in good works for the sick, the suffering, and the oppressed, with results perhaps un- equaled by any other individual reformer in the history of the United States. While still a very young woman, living in Boston, a con- versation which she chanced to overhear in the street drew her attention to the deplorable condition of the convicts in the State prison at Charlestown. This led her to investigate Massachusetts' public institutions in general, and she discovered such urgent need for re- forms that she set herself to awaken the popular conscience and compel the legislature to enact laws insuring better treatment of the State's prisoners, paupers, and insane. Having gained her end in Massachusetts, she started on a similar campaign in other States, touring al- most the entire country, visiting prisons, alms- houses, and asylums, unsparingly revealing [204] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR the abuses she found, and bringing about much amehorative legislation. Her reformative zeal even carried her to foreign parts. In Rome, the Pope expressed his admiration and gratitude that she, " a woman and a Protestant, had crossed the seas to call his attention to these cruelly ill-treated members of his flock." The safeguarding of the lives of sailors was another problem that aroused her sympathetic interest. But, outside of her labors in behalf of public dependents, her chief activity was in hospital work. She is credited with having founded thirty-two hospitals, besides many, including two in Japan, that indirectly owed their inception to her in- fluence. In the hands of a woman like Dorothea Dix, the United States Government could not but feel confident that the needs of the army would be well looked after; and from the be- ginning to the end of the war she was unre- mitting in her endeavor to place the nursing [205] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA of the soldiers on a sound, broad, and alto- gether sufficient basis; to supervise closely the nurses whom she appointed, and to main- tain their efficiency and enthusiasm. This last, however, was the lightest of the many burdens that she willingly assumed. Every nurse was an enthusiast, from " Mother " Bickerdyke, Clara Barton, Amy Bradley, Margaret Breckinridge, and Helen Gilson to the least known of the multitude of self-effacing heroines who risked their lives in fever-hospital or on the firing-line. Only enthusiasm of the rarest, highest, noblest type, coupled with the loftiest sense of duty, could have sustained them in the terrible ordeals through which they were called upon to pass. The picture of " Mother " Bickerdyke, lan- tern in hand, groping at midnight among Fort Donelson's dead, on the chance of finding some wounded man whom she could succor, but typifies the glorious — one might almost say, divine — enthusiasm that pervaded the [206] MOTHER " BICKERDYKE. From an engraving. Page 207. WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR whole body of nurses. Many of them sincerely felt, indeed, that they were called by God to their task of alleviation, as is impressively evidenced by a tale told of Mrs. Bickerdyke. After the battle of Shiloh she managed, though not attached to the Sanitary Commission, to procure some supplies from its stores, and at once set about doing everything in her power for the relief of the wounded. Says Mrs. Liver- more, the narrator of the incident: " One of the surgeons found her wrapped in the gray overcoat of a Confederate soldier, and wearing a soft slouch hat, having lost her inevitable Shaker bonnet. Her kettles had been set up, the fire kindled underneath, and she was dispensing hot soup, tea, crackers, whiskey and water, and other refreshments to the shivering, fainting, wounded men. ** * Where did you get those things? ' the surgeon inquired. * And under whose authority are you working? ' " She paid no attention to his interrogations, [207] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA and probably did not hear them, so completely- absorbed was she in her work of compassion. " Watching her with admiration for her varied skill — for she not only fed the wounded men, but temporarily dressed their wounds in some cases — he questioned her again : " ' Madam, you seem to combine in your- self a sick-diet kitchen and a medical staff. May I inquire under whose authority you are working? ' " Without pausing in her work, she replied: " * I have received my authority from the Lord God Almighty. Have you anything that ranks higher than that? ' " Many a nurse — and notably " Mother " Bickerdyke, who was present at nineteen battles — moved among the fallen, dressing wounds and assisting at amputations, while the storm of conflict was still raging with un- diminished stress. It was thus with Clara Barton, who equipped a hospital-train to follow the Army of the Potomac, and served [208] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR with the surgeons on the battle-field of Antie- tam — when, as said above, ten thousand wounded soldiers were for four days cared for by the agents of the Sanitary Commission. After Antietam Miss Barton continued with the army almost throughout the campaign which culminated so disastrously at Fredericks- burg. In the same campaign was Helen Gilson, who had been rejected by Miss Dix on account of her youth, but nevertheless managed to get to the front and soon won recognition as a daring and capable nurse. She was on the field at Fredericksburg, Chancellor sville, and Gettysburg, and crowned her labors by faithful service under Grant in the long and bloody campaign from the Rapidan to Petersburg and Richmond. It was Miss Gilson to whom Doctor Bellows referred when, describing his experi- ences at Gettysburg, he said: " I went out to the field hospital of the Third Corps, where two thousand four hundred men [2091 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA lay in their tents, a vast army of mutilated humanity. One woman, young and fair, but grave and earnest, clothed in purity and mercy — the only woman in that whole vast camp — moved in and out of the hospital tents, speaking some tender word, giving some restoring cordial, holding the hand of a dying boy, or receiving the last words of a husband for his widowed wife. I can never forget how, amid scenes which under ordinary circumstances no woman could have appeared in without gross inde- corum, the holy pity and purity of this angel of mercy made her presence seem as fit as though she had indeed dropped out of Heaven. The men themselves, sick or well, seemed awed and purified by such a resident among them." There was scarcely another nurse so beloved by the soldiers, and the secret of her popularity is plainly indicated in a brief but telling word- picture drawn by Doctor W. H. Reed, one of the Sanitary Commission's physicians. It describes his first meeting with Miss Gilson, [2101 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR at Fredericksburg, in May, 1864, when that city was the place to which the wounded were brought for treatment before being sent to the hospitals at Washington and Baltimore. Doc- tor Reed writes as follows: *' One afternoon, when the atmosphere of our rooms was close and foul, and all were long- ing for a breath of our cooler Northern air, while the men were moaning in pain, or were restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with pity for the sufferers, I heard a light step upon the stairs; and, looking up, I saw a young lady enter, who brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and cheerful courage, so much freshness, such an expression of gentle, womanly sympathy, that her mere presence seemed to revive the drooping spirits of the men, and to give a new power of endurance through the long and painful hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of another, a friendly word here, a gentle nod and smile there, a tender sympathy with each prostrate [2111 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA sufferer, a sympathy which could read in his eyes his longing for home love, and for the pres- ence of some absent one — in those few minutes hers was indeed an angel ministry. " Before she left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody, then some sonnet or plaintive hymn to strengthen the fainting heart; and I remember how the notes penetrated to every part of the building. Soldiers with less severe wounds, from the rooms above, began to crawl out into the entries, and men from below crept up on their hands and knees, to catch every note, and to receive the benediction of her presence — for such it was to them. Then she went away. I did not know who she was, but I was as much moved and melted as any soldier of them all. This is my first reminiscence of Helen L. Gilson." Bearing in mind that Doctor Reed wrote of a period when Miss Gilson had been working for the soldiers for more than two years, and most of the time under the strenuous conditions [2121 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR of active campaigning, it becomes possible to appreciate the devotion and wonderful powers of endurance and self-mastery which she displayed. Yet, after all, hers was not an ex- ceptional case. Not a few army nurses, to be sure, like Margaret Breckinridge and Ara- bella Barlow, succumbed to the fearful strain put upon them, and, no less truly than the soldiers who perished in the trenches and on the field, gave their lives for their country. But there were many — notable among whom were Miss Dix and Miss Barton, of whose splendid record in Red Cross work the world is well aware — who not only served through the war without any impairment of either their zeal or their strength, but continued to busy themselves for years afterwards in labors scarcely less exacting and no less valuable to the nation. The same is true of Julia Ward Howe, who shortly before her death two years ago was reverently acclaimed " the most distinguished [213] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA woman in the United States," and whose unique contribution to the Union cause — her immortal " Battle Hymn of the Republic " — will always be reckoned among the noblest songs of American patriotism. It was written in the autumn of 1861, during a visit to Wash- ington. While there Mrs. Howe, with a party of friends, attended a review of Northern troops on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and chanced to witness a sudden attack by the enemy, thus getting a glimpse of real warfare. On the way back to the capital the party sang a number of war songs, including " John Brown's Body," and one of them remarked how much better the tune of that song was than the words. Mrs. Howe, under the in- spiration of what she had seen that afternoon, determined to write something of her own that would be more appropriate to the stirring melody; and that same night the " Battle Hymn " was composed, with its wonderful lines: [214] JULIA WARD HOWE IN 1865 From a photograph. Page 214. WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR " Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. " I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on. " I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: * As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel. Since God is marching on.* " He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment- seat: Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. [2151 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA *' In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. While God is marching on." Finally, to complete the record of woman's patriotism, self-sacrifice, and heroism in the colossal conflict of the sixties, something must be said of the manner in which the women of the South responded to what was to them fully as much as to the women of the North, a clarion call to their best endeavors. Nothing could be farther from the truth than to imagine, as some writers on the Civil War seem to have imagined, that they contented themselves with waving dainty handkerchiefs at the marching men in gray, and then sat idly down to await the outcome. They could not have done this had they wished — for it was at their doors that the war was fought — and there was not a woman among them who did so wish. From the wives and daughters of the old Southern aristocracy to the girl in calico of the strag- [2161 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR gling mountain settlements, they gave them- selves with one accord to the task of aiding their army by every means at their com- mand. To them, in truth, the torments and horrors of the war were brought home with far more immediate force than to their Northern sisters. The husband or son to whom in the morning they gave a fond adieu might ere night be car- ried to them stark and cold in death. They themselves, during the long sieges, were con- stantly exposed to the perils of the bombard- ment. In the last stages of the war they were on the verge of starvation, and many actually perished for want of food. Yet all the time they kept up a brave heart, held back the tears of bitterness and bereavement, and, even when their resources were lowest, nobly strove, just as the Northern women were striving, to sup- port and comfort and relieve their soldier boys. All over the South soldiers' aid societies [2171 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA were formed similar to those of the North, an- imated by the same enthusiasm, though pre- vented by circumstances from accompHshing as much in the way of concrete results. There was no sacrifice which they were unwilling to make for the Confederacy and for the Con- federacy's soldiers. " When war raised a loud cry for need," exclaimed John Dimitry, in an eloquent tribute to the women of Louisiana, " Beauregard was calling upon his sisters who spoke French and his other sisters who spoke English to send him metal for his guns. Quick to the melter and blacksmith's forge! Are these your fretted brass candelabra, madame? Brought across seas, and handed down from one generation to the next, you say? What of that.'^ Beaure- gard calls, his need will not brook delay. This tall, slender, lily-cupped candlestick, too, in the young girl's chamber, let it be brought out! And those massive polished andirons Dorcas has been so proud of. Take down the [2181 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR metal bell that rings the plantation signals. Look well around ! " ^ In Virginia, in the Carolinas, in Georgia, and Alabama, and Tennessee it was the same. What can we do for the army? As in the North, women hurried to the front to tend the wounded, or labored in hastily improvised hospitals created over night in private homes, hotels, and warehouses. Mrs. Roger A. Pry or, in her " Reminiscences of Peace and V^^ar," which should be read by all who would know some- thing of what the women of the South suffered and achieved, has drawn graphic pictures of scenes in one of these temporary hospitals in Richmond, where the fairest and proudest of the daughters of the Old Dominion performed cheerfully the most menial and repellent tasks. On the battle-field, whether in attendance as volunteer nurses, or caught unawares like old Allie McPeek, they could always be relied ^ In General C. A. Evan's " Confederate Military History," vol. X, pp. 285-286. [219] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA upon to render cool, unterrified service. The story of Allie McPeek ^ admirably illustrates the spirit shared by all of high or low degree. She was a poor widow living on a little farm two miles from Jonesboro, Georgia. When the armies of Schofield and Hardee fought the battle of Jonesboro, in September, 1864, her house was for two days under fire. According as the fortunes of war changed, it would be for a time within the lines of the Union troops, then within those of the Confederates, and at times directly between both. Yet all the while she remained in her ruined home, converting it into a hospital, and for forty- eight hours, regardless of her danger, kept hard at work helping the surgeons of both armies. So nobly did she bear herself that when the battle was over General Schofield, of the vic- ^ Southern Historical Society's " Papers," vol. xxiii, pp. 328-329. [2201 WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR torious Northern army, sent her a large wagon- load of provisions, together with a long and touching letter of thanks and a promise that if, after the war, she presented his letter to the United States Government she would be compensated for her losses. Uncle Sam, it is good to know, redeemed his general's pledge, rejoicing the heart of old Allie McPeek with a check for six hundred dollars. Then there was the Tennessee mother who gave five sons to the Confederacy, and who, when Bishop Polk was endeavoring to console her for the loss of the first to be slain, looked him in the eye without a tear, and bravely said: ** My son Billy will be old enough next spring to take his brother's place." Of still greater pathos is the story told by Mrs. John R. Eggleston, concerning a friend of hers, a widow, whose two sons, her only support, fell in the hopeless struggle. " Both my boys are gone," said she, " but [221] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA if I had to do all this over again, I would not act differently." The famous " Mother " Bickerdyke had her counterpart in the South in Mrs. Sallie Chapman Law, born in the Yadkin River sec- tion of North Carolina, which has given so many great-hearted men and women to the making of America. When the war broke out, she was living in Memphis, where she became an active worker in hospitals; and when noth- ing more could be done in Memphis, she went through the lines to labor 'mid the cannon smoke. It was not without reason that Gen- eral Joseph E. Johnston once paraded thirty thousand of his weary and tattered veterans in a review given in her honor. Mrs. Newsom, of Arkansas, was another devoted Southern nurse, a lady who " surren- dered all the comforts of home to do what she could for the suffering of our army." So was Kate Gumming, of Mobile, whose brother was in battle while she was nursing the wounded [222] WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR at Corinth. This lady has, in fact, left a most informative record of her war-time experiences, in her " Journal of Hospital Life in the Confed- erate Army of the Tennessee," a book that vividly, if fragmentarily, reveals the tremen- dous handicaps under which the daughters of the Confederacy performed their self-imposed duties as nurses, and the courage with which they faced the dangers to which they found themselves from time to time exposed. Thus, North and South the story is the same — a record of quiet and unostentatious, but glorious and sublime, self-sacrificing heroism. 223] CHAPTER VII THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY IMPRESSIVE and often thrilling as has been the story of woman's work and influ- ence in past epochs of American history, it is safe to say that never has she played a more important part than she is playing to-day. Within the space of a comparatively few years she has extended her activities in directions and to a degree undreamed by the noble matrons and maids who in former times presented such inspiring examples to their own and future generations. In all walks of life — in business, in professional pursuits, in the arts — the American woman is more numerously and conspicuously represented than ever before. Nor has she thereby lost any of the distinctive charms of her womanliness, or in any way weakened her [224] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY claim on our affection, esteem, admiration, and gratitude. With increased freedom for individual self- expression she has gained, and taken advan- tage of, increased power to make her collective influence felt for good in the life of the nation. Nothing is more significant in this connection than the growth of the so-called " woman's club," which has been the subject of so much ill-natured and ill-advised criticism. It has been charged that the club movement among women involved neglect of home duties, would increase frivolity, and meant the ultimate dis- ruption of family life. However well-grounded these objections may be in the case of other countries, they are glaringly erroneous when applied to the United States. Here the woman's club has developed into a most valuable and powerful instrument for social betterment. Its remote origin, as was said in the opening chapter, may with some reason be traced to the meetings of those early Puritan women who [2251 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA used to assemble at Mrs. Anne Hutchinson's home in seventeenth-century Boston and dis- cuss theological and other burning questions of the day. But it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that women's clubs in the modern sense began to make their ap- pearance with the organization of the Ladies' Library Society, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Minerva Club, of New Harmony, Indiana, the establishment of which speaks volumes for the progressiveness of the women of the Middle West. Any immediate extension of the movement thus set on foot was prevented by the outbreak of the Civil War. Nevertheless, the woman's club indirectly gained greatly from that tre- mendous conflict. The notable services ren- dered by the Sanitary Commission and its subsidiary soldiers' aid societies, went far to remove long-standing prejudices against the participation of women in public affairs, and at the same time helped women to realize the [2261 THE WOMEN OF TO - DAY progress they might hope to achieve by organ- ized cooperation. There had long been a grow- ing sentiment that the laws and customs of the country worked to the disadvantage of women, and after the Civil War this sentiment crystallized and found expression, on the one hand in an " equal suffrage " movement, and on the other in the " club " movement, which was definitely launched in 1868 by the founding, almost simultaneously, of the New England Woman's Club and the oddly named Sorosis. ^ The former owed its inception largely to the genius of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who had even then attained international reputa- tion, not only as the author of the " Battle Hymn of the Republic " but also as a zealous humanitarian. Only the previous year she and her husband, the great-hearted Doctor Samuel G. Howe, had won the warm gratitude of the people of Greece for visiting them and aiding them in their struggle for national in- dependence. Under the influence of Mrs. [2271 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Howe and her associates — who included such well-known women as Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, and Mrs. Edna P. Cheney — the idea of social service was from the first a leading principle in the New England Woman's Club. Besides providing literary programmes for the entertainment and cultural develop- ment of its members, it struck out along phil- anthropic lines, establishing a free employ- ment bureau and a horticultural school for girls. In connection with the founding of Sorosis, an interesting story is told. When Charles Dickens made his second American visit, in 1867-1868, he was given a banquet by the Press Club of New York. Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly, the brilliant newspaper woman whose writings under the pseudonym of " Jennie June " have delighted so many thousands of readers, was at the time a member of the editorial staff of the World, and it seemed to her only right and fitting that she should [2281 THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY attend the Press Club's banquet, Her applica- tion for a ticket met with a prompt refusal, on the score of her sex. Greatly disappointed, and not a little in- censed, Mrs. Croly invited a number of her friends — among whom were Mrs. Charlotte B. Wilbour, Mrs. Eliza Botta, Kate Field, and Alice and Phoebe Cary — to meet at her home and discuss the formation of a club exclusively for women. The result of their meeting was the birth of Sorosis, in March, 1868, with Alice Cary as its first president. There were only twelve charter members, but before the year was out, Sorosis had grown remarkably both in numbers and influence. Other women in other cities began to organize, some along the lines of the New England Woman's Club, but more taking the pioneer New York club as their model. According to a clubwoman of wide experience, Helen M. Winslow, " no other club in the country has been so much copied, imitated, and envied as [2291 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the j&rst and famous Sorosis." Interest in the club movement was intensified by the meeting of a Congress of Women, convened in New York in 1869, in response to a call from Mrs. Croly. Four years later, and again mainly on the in- itiative of Mrs. Croly, the Association for the Advancement of Women was founded, under the presidency of Mrs. Livermore, who was afterward succeeded by Mrs. Howe. Than these three women — Mrs. Croly, Mrs. Howe, and Mrs. Livermore — none deserve greater credit as constructive pioneers in promoting the interests and extending the influence of the women of present-day America^ Naturally enough, while many of the women's clubs followed the example of the New England organization and embarked in various phil- anthropic enterprises, their chief concern at first was to benefit their individual members and to secure greater freedom of action for women in general. But as time brought with it increased recognition of " woman's rights," [2301 THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY they became decreasingly self -centered. They acquired, so to speak, a *' community conscious- ness," and began to attack problems of impor- tance to them not only as women and mothers, but as residents of the cities and towns in which they made their homes. They undertook, for example, to study the conditions of life among the poor, and to agitate for sanitary and other reforms that would pro- mote the health, happiness, and efficiency of slum dwellers. They established and aided educational institutions of all sorts — public libraries, schools of domestic science, manual- training schools, kindergartens. Some laid stress on the need for reforms in municipal government and administration. Others be- came busy hives of cooperative industry, a most impressive illustration being found in the work of the Woman's Educational and Indus- trial Union, a Boston organization which was founded in the eighties, to-day boasts a mem- bership of three thousand, and annually ex- [2311 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA pends forty thousand dollars in helping the poor to help themselves. The next and inevitable step was a union of the different clubs scattered in all parts of the United States. This was foreshadowed in 1889, when a few literary clubs, in response to a call from Sorosis, federated with one an- other. In the following year, likewise on the invitation of Sorosis — and Mrs. Croly — delegates met in New York to form what has since become of nation-wide importance as the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Beginning with a membership of less than one hundred clubs, it has grown until, after an interval of not yet a quarter of a century, it comprises over five thousand clubs, with a total membership of four hundred thousand women. Add to these the members of organ- izations independent of, but affiliated with, the General Federation — such as the Inter- national Sunshine Society, the Woman's Out- [232] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY door Art League of the American Civic As- sociation, the National Society of New England Women, and the Woman's National Press Association — and we have an army of more than a million well-organized, well-directed, and enthusiastic women whose watchwords are " The Home, Patriotism, and Good Government." The presence of such an army is in itself a guarantee of a happy future for the land in which we dwell. All over the country the club- women are waging a great battle for social progress. They are fighting vice and crime, ignorance and disease; they are demanding humane legislation to protect the weak and lowly; they make no compromise with greed, brutality, or injustice; everywhere they are carrying on a great educational campaign to promote a higher cultural development, a livelier civic sense, and a loftier morality in the individual and in the nation. Their out- look is in no way restricted. They labor for [233] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA the welfare not only of the people of their own day but of generations yet unborn. " Except in the United States Congress," emphatically asserts Josiah Strong, president of the American Institute for Social Service, " I know of no body of men or women represent- ing so much of intellect and heart, so much of culture and influence, and so many of the highest hopes and noblest possibilities of the American people as the General Federation of Women's Clubs." Similar testimony comes from Ben. B. Lind- sey, the Colorado man who has made such a splendid record as judge of the juvenile court in Denver. ** For the past few years," he says, " I have been actively engaged in the interest of better laws for the protection of the home and the children. In this behalf I have visited some twenty States. I have found wonderful prog- ress, and scarcely without exception it has been the members of the women's clubs who have championed every good law and secured the [234] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY passage of nearly all the advanced legislation upon the statute books for the protection of the home and the children." " It would take a volume to give you ade- quately a small portion of what I know as to the beneficence of activities of women in con- nection with American Civic Association work and kindred work," writes J. Horace McFar- land, president of the American Civic Associa- tion, in a letter to the author. " Some things they do so exceptionally well that I do not see how the work could be done without them. I have said a great many times on the platform, in answering calls from communities for ad- dresses intended to get those communities started in practical work for better living con- ditions, that I did not know of a successful regenerative movement that was not inspired or underwritten by the women of the com- munity." The facts bear out these glowing tributes. To give a notable instance, the organized [235] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA pressure brought to bear by clubwomen was a potent factor in effecting the sorely needed reform embodied in the Pure Food Law of 1906. The General Federation of Women's Clubs declared for its enactment, as did the State Federations in the General Federation and individual clubs in the State Federations. Committees were appointed for the express purpose of educating public opinion to the im- portance of the proposed law and persuading reluctant Congressmen to vote the right way. In the opinion of many good judges, the influ- ence thus exercised was absolutely decisive. And even to-day, six years after the victory has been won, the pure food committees of the General and State Federations are hard at work, determined that there shall be no evasion of the law, and agitating for further reforms, particularly in the way of improving the milk supply and improving sanitary con- ditions in markets and provision stores. Similarly, the clubwomen have thrown them- [236] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY selves heart and soul into the movement now under way for the conservation of America's natural resources and scenic assets. The saving of the Palisades on the Hudson River was chiefly due to the energetic action of women's clubs in New Jersey. The famous cliff dwellings of Colorado would have been lost to the nation had it not been for the beneficent activity of a number of Colorado women who organized a Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association, gained the support of the General Federation of Wom- en's Clubs, and instituted a successful campaign for the creation of the Mesa Verde National Park. In Minnesota, women prevented a " land grab," and afterward secured the enactment of a State forestry law to put a stop to the depre- dations of lumbermen and town-site operators. The State Federation of New Hampshire lent powerful aid m the struggle for the preservation of the White Mountain forests. So, too, in New York, where the State Federation has [2371 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA battled bravely against the vandalism that threatens to convert the Adirondacks and the Catskills into barren wastes. Elsewhere, par- ticularly in Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachu- setts, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and California, women's clubs have done splendid work for forest preserva- tion. The movement to rescue Niagara Falls from the rapacious grasp of commercialism has been loyally supported by women in all parts of the country.) Both through their clubs and as individuals they are ably seconding the efforts of the American Civic Association, which has made the saving of Niagara its special care. Mr. McFarland, from whom I have already quoted, tells a good story illus- trative of the interest and enthusiasm shown by the women of the United States in attacking the Niagara problem. As president of the American Civic Association he had occasion to attend several hearings in Washington. At [238] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY one hearing, held in the War OflSce, President Taft, then Secretary of War, after Hstening to what Mr. McFarland had to urge in behalf of Niagara, turned to him with some impatiencCj and said: "Why, you have made even my mother and aunt write me, begging me to save Niagara Falls!" Well may Mr. McFarland say, as he does, that women have been most in- sistent for righteousness in this cause. Another problem of national importance to which the clubwomen are giving earnest and productive thought is the securing of remedial industrial legislation for women and children. The industrial and child-labor committees of the General and State Federations, and of many of their clubs, have gone into the homes of the workers, and into mills, factories, and stores, investigating the conditions under which women and children toil. Their aim is the utter abolition of child labor, and the pro- tection of working women from employers who would overwork them, or compel them to [239] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA labor under injurious conditions. In many cases special agents are employed, men and women quick to detect violations of existing laws, and skilled in gathering data to reinforce demands for reform. Of course they have met, and will continue to meet, bitter opposition; but they have already made appreciable prog- ress in awakening the public conscience and in compelling State legislatures to enact more enlightened laws. One phase of the " child rescue " campaign in which they have been signally successful is the creation of separate courts, reform schools, and probation systems for dealing with youth- ful offenders. The juvenile court plan origi- nated less than fifteen years ago, in Illinois, when the Chicago Woman's Club, horrified at conditions found to exist in Cook County jail, engaged a lawyer to draw up a bill which should strike at the roots of the pernicious system of herding young boys with hardened criminals. The new method went on trial [ 240 ] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY in 1899, and its merits were such that club- women everywhere began to insist on its ex- tension. It has since been adopted by so many States that the day does not seem far distant when the entire country will have abandoned the old-time practice of " sending a boy to school at the jailer's " — a practice which virtually denies the juvenile delinquent any chance of developing into a decent and useful member of society. Civil Service reform has received organized support from the women of present-day America since 1894, when there was founded in New York the Woman's Auxiliary of the Civil Service Reform Association. The General Federation of Women's Clubs has a standing committee on Civil Service reform, as have a majority of the State Federations, and their influence is constantly exercised toward a wider applica- tion of the merit system of appointment to public oflfice. Reform in municipal politics is another problem enlisting their sympathetic [2411 WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA cooperation, and much good work has been ac- complished in this field by such organizations as the Woman's Municipal League of New York, the Civic Club of Philadelphia, and the Civic Federation of Denver. Clubwomen have likewise entered ardently into the movement to improve the sanitation, appearance, and general living conditions of American municipalities, and in many in- stances reforms have been brought about en- tirely as a result of their initiative. With their traveling libraries and art galleries they are reaching into remote communities, pro- moting education in the most isolated regions, fostering a love of the beautiful, and opening up vistas of enjoyment and recreation to many whose lives have formerly been a dreary monot- ony of unending toil. This brings me to a fact which, taken by itself, would amply justify the woman's club movement in the United States. In a very real sense it is eradicating the last lingering [2421 THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY remnants of the sectionalism that has more than once worked havoc to the nation. x\mong club- women there is no East and West, or North and South. They stand for a united people. In the biennial conventions of the General Federation of Women's Clubs they come to- gether from all parts of the country to plan for the good of the whole country. Even the per- sonnel of the General Federation's officers bears evidence to the absence of sectional lines. The same principle obtains in the ap- pointment of committees, and in the practical working out of Federation business the national idea is kept steadily to the fore, even when it is a question of dealing with problems pri- marily local rather than national in their significance. Thus, there stands in the heart of Georgia's mill region a model country school where children are taught, in addition to the three R's, manual training, domestic science, and gardening. It was founded and is maintained [243] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA at the joint expense of the Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs and the Massachusetts Federation, which has long been aiding the women of Georgia in combatting the evils of child labor in that State. And similarly in Tennessee, the Massachusetts Federation has established at Happy Valley a settlement like that established by the Tennessee Federation at Walker's Valley for the purpose of teaching the wives and daughters of the Tennessee mountaineers cooking, sewing, and other homely arts. All this, of course, tends to the making of a happier, better, and more progressive people. Nor are the federated women's clubs by any means the only organizations of women labor- ing to the same beneficent end. While it is true that no other organization approaches the General Federation of Women's Clubs in the scope of its activities, there are many which, created for special objects, are rendering serv- ices whose value to the nation it would be [244] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY difficult to overestimate. Pre-eminent among these is the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with which will ever be as- sociated the name of one of the noblest of American women, Frances E. Willard, who was its president for nearly twenty years. Its mem- bership is almost as impressive as that of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, having grown from a few thousand at the time of its founding, in 1874, to several hundred thousand enthusiastic " white ribboners." Perhaps their most noteworthy achievement is seen in the success attending their efforts to have the children of the United States — the " citizens of to-morrow " — instructed in the principles of scientific temperance. They have secured mandatory laws to this effect in every State in the Union, besides a Federal law applying to the District of Columbia, the Territories, and all Indian and military schools supported by the government; and as a result fully eighteen million children in our public [245] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA schools — according to statistics for which I am indebted to Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, the present head of the National Woman's Chris- tian Temperance Union — are now receiving instruction as to the nature and effect of al- cohol and other narcotics on the human system. It is also estimated that at least sixteen million children receive temperance teaching in the Sunday schools of the country, and that five hundred thousand of these are pledged total abstainers. i The recent remarkable growth of prohibition sentiment, which has swung so many States into the " dry " column, must unquestionably be attributed in chief part to this policy of beginning from the bottom upward by educa- ting the future voter as to the harmful effects of the use of alcoholic beverages. Besides which, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union has directly and powerfully contributed to all of the prohibition victories, as has been frequently and even officially recognized. A few years [2461 THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY ago, for instance, at the time Tennessee voted for prohibition, the Legislature of that State adopted a resolution declaring that " to the good and consecrated women of the Tennessee Woman's Christian Temperance Union, we feel a debt of lasting gratitude, and are sen- sitive to the whole work they have accomplished even in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds." And in Georgia chivalric prohibition- ists insisted that " but for the untiring work and constant prayers of the women of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the victory would not have been won," Aside from its anti-liquor activities, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is earnestly engaged in advancing many other social reforms. It has done much for the great principle of international arbitration. Ad- vocates for better observance of the Sabbath find in it an unfailing ally. It is lending efficient aid to the movement to secure stricter laws for the protection of women and children. The wel- [247] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA fare of children, indeed, has always been one of its principal objects. It has been instrumental in securing legislation prohibiting the sale of to- bacco to minors. It has encouraged the estab- lishment of school savings banks. It has advo- cated physical education in public schools, and has cooperated with the General Federation of Women's Clubs and other organizations in promoting the extension of the kindergarten. In all of this, it has been actuated by the sound belief that the future of the country depends on the kind of training its boys and girls receive, and that by caring for their in- terests it will best live up to its motto — " For God and Home and Native Land." Altogether, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union must be accounted among the nation's richest assets. Then, also quite apart from the club move- ment, there are organizations of women for the promotion of religion, benevolence, patriot- ism, good government, education, and in fact [248] THE WOMEN OF TO-DAY every worthy cause that one might name. Be- sides which, as need hardly be pointed out, the influence of the women of present-day America is immeasurably increased through their mem- bership in societies composed of both men and women. In such societies the latter often hold most responsible positions, and can always be depended upon to do their share in realizing the aims of the organization. Frequently they do far more than their share, as in the case of the three thousand charitable organizations of New York City, where the greater part of the actual work of investigating and relieving destitution is carried on by women. Just how many women all told are thus en- listed under the banner of social progress it is impossible to say, although the number must run far into the millions. It is still more out of the question to attempt to estimate the influ- ence which they exercise collectively and as indi- viduals. Who can measure, for instance, the influence exercised by Miss Helen Gould or [249] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Miss Jane Addams? It is almost twenty years since Miss Addams first took up her residence in Hull House, and began her settlement work among the toilers of Chicago. Under her able direction Hull House has developed into a center of the highest civic and social life. Thousands of people visit it every week during the winter months to attend lectures, debates, and theatrical entertainments; to gain instruc- tion in industrial arts; to take part in its club life; and to study literature, science, history, civics, the languages, and the fine arts. Originally it comprised only four rooms on the second floor of an old residence; to-day it has spread out until it might figuratively be called a city within a city. Its fame has gone forth over the world, and the name of Miss Addams is an inspiration to many who have never seen her. So with all American women, well known, little known, or not known at all, who are striving for the good of their country. One and [2501 THE WOMEN OF TO - DAY all they radiate an influence whose cumulative effect must result, and will result, in the up- building of a greater America than the America of to-day. There is the likelihood, too, that the American woman of future generations will be in a better position to make her influence felt than are her sisters of to-day. Certainly the signs of the times point unmistakably to her securing at no distant period, that full and equal " right to vote " for which the Grimke sisters, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Howe, and their feUow-pioneers in advocacy of " woman's rights," so bravely fought in days gone by.. One after another the States of the Union are recognizing the justice of their claims; are recognizing that, in the light of all that woman has done for America in the past, and all that she is doing to-day, the giving of the vote to women can only result in still greater good to the Republic. [251] WOMAN IN THE MAKING OF AMERICA Let me conclude by once more reminding my readers of what that wise Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote many years ago: " If I were asked to what the singular pros- perity and growing strength of the American people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply — to the superiority of their women." Were de Tocqueville alive to-day, and were he to undertake a revision of his " Democracy in America," that is one passage which he assuredly would leave untouched. 9 [2521 INDEX Abolition movement, early history of, 157-162; women in, 163-187. Addams, Jane, and Hull House, 250. Aiken, Mrs. J., 102. Aldrich, Anne, 101. Aldrich, Milly, 193. American Revolution, wom- an's work in, 81-114. Anthony, Susan B., and equal suffrage movement, 251. Austin, Ann, persecution of, 33-34. Barlow, Arabella, Civil War nurse, 213. Bartlett, Mrs. A., 193. Barton, Clara, with Army of the Potomac, 208-209; also mentioned, 206, 213. *' Battle Hymn of the Re- public," how written, 214; text, 215-216. Bellows, H. W., on woman's work in Civil War, 188, 189 n.; account of Helen Gilson by, 209-210. Berry, Mrs. S., 87-88. Bickerdyke, " Mother," Civil War nurse, 206-208, 222. Birkbeck, M., on westward movement, 116. Birney, Catherine H., on Grimk6 sisters, 165, 169- 171, 171-173. Boone, D., and Wilderness Road, 115, 123; and settle- ment of Kentucky, 119- 123. Boone, Jemima, Indian cap- tivity of, 124-125. Boone, Rebecca, 119, 122, 123, 126, 152. Botta, Eliza, and founding of Sorosis, 229. Boyer, Margaret, 199. Bradley, Amy, Civil War nurse, 206. Brayton, Miss, 189 n. Breckinridge, Margaret, Civil War nurse, 206, 213. Brent, Margaret, first Ameri- can "suffragette," 26-28. Bryan's Station, siege of, 140-150. Burnaby, A., on amusements of Philadelphians, 47-48; on New York society, 48-49. Business women, early American, 24-28, 54-58. Callaway sisters, Indian cap- tivity of, 124-125. Campbell, Miss, 189 n. "Captain Molly," 90-91. Cave Dwellers in Pennsyl- vania, 9. 253] INDEX Chapman, Maria W., and abolition movement, 163. Cheney, Edna P., and found- ing of New England Wom- an's Club, 228. Child labor, 239-240. Child, Lydia M., and aboli- tion movement, 174-178. Civic reform, 235, 241-242. Civil Service reform, 241. Civil War, woman's work in, 188-223. Clubs, women's, origin and development of, 225-232; General Federation organ- ized, 232; present-day work of, 233-248. Coffin, Mrs. P., 102-104. Colburn, Bertha L., on work of New Hampshire women in American Revolution, 102-104. Collins, Miss, 189 n. Conservation of national re- sources, 237-239. Cook, Mrs. J. and Mrs. H., adventure with Indians, 135-136. Cooper, Mrs. W. M., 199. Crandall, Prudence, and ed- ucation of colored chil- dren, 181-184. Croly, Jane C, and found- ing of Sorosis, 228-229; and formation General Federation of Women's Clubs, 232; also mentioned, 230. Cumming, Kate, Civil War nurse, 222-223. Darrah, Lydia, Revolution- ary exploit of, 109-112. Davenport, Mrs. J., 25. Davies, Mrs. J., Kentucky pioneer, 151. Dennis, Hannah, Indian cap- tivity of, 74-79. Dimitry, J., on devotion of Louisiana women in Civil War, 218-219. Dix, Dorothea L., selected as head of Union nurses, 203; early philanthropic work of, 204-205; also mentioned, 209 213 Draper, Mary, 86, 104-105. Drayton Hall, 54, 57. Duston, Hannah, Indian cap- tivity of, 13-16; also men- tioned, 42, 74. Dyer, Mary, convert to Qua- kerism, 35; banished from Massachusetts, 35; re- turns, 36; sentenced to death, 36; appeals to Gen- eral Court, 36-39; re- prieved, 40; again sen- tenced, 41; executed, 42; also mentioned, 179. Education, 180-184, 231, 233, 242, 243, 246, 248. Equal suffrage movement, 26, 28, 227, 251. Ewing, Sarah, 199. Ferguson, Isabella, 113. Ferree, Mary, Pennsylvania pioneer, 25. Field, Kate, and founding of Sorosis, 229. Fisher, Mary, persecution of, 33-34. Foster, Abby, and abolition movement, 178, 179-180. [254 INDEX Garnson, W. L., and aboli- Indian captivities 13-23, tion movement, 158, 161, 74-79, 124-125 162, 163, 179, 182. Gilson, Helen, Civil War Johnson, Jemima S., Bryan's rtr\a orvrv n-in G+«^ + ;^»^ T ; i^r t a rt nurse, 206, 209-212. Glidden, Mrs. C, 102. Gould, Helen, 249. Greene, Catharine, with Rev- olutionary army, 97. Grier, Mrs., 189 n. Grimke sisters, and aboli- tion movement, 163-173; and equal suffrage move- ment, 251. Grover, Priscilla, 199. Haddon, Elizabeth, New Jersey pioneer, 25. Hard, Elizabeth, experiences in early Pennsylvania, 9- 10. Hawkins, Mrs. W., 102. Hedge, Mrs., 189 n. Holley, Sallie, and aboli- tion movement, 179, 180. Houston, Mrs., and settle- ment of Tennessee, 153- 155. Howe, Julia W., and writing of " The Battle Hymn of the Republic," 213-216; Station heroine, 145-148. Juvenile courts, 234, 240- 241. Kentucky, women's experi- ences in early, 123-126, 134-153. King Philip, 17, 22, 23. Knox, Lucy, with Revolu- tionary army, 97. Law, Sallie C, Civil War nurse, 222. Leonardson, S., Indian cap- tivity of, 14-16. Lindsey, B. B., on woman's club movement, 234-235. Livermore, Mary A., on work of Western women in Civil War, 195-196; on work of *• Mother " Bick- erdyke, 207-208; and founding of New England Woman^s Club, 228; also mentioned, 189 n., 230. 251. Lovejoy, E. P., murder of, 162. and founding o f N e w t ^^^^' t^,,^„ ,qq England Woman's Club, j^lL ' • t^ i 227-228; also mentioned, ^Xi il3-llT '"^ " 230, 251. Hull House, 250. Hutchinson, Anne, first American " clubwoman," 28; troubles with Massa- chusetts authorities, 29- 32; banished, 33; death, 33; also mentioned, 34, 42, 226. [265] Lundy, B., and abolition movement, 158, 179. Matteson, Dorcas, 101. May, Miss, 189 n. McFarland, J. H., on wom- an's share in work of American Civic ABSOcia- tion, 236, 238-239. INDEX McPeek, Allie, heroine of battle of Jonesboro, 220- 221. Merrill, Mrs. J., adventure with Indians, 136-137. Moore, Mrs., 189 n. Morris, Deborah, onElizabeth Hard's experiences, 9-10. Mott, Lucretia, and aboli- tion movement, 178-179 : and equal suffrage move- ment, 251. National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, aims and work of, 244-248. Neff, Mary, Indian cap- tivity of, 14-16. New England Woman's Club, 227-228, 229. Newsom, Mrs., Civil War nurse, 222. Pennsylvania Hall, burning of, 160, 171. Philadelphia Dancing As- sembly, founding of, 46. Philadelphia '* refreshment saloons," 199-202. Pilgrim mothers, landing in America of, 8-9. Pinckney, Eliza L., and early Southern plantation life, 54-58. Plummer, Eliza, 199. Poole, Elizabeth, and found- ing of Taunton, Massachu- setts, 24-25. Pryor, Mrs. R. A., on hero- ism of Southern women in Civil War, 219. Pure Food Law, 236. Putnam, Carolina, and edu- cation of colored children, 180. Quakers, persecution of, 33- 42; also mentioned, 9, 109, 165, 179. Reed, Abigail, 102. Reed, Esther, and relief work during Revolution, 106-108. Reid, Mrs. G., 102. Robinson, Hannah, love story of, 59-64. Ross, Anna M., 199. Rouse, Mrs., 189 n. Rowlandson, Mary, Indian captivity of, 16-23; re- moval to Connecticut, 23 n.; also mentioned, 42. Sampson, Deborah, career in American army, 91-96. Sandys, Sir E., and settle- ment of Virginia, 5-6. Schuyler, Miss, 189 n. Social life in the colonies, 46- 54. Sorosis, 227, 228-229. Stanton, Mrs., and equal suffrage movement, 251. Steel, Katharine, 86. Stevenson, Miss, 189 n. Stone, Lucy, and founding of New England Woman's Club, 228; and equal suf- frage movement, 251. Stowe, Harriet B., and " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 185-186; also mentioned, 174. 256] INDEX Strong, J., on the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 234. Thomas, Jane, 112-113. Tocqueville, A. de, on wom- an's work in the United States, 1-2, 252. United States Sanitary Com- mission, organization and work of, 190-192; how money raised for, 197-198. Vansdale, Elizabeth, 199 Virginia maids, 6-8. Wade, Mary, 199. Washington, Martha, with Revolutionary army, 97- 101. Westward movement, women in, 115-155. Wilbour, Charlotte, and founding of Sorosis, 229. Willard, Frances E., 245. Winslow, Helen M., on in- fluence of Sorosis, 229. Witherspoon, R., account of pioneering conditions in South Carolina, 66-71. " Woman's Rights," 28, 230. Wright, Mrs. D., 89. Zane, Elizabeth, heroism in siege of Wheeling, 127- 133. Zellers, Christina, Pennsyl- vania pioneer, 71; adven- ture with Indians, 72. [257] OCT 9 1912 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 527 457