Page 82 - Arkansas Confederate Women

MISS BARRINGTON'S BRAVERY.

By Mrs. F. L. Sutton, of Fayetteville.

There is a heroism that seldom reaches the light of history,
but it is nevertheless just as lofty, just as genuine, as that dis-

—played at Thermopylae, Yorktown, the Alamo the heroism of

women during a great, fierce war.

A tithe has never been told of the deeds of daring, the

brave defenses, the ministries of mercy, performed by the women

of the South during the terrible war between the states. I say

South because she is the land of my cradling, and her lot was

—mine during the long four years of cruel strife a time when

frequently it was a costly struggle even to exist. In those days

women and little children lived indefinitely without visible
means of support, sometimes not seeing a dollar for months, or

if they had the means, in large portions of the country there

was almost nothing to be had. Much of the time they subsisted

upon the simple fruits that grew wild, cornbread, sorghum
molasses and sassafras tea without sugar or cream.

Were there crops to be made, women made them; were
fences to be built, women must build them. They raised houses,

rolled logs, went to mill, not with two fat sleek horses for a team,
but more likely the family cow and a big calf yoked together.

It was women that killed hogs and beeves, and in the absence
of these brutes, women shouldered guns and went hunting or

fishing. In the absence of physicians (and there was a dearth

of them for a long period), women practiced without leave or
license, sometimes with greater success than some college men
with diplomas to recommend them. But more pathetic still, it

sometimes fell to woman's part not only to offer the final prayer
in behalf of the dying and close the sightless eyes, but with her

own hands, aided by other women to dig the grave, make the

rude pine coffin, and after reading the burial service to fill the
grave, mark the place with a simple board, then leave his body
to nature and bis soul to God.