We have long known
that this parting must be; perhaps when my soul is free I may be
nearer you. If possible, my spirit will be with you wherever you are."
I can only recall these few lines. A volume could not convey more
strongly the spirit of Southern women, strong even in death. I could
only offer the stricken soldier the little comfort human sympathy can
give, but my tears flowed plentifully as he told me of his wife and
his home.
He was, as I afterwards learned, killed at the battle of Franklin. I
thought almost with pleasure of the happy reunion which I felt sure
must have followed.
How often I have marshalled into the hospital wards mothers and wives,
who for the sake of some absent loved one had come from homes many
miles away, to bring some offering to the sick. Timid, yet earnest
women, poorly dressed, with sunbrowned faces and rough hands, yet
bearing in their hearts the very essence of loving-kindness towards
the poor fellows upon whose pale faces and ghastly wounds they looked
with "round-eyed wonder" and pity. After a while they would gain
courage to approach some soldier whom they found "sort o' favored"
their own, to whom they ventured to offer some dainty, would stroke
the wasted hand, smooth the hair, or hold to the fevered lips a drink
of buttermilk or a piece of delicious fruit.
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