the counties of Rowan and Mecklenberg the derisive name of "The Hornet's Nest of America." The women of the whole thirteen Colonies everywhere showed their devotion to freedom and their choice of liberty with privation, rather than oppression with luxury and ease.
The civil war in our own generation was but an added proof of woman's love for freedom and her worthiness of its possession. The grandest war poem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," was the echo of a woman's voice,[1] while woman's prescience and power were everywhere manifested. She saw, before President, Cabinet, generals, or Congress, that slavery must die before peace could be established in the country,[2] Months previous to the issue by the President of the Emancipation Proclamation, women in humble homes were petitioning Congress for the overthrow of slavery, and agonizing in spirit because of the dilatoriness of those in power. Were proof of woman's love of freedom, of her right to freedom needed, the history of our civil war would alone be sufficient to prove that love, to establish that right.
WOMEN AS SOLDIERS.
Many women fought in the ranks during the war, impelled by the same patriotic motives which led their fathers, husbands, and brothers into the contest. Not alone from one State, or in one regiment, but from various parts of the Union, women were found giving their services and lives to their country among the rank and file of the army.[3] Although the nation gladly summoned their aid in camp and hospital, and on the battle-field with the ambulance corps, it gave them no recognition as soldiers, even denying them the rights of chaplaincy,[4] and by "army regulations" entirely refusing them recognition as part of the fighting forces of the country.
Historians have made no mention of woman's services in the war; scarcely referring to the vast number commissioned in the army, whose sex was discovered through some terrible wound, or by their
- ↑ Julia Ward Howe. See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ Daring all periods of the war instances occurred of women being found in the ranks fighting as common soldiers, their sex remaining unsuspected.—Women of the War.
- ↑ After the close of the war a bill was passed by Congress authorizing the payment of salary due Mrs. Ella F. Hobart, for services as chaplain in the Union army. Mrs. Hobart was chaplain in the First Wisconsin Volunteer Artillery. The Governor of Wisconsin declined to commission her until the War Department should consent to recognize the validity of the commission. This Secretary Stanton refused to do on account of her sex, though her application was endorsed by President Lincoln, though not by the Government Mrs. Hobart continued in her position as religious counselor, Congress at last making payment for her services.
