LUCY ANN COX.
On the evening of October 15th, an entertainment was given in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to raise funds to erect a monument to the memory of Mrs. Lucy Ann Cox, who, at the commencement of the war, surrendered all the comfort of her father's home, and followed the fortunes of her husband, who as a member of Company A, Thirteenth Virginia Regiment, served the South until the flag of the Southern Confederacy was furled at Appomattox. No march was too long or weather too inclement to deter this patriotic woman from doing what she considered her duty. She was with her company and regiment on their two forays into Maryland, and her ministering hand carried comfort to many a wounded and worn soldier. While Company A was the object of her untiring solicitude, no Confederate ever asked assistance from Mrs. Cox but it was cheerfully rendered.
She marched as the infantry did, seldom taking advantage of offered rides in ambulances and wagon trains. Mrs. Cox died, a few years ago. It was her latest expressed wish that she be buried with military honors, and, so far as it was possible, her wish was carried out. Her funeral took place on a bright autumn Sunday, and the entire town turned out to do homage to this noble woman.
The camps that have undertaken the erection of this monument do honor to themselves in thus commemorating the virtues of the heroine, Lucy Ann Cox.
CORNELIA BRANCH STONE.
No one can read an account of the daily life in our Southern states during the Civil War without becoming impressed with the fact that the lofty zeal and heroic fortitude of the Confederate women has received too little attention in our literature. A Southern man in his writing has given us a glimpse of the "war women" of Petersburg. "During all those weary months," he says, "the good women of Petersburg went about their household affairs with fifteen inch shells dropping, not infrequently, into their boudoirs or uncomfortably near to their kitchen ranges. Yet they paid no attention to any danger that threatened themselves and indeed their deeds of mercy will never be recorded until the angels report. But this much I want to say of them—they were 'war women' of the most daring and devoted type." The following succinct report of a Confederate general in the midst of the war shows that the women of Winchester were in no wise second in their unselfish fortitude to the women of Richmond, Petersburg and elsewhere. "Its female inhabitants (for the able-bodied males are all absent in the war)," ran the general's brief, "are familiar with the bloody realities of war. As many as five thousand wounded have been accommodated here at one time. All the ladies are accustomed to the bursting of shells and the sight of fighting and all are turned into hospital nurses and cooks." Throughout the whole South, in every city, town and hamlet arose heroines to meet the emergency of war. On first thought it would have been expected that these women, reared in luxury and seclusion, would have become greatly excited and terrified when under fire and amid scenes of actual war, but almost invariably they exhibited a calm fearlessness that was amazing.
