Note 16 — Chapter XVI

Women as loyal as these were to be found in the South, where an expression of love for the Union was held as a death offence. Among the affecting incidents of the war, was that of a woman who, standing upon the Pedee River bank, waved her handkerchief for joy at seeing her country's flag upon a boat passing up the stream, and who for this exhibition of patriotism was shot dead by rebels on the shore. During the bread riots in Mobile a woman was shot. As she was dying she took a small National flag from her bosom, where she had kept it hidden, wrapped it outside a cross, kissed it, and fell forward dead.

"Indeed, we may safely say that there is scarcely a loyal woman in the North who did not do something in aid of the cause—who did not contribute time, labor, and money, to the comfort of our soldiers and the success of our arms. The story of the war will never be fully or fairly written if the achievements of woman in it are left untold. They do not figure in the official reports; they are not gazetted for deeds as gallant as ever were done; the names of thousands are unknown beyond the neighborhood where they live, or the hospitals where they loved to labor; yet there is no feature in our war more creditable to us as a nation, none from its positive newness so well worthy of record."—Women of the War.