ADDRESS. (continued 2)

“Mr. Ross Winans, nearly eighty years of age, was taken from his splendid mansion in the middle of the night, and for a second time consigned to a cell. This time his crime was giving food daily to twenty-five hundred poor people. His last release from prison cost him fifty thousand dollars in bribes. Mrs. Davis, a lady of large fortune, had fed nearly one thousand poor daily. Mr. Seward commanded her to desist from doing so; she refused, and published his command and her letter of refusal. The paper that published it has been suppressed, the materials of the office carried off and the editor imprisoned.”

Is not this enough? Well may your historian declare that the remembrance of “the insults, wrongs and outrages that were daily and hourly committed upon the people of this State,” still “rouses indignation too hot for the calmness of impartial history.” Without any bidding of mine you still remember the petty tyranny and devilish outrages of Schenck and Fish and Wallace. You remember, too, the cells of Fort McHenry. You remember the dungeons of Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren. You remember the insults to your wives and daughters. You remember the arrests, the midnight searches of your homes. Why should you forget it! There is nowhere in the obligations of present citizenship any obligation to consign to charitable oblivion the deeds which stain ineffaceably the reputation of those who committed them, and which stain still more darkly the reputation of those, in high authority, by whom the shame and sin were conceived and directed!

But the women of Baltimore had their revenge, and sweet, indeed, it was. The more they were harassed and harried by spies and informers, by sneaks in plain attire, and bullies with sash and sabre, the more ardent and indomitable were they in ministering to the needs of the Southern soldiers.

There was no break or pause. The women of Baltimore were untiring in relieving the wants of the Confederates who fell into the enemy’s hands, as they were indefatigable in sending through the 35lines the clothing and medicines of which our boys in the field were painfully in need. The Sultan of romance caused the tale or jest that refreshed his jaded sense to be written in letters of gold and placed in the archives of his kingdom. How shall be recorded fitly—save in the undying love and gratitude of generations of those who bless you, and hold you in honor ineffable—the deeds of those gentle shrinking women who, in our behoof, were indomitable, invincible. They were mother and sister to the sick soldier who was weary of breath. They were angels of benediction to those who were on the brink of the dark-flowing river. Fragile as flowers, and as beautiful in their holiness, they were so inspired, so exalted, that it appeared a bagatelle to them to risk fortune, health and life itself in solace of the bruised and bleeding Confederates.

You should have—the South should have—the country should have, a day of commemoration of these women and their work. A waiting that, we can sanctify, with gratitude and devotion, the names of Mrs. B. C. Howard, Mrs. J. Hanson Thomas, Mrs. Peyton Harrison, Mrs. J. Harman Brown, Mrs. John S. Gittings, Mrs. Dora Hoffman, Mrs. Robert H. Carr, Mrs. D. Preston, Mrs. Lurman, Mrs. A. DuBois Egerton, and their associates in compassionate endeavor and merciful achievement.

It was my lot to be taken prisoner in 1862, the night after the battle of South Mountain. After a brief stay at Camp Curtin, near Harrisburg, I was lodged at Fort Delaware. The first persons to be seen in the Fort, excepting always the garrison, were citizens of Baltimore, who were confined there because they ventured to avow their convictions—because they dared to act and speak as freemen should. Among them was Mr. Carpenter, the editor of one of your newspapers, which had been suppressed with Muscovitish promptitude, because it had criticised and condemned some of the minor deities of the Northern Government. What grace and help it gave us to meet those men of yours. There was but the exchange of a glance and hasty word in passing from one barrack-room to another. But we felt that we were not alone, though captives we were. Only a day or two afterwards bales of blankets and clothing came from your city, from your women, to us in Delaware. They gave comfort and even health to many a dilapidated Confederate, for we had not dreamed of capture, and our supplies were meagre indeed. This was not all. Again and again, your superb women, in the pride of their conscience and the beauty of their budding years, came to the Fort and waited there hour after hour, in the trust that there might be some opportunity to bestow a word or a look on our poor boys in gray.

But time presses. Though I could speak of you for hours, you might not care to listen. It must, however, be recorded, that when 36all else was gone, when life was paralyzed, when hope was dead, you enlarged your sphere of nobility. Because the cause was lost there was new scope and verge for you. When all else failed—when the banner of the South was furled forever—you came forward to alleviate our grief in showing us that you were as true in defeat as in triumph, and that, for you, failure abated not a jot the merit, or the justice of the freedom for which we fought, nor lessened by a particle your interest in us, or your care for us. It seemed, indeed, that in our poverty, in the ashes of our homes and confronting a problem which was then insoluble and is not solved yet, we were dearer to you than in the pomp and pride of a struggle, which—if right were might—must have had the consummation we wished.

Immediately after the surrender at Appomattox, the Baltimore Agricultural Aid Society was formed by a number of your citizens, irrespective of party, to supply a portion of the Southern States, more particularly Virginia, with stock, farming-tools and seed. For this purpose over $80,000 were subscribed and judiciously distributed by local agents who understood the wants of their immediate neighborhoods. This noble charity was for the assistance of the people of the South “in their sorest need, without wounding their pride or insulting their poverty.”

In the spring of 1866 the ladies of Maryland organized the “Southern Relief Association,” with Mrs. B. C. Howard as president, and a strong array of vice-presidents and managers. To facilitate the objects of the association it was determined to hold a fair, which was opened on the 2d of April, 1866, in the Maryland Institute. It was continued until the 13th of the month, and at its close the net receipts were found to be $164,569.97, which was distributed through committees to the various Southern States.

In 1867 the Legislature also appropriated $100,000 “for the relief of the destitute people in the States wasted by civil war,” and appointed commissioners for its distribution. To this sum was added over $21,000 in money and goods, contributed by private individuals. As in many places the people were suffering for the want of food, the commissioners shipped large stores of provisions to various points in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, to be distributed by agents appointed by the Governor of those States. The Secretary of the Navy of the United States, the Hon. G. Welles, placed at their disposal the United States storeship Relief, by which a full cargo of corn and bacon was shipped to Mobile, Ala. The total amount distributed by the commissioners in supplies and money reached $106,623.65.

The Ladies’ Depository, No. 56, North Charles Street, Baltimore, was formed in 1867, for the purpose of uniting in organized effort 37those who were endeavoring to obtain needle and fancy work for the destitute ladies in the South, impoverished by the war. The first officers and managers were: President, Mrs. Peyton Harrison; vice-president, Mrs. J. H. B. Latrobe.

In addition to all this, there was a large number of contributions, of which not even an approximate estimate can be formed, made by individuals privately and sent through private channels. Nearly all hearts were touched and purses opened, and it has been estimated that the relief thus afforded fell but little short of that which was publicly given. All the railroads of Baltimore and the Bay steamers carried the contributions free of charge; no commission was charged for purchase or storage, and liberal deductions were made by the merchants from whom the supplies were obtained.

This is taken, in the main, from Scharf’s History of Baltimore City and County, and the record is approximately correct, no doubt, but how faint an idea it gives of the worth of your work in the cheer it gave, in the incentive to the struggling Confederates to begin life anew, and from the nettle defeat pluck the flower of safety.

Half a million dollars—cribbed and confined as you had been—was given to the South, after the war, by your Monumental City!

It is no affectation to say that words fail me as I strive to tell you what you were to us then, and what you will always be to every Confederate who is true as you were true, and is faithful as you are faithful. There is no page in the story of the war more brilliant, more inspiring, than that on which is blazoned the undying record of your incessant sacrifice, your patient endurance, your unselfish devotion.

Gen. Lee’s appreciation of the work of the women of Baltimore is well expressed in a letter dated May 3, 1866, and published in the “Personal Reminiscences of Gen. Robert E. Lee,” by Dr. J. W. Jones. After acknowledging the receipt of a gown presented to him by the ladies of the Northeastern branch, tables 40 and 42, at the late fair held in Baltimore, he says:

“I beg that you will express to them my grateful thanks for this mark of kindness, which I shall value most highly in remembrance of their munificent bounty bestowed on thousands of destitute women and children by the ‘Association for the Relief of Southern Sufferers,’ the fruits of which shall live long after those who have received it have mouldered into dust.”

In an earlier letter, dated December 15, 1865, he says:

“I am fully aware of the many and repeated acts of sympathy and relief bestowed by the generous citizens of Baltimore upon the people of the South, acts which will always be remembered, but which can never be repaid, and which will forever stand as monuments of their Christian charity and kindness. I know, too, that by their munificence they have brought loss and suffering on themselves, for which I trust God will reward them.”

38Bear with me yet a moment. The subject on which your association desired I should speak to-night is beyond the measure of mortal tongue or pen. Who will undertake to describe adequately the exploits of our men in the war, and what was their mighty accomplishment in comparison with the infinite emprise of our women! The men, the soldiers, were the strong right arm, the mighty body of the Southern Confederacy, as with spirit undaunted they trod, with bleeding feet, the way of the Southern Cross. But as the men were the body, so the women were the soul. The men may forget the uniform they wore—it is faded and moth-eaten to-day. But the soul, the spirit in our women incarnate, cannot die. It is unchangeable, indestructible and, under God’s providence, for our vindication and justification, shall live always—forever!