Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (43 page)

Isolated dwellings that escaped the torch were often turned into makeshift hospitals. Such was the mind-numbing scene at a lonely cabin on the slopes of Cheat Mountain: “Lying upon the floor of the only room in the cabin were seven wounded rebels, left there by their fleeing comrades,” recalled an Ohio soldier in the aftermath of Lee's attack. “Two sick men had been left to care for them, which they were either not able or unwilling to do, so that the whole burden fell upon a poor woman, who, with her five children, were tenants of the hut. Her husband, a zealous secessionist, had been taken prisoner.
He
was punished, and properly enough, but what crime had the innocent children committed, and the poor mother, in that lonely mountain glen? She moved about in that quiet noiseless step so peculiar to intense sorrow, handing this one water, bathing that one's aching temples, and attending to her household duties. The children stood about the horrid scene—the elder ones in mute despair, the younger prattling away unconscious of the terrors of
bellum, horridum bellum
!”
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Not everyone played the role of victim. In searching a house along the road to Rich Mountain, Federal troops found an indignant old woman, armed with no less than three loaded hunting pieces. She proudly displayed a secession flag, made, as she very frankly told the soldiers, from the tail of an old shirt. Upon it were the letters “J.D.” and “S.C.,” standing for “Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy.”
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Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Union leader Frank Pierpont was absent from his Fairmont home when two gaily-uniformed Confederate officers confronted his beautiful wife, Julia. They sought to claim the state musket issued to Charley Scott, ward of the family and a member of the militia.

Julia Pierpont met them at the door with a gracious smile. In response to their polite inquiry for Mr. Scott, she suavely replied, “Mr. Scott
does not
wish to see you.” The fact was put mildly, for Mr. Scott cowered in the room just behind her.

“We have a message for him,” answered one of the officers. “Will you ask him to step to the door?”

“
No
Sir, you
cannot
see him
here
. If you wish to see him, you must seek him elsewhere.”

The young officers hesitated. They were obviously chivalrous gentlemen, and Julia Pierpont played them to the hilt.

“
Of course
,” she waxed, “you will
not intrude
upon a lady?”

They hastened to assure her that nothing was further from their thoughts. And yet there was the matter of that musket, and their orders to retrieve it.

“Will you be kind enough to tell Mr. Scott that Captain Thompson's orders are, that he must deliver up the musket which he received and holds from the state, and if he does not do so by twelve o'clock today he will be arrested.”

The gentle play of courtesy was over. Julia Pierpont's defenseless blue eyes now burned with fire. “I understand that matter perfectly well, and young gentlemen,” she fended, “
we don't care anything about it, we are not to be intimidated.
”

The two officers were speechless. A flash of crimson spread over the elder's face as they bowed and swiftly walked away. Julia strode to the front room, flung open a window and sang after them in a triumphant voice, “Hail Columbia Happy Land.”
⁶⁴⁴

Two “rabid” secessionists, known as the Hilleary sisters, resided in a log house at the foot of Rich Mountain. The younger had come from eastern Virginia with her children to escape impending war. Imagine the consternation when General McClellan's army marched up to her front door.

“Surely,” she exclaimed to one of the Yankees, “I never imagined
men would come to the mountains to fight.” Confronting the invader, she rattled vivaciously, “[W]hat do you want to kill us all for?”

“But we don't, Madame!” he replied.

“Well, any how, the Southern men say so, and they are our friends, and we'll have to believe them.”

“Well, do you believe them, madame?”

“Why I don't know. They said you'd all abuse us women, kill our children, and burn our houses, and they told dreadful stories until we thought all you Yankees were devils. When you all marched into Roaring Creek we'd a been right down glad to see you all shot down in your tracks.”

“Well what do you think of us now?”

“Oh, they lied about you some I ‘spose. Your common soldiers even seem gentlemen, and your officers, most of them are mighty agreeable. [I]f the people of Virginia could see us all, they wouldn't want to fight.”
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Laura Jackson Arnold of Beverly was a woman of conviction—the sister of Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson. But this determined Jackson pledged allegiance to the
Union
cause. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, she rarely spoke of her famous brother—except to voice regret that he had taken up arms against his country. When war came to her town, Laura served as a nurse. Her graceful form was ever active in the hospitals; her tender hands soothed the aching temples of many a dying soldier far from the loved ones at home.

A Federal surgeon recalled numerous incidents of her loyalty and courage: “Almost alone, amidst a disloyal community, she unflinchingly declared her devotion.…Her house was an asylum for the sick soldier, and faithfully she ministered to his wants. Her resources were often taxed to their utmost, and many were her regrets that she was unable to do greater good.…We have never heard that she received
one farthing from the government, for her generous and loyal outlay, and have reason to believe that she never made application; but if there is one deserving soul in the great army of patriots that merits special recognition…it is Mrs. [Laura] Arnold.”
⁶⁴⁶

A few women actually marched off to war. Betsy Sullivan followed her husband through the Alleghenies with the First Tennessee Infantry in 1861. While serving the Confederacy, she cared for sick and wounded soldiers, mended, washed, and darned. No trial was too severe, no sacrifice too great on behalf of her “boys.” Adored by the regiment as “Mother Sullivan,” she marched with a knapsack on her back and slept on the frozen ground with only a blanket—just like the men.
⁶⁴⁷

Mother Sullivan was not alone. Nancy Hare campaigned “in real soldier style” with her husband in the Eighth Tennessee Infantry. She could “walk equal to any soldier,” recalled a Confederate, and became a leading member of Company K, cooking and washing for the troops. Mary Van Pelt, a “neat, graceful, quiet little woman,” accompanied her husband—a sergeant in the Federal army—on active duty with Loomis's Michigan Artillery in Western Virginia. Others intended to fight. A woman named Ann Watson surreptitiously enlisted in a Federal company at Wheeling in 1861 before she was discovered in men's clothing and removed.
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Some had less wholesome motives. A wide-eyed Confederate wrote of one beguiling female who slinked around camp, “searching for her lover.” She made quite an impression until sent home as an “abandoned woman.”

As Federal soldiers crossed the Ohio River into Western Virginia, the
Wheeling Intelligencer
moralized:

Another Runaway—One would think that, in these times of war and excitement, that wives would behave themselves, so as not to occasion their husbands any unnecessary trouble.
But this is not altogether the case, for yesterday, the wife of a farmer in Belmont County (Ohio), passed through the city with a volunteer, with whom she was running away. She had on a Zouave jacket, and her intoxication was barely perceptible to a stranger. For further particulars, the husband will please enquire at Grafton.
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Attractive women were such a curiosity that the arrival of a Federal officer's wife at Elkwater brought out the entire camp. “That there are good-looking women in Virginia I am confident,” wrote a Union soldier from the Tygart Valley, “but they are mighty scarce ‘round here, and as a general thing chew snuff and smoke, and are as ignorant as the devil.” At least one Ohio foot soldier found the gals more to his liking. “I tell you,” wrote that boastful Buckeye, “the fair ones of Virginia are neither slow or scarce. The effect of them upon a soldier is miraculous.”
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