There was no distinction of high and low. The stately dame, lapped in luxury all her days and a stranger to hardship or even anxiety, gave up to her country's cause her dearest joys, and not only sent husband or son to the forefront of the battle, but herself, if she was in the path of war, bore unflinchingly the outrages of an incensed soldiery and saw her home given to the flames and the very lives of herself and her children threatened, and yet thought it not too great a price to pay for her country's liberty. The wife of the humble tiller of the soil, with perhaps even more complete, though hardly as recognized, surrender of self, sent forth with cheery words the breadwinner, the support of herself and her children, and turned with grand courage to keep them and herself from hunger, while her goodman was fighting for the rescue of his native land from oppression. Each bore her part, and all with no reserve of gift.
The ebullition of the feminine spirit of those days was often little less than fanatical in nature. Women do nothing by halves; they are faithful lovers and enthusiastic haters, and they are not always governed in either feeling by the monitions of unbiased justice or even judgment. In a letter from Mrs. Hannah Winthrop, of Cambridge, we find a reference to the fight at Lexington, which, in all its stiltedness of language, shows the fiery and bitter hatred that was held by patriot women for the enemies of their country: "Nor can she ever forget, nor will old Time ever erase, the horrors of that midnight cry, preceding the bloody massacre at Lexington, when we were roused from the benign slumbers of the season by beat of drum and ringing of bells, with the dire alarm that a thousand of the troops of George the Third had gone forth to murder the peaceful inhabitants of the surrounding villages. A few hours, with the dawning day, convinced us the bloody purpose was executing; the platoon firing assured us that the rising sun must witness the bloody carnage. Not knowing what the event would be at Cambridge, at the return of these bloody ruffians, and seeing another brigade dispatched to the assistance of the former, looking with the ferocity of barbarians, it seemed necessary to retire to some place of safety, till the calamity was passed."