At Decatur, Alabama, in a well-remembered scene of the Civil War many were the songs by southern chivalry started, but none finished. All efforts to sing one evening having been boisterously tabooed, there arose in the air a voice carrying the sentiment that thrills the camp, the field, the hospital. In gloom for today with foreshadowing for tomorrow, around a score of camp fires thousands of voices following the leader there broke forth pathetic, in full chorus, “Who will care for Mother now?”
While General Butler was digging Dutch Gap in 1863, a hospital boat was plying daily between Fortress Monroe and Point of Rocks. In the Civil War, among the wounded brought in from the battlefield to Point of Rocks was a lad about sixteen or seventeen years of age. One of his arms, and a leg, had been amputated.
Away from home! Crippled for life! Homesick, and no “tear for pity.” Hope gone! No, not all hope. He still has his Mother—“She floats upon the river of his thoughts.”
A Mother is a Mother still The holiest thing alive.
“Mother, come to me—thine own son slowly dying far away.” “No, you _can’t_ come. May I come to you, my dearest Mother?”
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Mother, O Mother, my heart calls for you!
The President, also President American Red Cross Society, March 4, 1921–.
From a letter by the Secretary to President Harding: “The President entertains the highest sentiment regarding the splendid service of Miss Barton and her contribution to the development of practical modern humanitarianism.” ]
His soldier chum heard his pleadings and interceded: “Miss Barton, can’t we _possibly_ find room for this boy on the boat going down to Fortress Monroe tonight? I think he has grit enough to live.” Miss Barton, turning to the boy said: “My dear boy, you _shall_ go, though they have sent word they can take no more.” The boy was taken down a long steep hill on a stretcher, tenderly placed in a nice comfortable cot way up on the hurricane deck, to dream of home and Mother.
The test of civilization is the estimate of woman.
A woman who is resolved to be respected can make herself so, even amidst an army of soldiers. CERVANTES.
Clara: Go, if it is your duty to go. I know soldiers, and they will respect you and your errand. STEPHEN BARTON (_Her Father, an old soldier_).