LOYAL TENNESSEE WOMEN.–

23. October 2008 by admin.

It is a singular and remarkable circumstance that loyal sentiment in the South is found inseparably connected with a broken and mountainous surface.

The low and fertile bottoms were everywhere committed to slavery, and hence to disunion. Nowhere was this more aptly illustrated than in Tennessee.

East Tennessee was loyal by an overwhelming majority. There was a strong Union sentiment in Northern Georgia and Northern Alabama. So also in Western tennessee, as there is a line of high and sharp hills just west of the Tennessee River, there may be found a decided attachment to the old flag.

Wherever in such communities there is genuine loyalty, its displays have been magnanimous and decided; and the traditions of those communities abound in incidents of fidelity and devotion, under circumstances where such displays were by no means sentimental or free from danger.

The following incident will show the devotion and loyalty of two plain women living in an obscure county of Tennessee:–

The Twenty-seventh Iowa regiment had taken cars at Corinth, and were travelling in the direction of Jackson. It was the summer of 1862, when Jackson contained the headquarters of Gen. Grant. The train started, and was proceeding at a high rate of speed, every square foot where a man could sit or stand being covered with a soldier.

Just before reaching a railroad bridge the engineer saw a couple of lanterns being waved in the distance directly on the track. He stopped the locomotive, and sent men ahead to ascertain the cause of the alarm. They found the lanterns held by two women, who explained how a crew of guerrillas in that vicinity had been informed that a train thus loaded with Union soldiers was expected, and had fired the bridge at eight o’clock that evening, and allowed the main timbers to burn so that the bridge would break under the weight of the train, and then put out the fire. These noble women had heard of the act, and walked ten miles through the mud at midnight, carrying their lanterns, and taking their station on the track, where they had patiently waited for hours, with the determination of thwarting the dastardly plan of the villains. The officers of the regiment, thus saved from a terrible accident through the heroism of these women, begged of them to accept some present as a proof of their gratitude; but they would have nothing, saying they did it for their country, and wanted no pay. A party of soldiers was detailed to escort them to their homes. How far is such conduct above all human praise or the rewards that men can bestow!

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