Austin State Gazette, July 6, 1861
A correspondent of the Charleston Courier relates the following:
I can myself personally attest to the rudeness of these abolition mercenaries in the vicinity of the Relay House. They enter cars in crowds, insult women, raise dresses to ascertain whether their folds conceal weapons of a dangerous character, break open trunks and boxes, scatter their contents upon the floor, and generally conduct themselves more like barbarians than civilized white men. On the train which brought me through from Annapolis, one of the ladies who had received more than her share of indignity, “boiled over.” She said she “couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t want to hold in any longer,” and then, to a crowd of half a dozen soldiers gathered around her, she gave a “piece of her mind,” in a strain so bold and scathing that, under circumstances of a domestic felicity it would have made a man’s hair, if he had any, stand on end.
She said she was “a Virginian — thank God for it — on her way home from Baltimore;” had two sons already in the army, and if she had a hundred she would send all of them into the field, though they had nothing to fight with but pitchforks, and no clothes to wear but her own revamped petticoats. “You Yankees, ” said she, “you ain’t worthy of the name of men. I wouldn’t change a poodle dog for one of you, except to shoot him. A pretty set of soldiers you are truly, to come South and fight the battles of your country with defenseless women! Why the women of Virginia will fight you back with their bare arms.”
I cannot begin to remember a half of the personal thunderbolts the brave lady launched at these fellows, but when they went out they looked as blue and bilious as if they had an east wind blowing through their vitals.