April 2, 1863, Daily Mississippian (Jackson, Mississippi)
We hear of this, that and the other place, Mr. Editor, where the cannon roars and reverberates, and small arms flash defiance in the faces of the gory savages who seek, like natural blood-hounds, to slake their thirst by lapping the red current of life that rises higher and higher as the murderers go deeper in to the heart of our youthful but already glorious Confederacy. It is my pleasing duty to speak of a place where a federal foe has never yet polluted the soil, except as a prisoner of war. It is Union Point. It stands, nearly equi-distant from Augusta and Atlanta, on the Georgia Railroad, about 85 miles from either. It is an humble place, and has but one sign, I think, in it, (i. e.) “Wayside house for our sick and wounded soldiers.” Since the war commenced, the dear daughters of the South, clothed in humility and actuated by the spirit that burnt in the bosom of a persecuted Gallilean nearly two thousand years ago, have bound up the wounds and bent over the prostrate forms of “our sick and wounded soldiers.”
The iron limbs of the locomotive may tire, but the hearts and minds of these Georgia women shall never fail. They do more than the sign signifies,–they feed all who pass that way, and only ask you to register your name. Wine, cordial and cold water carried to those who cannot go to the table; and nourishing and good food placed before the hungry soldiery, who are urged to “eat and welcome.” They often send out limping and sick soldiers to encourage “the boys” to “come in and eat” for fear they may feel backward about it. For my part, Mr. Editor, I must acknowledge to a little weakness. I can bear a load of darkness that would crush a Chineese grampus, I can face a field full of good Southern people who charge upon the trains with baskets of biscuit, and two bits a piece, and sometimes I strengthen my natural inclination to piety by cursing the soulless wretches who have given up the Confederacy and gone to money-making; but when I came upon “Union Point,” and began to breathe the atmosphere of Heaven-born patriotism and purity, completely broken down and “cried like a child.”
These ladies are the pride of all Confederate soldiers, who look upon the “Wayside Home.” Eager for war news, they try to look into the future to foretell the end of the war. They know all the great Generals of our invincible armies; told me I would be sure to be pleased with General Pemberton; that his management of affairs in Georgia an South Carolina had won the confidence of the Chief Magistrate, and caused his promotion; and when I asked them if they had ever heard of the great “Citizen Warrior,” a score of musical voices pronounced the name of Sterling Price in the tone and manner with which children speak of a father.
If ever a majestic column shall be raised to commemorate the virtues and untiring patriotism of Southern women, sink its base in the hills of the “Wayside House.” Let it “rise till it meet the sun in his coming, and let the last rays of departing day linter and play upon its summit.”
A Missourian.