ir power. No men, except negroes and white men
unfit for military duty, were left in town, but the women were bitter
rebels. Some of them made fierce opposition to the use of their houses
as hospitals, but they were occupied notwithstanding their
remonstrances.

At one fine mansion a surgeon rang the door bell, and in a moment saw
the door open just enough to show the nose and a pair of small twinkling
eyes of what was evidently a portly women. "What do you want?" snarled
out the female defender of the premises. "We want to come and see if we
can place a few wounded officers in this house." "You can't come in
here!" shouted the woman slamming the door together. A few knocks
induced her again to open the door two or three inches. "Madam, we must
come in here; we shall do you no harm." "You can't come here; I am a
lone widow." "But I assure you no harm is intended you." Again the door
was closed, and again at the summons was opened. "Madam, it will be much
better for you to allow us to enter than for me to direct these men to
force the door; but we must enter." The woman now threw the door wide
open and rushing into the yard with as much alacrity as her enormous
proportions would admit, threw her arms out and whirled about like a
reversed spinning top shouting for help. She was again assured that no
harm was intended her, but that unless she chose to show us the house we
should be obliged to go alone. Concluding that wisdom was the better
part of valor, she proceeded to show us the rooms.

At another mansion, one of the finest in Fredericksburgh, a red-haired
woman thrust her head out of the side window, in answer to the ring of
the door bell:

"What do you want here?"

"We wish to place some wounded officers in this house."

"You can't bring any officers nor anybody else to this house. I'm all
alone. I hope you have more honor than to come and disturb defenseless,
unprotected women."

"Have you no husband?"

"Yes, thank God, he's a colonel in the confederate service."

"Well, if your husband was at home, where he ought to be, you would not
be a defenseless woman."

The woman refused to unbolt the door, in spite of all persuasion, but
while she railed at the "detestable Yankees," a soldier climbed in at a
window in the rear, and unbolted the door. Her splendid rooms and fine
mattresses furnished lodgings for twenty wounded officers. Day after
day, the gloom of death hung over the town. Hundreds of our brave
fe