Transcriber's Note: This cover has been created by the transcrier
using the original cover found at the end of the text and adding
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MEMORIALS OF
FEMALE VALOUR AND HEROISM, FROM
THE MYTHOLOGICAL AGES TO THE PRESENT ERA.
BY ELLEN C. CLAYTON
(MRS. NEEDHAM),
AUTHOR OF
"QUEENS OF SONG," "ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS," Etc.
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
10, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER I.
Captain Bodeaux, Female Officer in the French Army—Christian Davies, alias Mother Ross—Female Soldier in the 20th Foot—Women of Barcelona—Hannah Snell, Private in the Line and Marines—Phœbe Hessel, Private in the 5th Regiment—"Paul" Daniel, a Female Recruit—Hannah Whitney, and Anne Chamberlayne, Female Sailors—Mary Ralphson—Miss Jenny Cameron—"Pretty Polly Oliver"—Anne Sophia Detzliffin, Prussian Female Soldier—Madame de Drucourt (Siege of Louisbourg)—Madame Ducharmy (Capture of Guadeloupe)—Chevalier d'Eon—Deborah Samson, Private, and Molly Macaulay, Sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army—Elizabeth Canning—Catherine the Second of Russia and the Princess Daschkova—Doña Rafaela Mora, Female Captain in the Spanish American Service (How Nelson Lost an Eye)—Female Sailor on Board Admiral Rodney's Ship
The French Revolution—The Furies—Rose Lacombe—Théroigne de Méricourt—Madame Marie Adrian (Siege of Lyons)—Renée Langevin—Madlle. de la Rochefoucault—Madame Dufief (War in La Vendée)—Félicité and Théophile de Fernig, Officers on Dumouriez's Staff—Mary Schelienck—Thérèse Figueur, French Dragoon—"William Roberts," the Manchester Heroine, Sergeant in the 15th Light Dragoons and the 37th Foot—Mary Anne Talbot, Drummer in the 32nd, Cabin Boy on board the Brunswick, and Middy on board the Vesuvius—Highland Soldier's Wife at the Storming of New Vigie—Susan Frost—Peggy Monro (Irish Rebellion)—Martha Glar and other Swiss Heroines—Queen of Prussia at Jena—Marie Anne Elise Bonaparte, Princess Bacciocchi—Maid of Saragossa—Manuella Sanchez, Benita, and other Heroines of Saragossa—Spanish Female Captain—Mrs. Dalbiac (Battle of Salamanca)—Ellonora Prochaska, Private in Lutzow's Rifle Corps—Augusta Frederica Krüger, Prussian Soldier—Louise Belletz, French Artillery Soldier—Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm (Chicago Massacre)
Bobolina (Greek Revolution)—Doña Maria de Jesus, Private in the Brazilian Army (War of the Reconcave)—Russian Female Soldiers—Juana de Arieto (Civil Wars in Spain, 1834)—Anita Garibaldi—Appolonia Jagiello (Rebellions in Poland, 1846-48, and Vienna and Hungary in 1848)—Bravery of the Croatian Women—Countess Helene St. ——, a Hungarian Patriot—Garde Mobile—Louisa Battistati (Milanese Revolution, 1848)—Fatima, a Turkish Commander (Russian War)—Lady Paget (Attack on the Mamelon, 1855)—Miss Wheeler (Cawnpore Massacre)—Ex-Queen of Naples—Polish Insurrection—Mdlle. Pustowjtoff, Adjutant to Langievicz—Female Chasseurs—Female Lieut.-Colonel in the Mexican Army—Civil War in America—Female Privates in the Potomac Army—Female Lieutenant and Privates in the Army of the West—Mrs. Clayton, Private in the Federal Army—Emily ——, Private in the Drum Corps of a Michigan Regiment—Female Confederates at Ringgold, Chattanooga—Mrs. Florence Bodwin—Female Mulatto Sergeant—Native Contingent in New Zealand—Herminia Manelli, Corporal of Bersaglieri (Battle of Custozza, 1866)—Lopez's Amazons—Cretan Amazons—Women of Montenegro—Maria L——, French Sergeant—Female Brigands—German Order to reward Courage in Women—Minna Hänsel (Franco-Prussian War)—Miss Jessie C. Claffin (American Colonel)
Indian Amazons—Cleophes, Queen of Massaga—Moynawoti, Queen of Kamrup—Ranee of Scinde—Sultana Rizia—Gool Behist—Booboojee Khanum and Dilshad Agha, Mother and Aunt of a King of Bijapur—Durgautti, Queen of Gurrah—Khunza Sultana, Regent of Ahmednuggur—Chand Sultana, Regent of Ahmednuggur—Nour Mahal, Empress of Hindostan—Princess Janee Begum—Juliana—Madam Mequinez, Colonel in the Service of Hyder Ali Khan—Begum Somroo, General in the Service of the Emperor Shah Aulum and Grandmother of the eccentric Dyce Sombre—Begum Nujeef Cooli—Mrs. W., Native Wife of a British Sergeant in India—Lukshmi Baee, Ranee of Jhansi (Indian Mutiny)—Female Mutineer captured before Delhi, 1857—Female Guards in the Zenanas of Indian Princes—Begum of Oude—Bantam Amazons
Judith, Queen of Abyssinia—Workite and Mastrat, Gallas Queens—Shinga, Queen of Congo—Mussasa, Queen of Matamba—Tembandumba, Queen of the Jagas—Amazons in Dahomey
Captain Bodeaux, Female Officer in the French Army.—Christian
Davies, alias Mother Ross.—Female Soldier in the
20th Foot.—Women of Barcelona.—Hannah Snell, Private in
the Line and Marines.—Phœbe Hessel, Private in the 5th
Regiment.—Paul Daniel, a Female Recruit.—Hannah Whitney
and Anne Chamberlayne, Female Sailors.—Mary Ralphson.—"Pretty
Polly Oliver."—Miss Jenny Cameron.—Anne Sophia
Detzliffin, Prussian Female Soldier.—Madame de Drucourt
(Siege of Louisburg).—Madame Ducharmy (Capture of Guadeloupe).—Chevalier
d'Eon.—Deborah Samson, Private, and
Molly Macaulay, Sergeant in the American Revolutionary
Army.—Elizabeth Canning.—Catherine the Second of Russia
and the Princess Daschkova.—Doña Rafaela Mora, Female
Captain in the Spanish American Service (How Nelson Lost an
Eye.)—Female Sailor on Board Admiral Rodney's Ship.
During the eighteenth century there were
to be found in nearly every European
army, one or more female soldiers. They
sometimes held commissions as officers,
but more frequently served as non-commissioned
officers or privates. Those women and girls who enlisted
in the British Army were generally wives or
sweethearts of soldiers whose regiments had been
ordered abroad, and the women, preferring to encounter
the dangers and hardships of a foreign campaign
rather than the miseries of separation, disguised
themselves in male attire and enlisted in some
battalion which was embarking for the seat of war.
Sometimes, indeed, women, deserted by their husbands,
resolved to follow their unfaithful spouses all
over the world: and, unable to afford travelling
expenses, enlisted at the first recruiting depôt, and
trusted to chance for meeting with or hearing of the
object of their search. As no personal examination
of recruits took place in those days, either in Great
Britain or elsewhere, there was no way of finding out
the imposture until afterwards, more especially as the
female soldiers behaved themselves quite as manly as
their comrades.
Of course in every country there have been local
celebrities whose names even are unknown beyond
the frontiers, for a man or woman must perform
very great deeds to become famous in foreign lands.
Thus it happens, while we are familiar with the names
of many an English female soldier, we know of only
two or three women who served during the last
century in the armies of France. Yet the world
well knows that Frenchwomen are second to none
in warlike esprit. One of these Gallic warriors was
Captain Bodeaux, an officer holding a commission
as lieutenant in one of the regiments which went
over to Ireland under the command of St. Ruth,
to assist James the Second. This gallant officer
distinguished herself at the battle of the Boyne,
July 1st, 1690, where she met with Mr. Cavanaugh,
father of Christian Davies. She stopped at the
house of that gentleman (who was also fighting for
King James) till about three in the morning, when,
being alarmed, they fled together precipitately.
Christian Davies describes this officer as "a very
handsome young French gentleman," though the
real sex of Bodeaux was not unknown to her. At
the siege of Limerick, June, 1691, she held Thomond
bridge, over the Shannon, with a small body of
troops, against the English, till at last she fell,
covered with wounds. Such was the bravery of
this young French officer that her death was
lamented even by the foe. Great was their astonishment
when they found their valiant antagonist was
a woman.
The most famous woman who has ever served as a
private in any modern European army, was Christian
(or Christiana) Davies, alias Mother Ross. She was
born in 1667, in Dublin, "of parents whose probity
acquired them that respect from their acquaintance
which they had no claim to from their birth." Her
father, Mr. Cavanaugh, was a brewer and maltster,
employing upwards of twenty servants, exclusive of
those engaged on his farm at Leslipp, where his
wife and daughter resided. Christiana never liked
sedentary work, and in the matter of education never
made much progress. She had barely sufficient
patience to learn reading, and to become a good
needle-woman. Open air exercises were her delight;
ploughing, hay-making, using the flail, and, above
all, riding on horseback. "I used," she says, "to
get astride upon the horses and ride them bare-backed
about the fields and ditches, by which I once
got a terrible fall and spoiled a gray mare given to
my brother by our grandfather." Mr. Cavanaugh
never discovered the offender; but, to purchase the
silence of a cowherd who saw her and the mare fall
into a dry ditch, she was obliged, for a long time, to
give him a cup of ale every night.
In 1685, when the Irish were arming for King
James, Mr. Cavanaugh sold his corn and equipped
a troop of horse, with which he joined that monarch.
After enduring great hardships he was dangerously
wounded at the battle of Aughrim, June 12th, 1691,
and died a few days after. His property was confiscated
by Government.
Previous to this, shortly after the departure of
Mr. Cavanaugh from home, the Roman Catholic
inhabitants of Leslipp blocked up the door of the
parish church during divine service, with logs of
wood, butchers' blocks, and any other heavy articles
which came to hand. Christiana was at home when
this occurred; but her mother being, with others,
blockaded in the sacred edifice, she seized up a spit
and ran to the rescue. Being resisted by a sergeant,
she thrust the spit through his leg; then removing
the things which blocked up the door, set the
congregation free. Christiana was arrested for
wounding the sergeant, but was afterwards liberated.
After the death of her father, Christian went on a
visit to her aunt, the landlady of a public-house in
Dublin, who, at her death, left the establishment to
her niece. The latter married Richard Welsh, a
good-looking young fellow who acted as barman and
general assistant. After two boys had been born, her
happiness was suddenly blighted by the mysterious
disappearance of Richard, of whom nothing was
heard for several months. At last, when she had
given him up for dead, a letter arrived (the
twelfth he had written) telling her how, on the day of
his disappearance, he had been invited by an old
friend on board a transport with recruits on board;
the vessel set sail, and they had reached Helvoet
Sluys before he could get ashore. Having no way
of getting back to Ireland, he enlisted in a foot-regiment.
Christian resolved to follow her husband to
Flanders. Letting the public-house, leaving her
furniture with different friends, and placing one
child with her grandmother and the other with a
nurse, she dressed herself in a suit of her husband's
clothes, cut her hair short, and went to the "Golden
Last," where Ensign Laurence told the new recruit
that she was "a clever, brisk young fellow," and
enrolled her, under the name of Christopher Welsh,
in the Marquis de Pisare's regiment of foot.
The recruits were disembarked at Williamstadt,
in Holland. Thence they marched to Gorkhum,
where they received their uniforms; and the next
day they advanced to Landen, which they reached a
day or two before the great battle of July 19th, 1693.
Here they were incorporated into their respective
battalions. Christian found the drill very easy,
"having been accustomed," as she says, "to soldiers,
when a girl, and delighted with seeing them exercise.
I very soon was perfect," she adds, "and applauded
by my officers for my dexterity in going through
it."
The same night that she arrived at Landen, being
on night-guard at the door of the Elector of Hanover
(afterwards George I.), Christian was wounded by a
musket-ball which grazed her leg, barely missing the
bone. She was thus laid up for two months.
During the summer of 1694, Christian being out
with a foraging party, was made prisoner, and
brought, together with three-score English and
Dutch, to St. Germain-en-Laye. When the ex-Queen
of England heard that Christian and her companions
were English soldiers, she ordered that each man
should have a pound of bread, a pint of wine, and
five farthings each per diem, with clean straw every
night. But the Dutch prisoners were not allowed
these luxuries. The Duke of Berwick, a Marshal
of France, visited the prison, and tried to persuade
the British to follow his example and enter the
service of the Grand Monarque. The chief annoyance
which Christian suffered was the fear of being
recognised by her cousin, Captain Cavanaugh, a
French officer, who visited the prison nearly every
day.
About nine days later, the English prisoners were
exchanged, and on being set free they waited upon
the Queen to thank her for her kindness. Her
regiment passed the winter of 1694-5 in Gorkhum,
where Christian passed her time "very merrily" by
making love to the young and pretty daughter of a
wealthy burgher. After a few weeks' courtship
"the poor girl grew absolutely fond" of her military
wooer. This harmless frolic led to a duel between
Private Welsh and a sergeant of the regiment who
wished to engage the girl's affections. Having
dangerously wounded the sergeant, Christian was
ordered under arrest; but the old father, who was
in ignorance of the real state of the case, exerted his
influence with the authorities, and procured her discharge
from the regiment.
Bidding farewell to the girl, under pretence of
going to purchase a commission, Christian enlisted
in the 6th Dragoons, commanded by Lord John
Hayes, and served all through the campaign of
1695, including the siege of Namur. Nothing
remarkable happened to her till the Peace of
Ryswick, Sept. 20th, 1697, when she was discharged,
and went home to Ireland. None of her friends
recognised the stalwart dragoon as being identical
with Mrs Welsh; so, in place of claiming her
property she found other means of support, until
the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, in
1701. Returning to Holland, Christian re-enlisted
in the 6th Dragoons.
She served through the campaigns of 1701-2,
under the Duke of Marlborough, without being
wounded. She was one of the captors of Venlo,
Sept. 23rd, 1702, which proved a profitable investment
for the English, for they found more than
thirty pieces of cannon, twenty thousand florins,
and a quantity of plate and jewellery. Christian
complains that, the Grenadiers having the start of
the Dragoons, she "got very little of the plunder."
"I got, however," she confesses, "a large silver
chalice and some other pieces of plate," which prize
was sufficient to console her.
The Dragoons wintered at Venlo, and a night or
two after their arrival she was ordered, with others,
to escort the Duke of Marlborough along the banks
of the Meuse. "During our march," says Christian,
"by the darkness of the night we mistook our way,
and going up the country fell in with a hogstye where
was a sow with five pigs, one of which I made bold
with. I was possessed of it some time," she adds,
"when one Taylor, a corporal belonging to Brigadier
Panton's Regiment of Horse, attempted to spoil me
of my booty, whereupon some words arising, he drew,
and made a stroke at my head, which I warding
with my hand, had the sinew of my little finger cut
in two; at the same time, with the butt-end of my
pistol I struck out one of his eyes." Pretty discipline
for British soldiers!
After serving all through the campaign of 1703,
including the battle of Eckeren, and the sieges of
Bonn and Lembourg, she was wounded in the hip
at the battle of Donawert, July 2nd, 1704. The
musket-ball lodged so firmly in the bone that the
efforts of three surgeons in the hospital near Schellenberg
were insufficient to extract it. Christian with
difficulty warded off the discovery of her sex.
She left hospital just in time to assist in plundering
the Bavarians. "We spared nothing," says
she; "burning or otherwise destroying whatever
we could not carry off. The bells of the churches
we broke to pieces that we might bring them away
with us. I filled three bed-ticks, after having
emptied them of the feathers, with bell-metal, men's
and women's clothes, some velvets, and about one
hundred Dutch caps which I had plundered from a
shop." Besides these things she got several pieces
of plate, as spoons, mugs, cups, etc.
After the battle of Blenheim, August 2nd, 1704,
in which she was in the midst of the fight, under
the hottest of the fire, Christian was appointed one
of the guard despatched with the prisoners to Breda.
Having halted to refresh themselves with a pint
of beer and a pennyworth of bread each (the
prisoners being allowed the same indulgence),
Christian saw the long-lost Richard Welsh, now a
sergeant in the Earl of Orkney's regiment of foot,
making love to a Dutch woman. She abused him
heartily at first, but she soon forgave him. It was
agreed that she should remain in the army and pass
as his brother. On her return to her regiment she
assisted in the siege of Landau. Nothing of any
consequence happened to her during the campaign
of 1705.
On the 23rd of May, 1706, was fought the great
battle of Ramilies. When the French were retreating,
Christian, who had fought valiantly during the
engagement, was struck in the head by "an unlucky
shell" fired from a mortar planted on the steeple of
the church. Her skull was fractured, and she was
carried to the hospital of Meldré or Meldret, where
her head was trepanned. During a ten weeks'
illness the long-dreaded discovery of her sex was
made. The surgeons sent word to Brigadier Preston
that his "pretty Dragoon" was a woman. The
Brigadier, who would at first scarcely believe the
news, told Christian that he had always looked upon
her "as the prettiest fellow, and the best man he
had." The story soon spread through the regiment,
and Christian was visited by Lord John Hayes and
all her officers and comrades. Lord John gave strict
orders that she should want for nothing, and
promised that her pay as a dragoon should be
continued till she had quitted the hospital.
Of course she could no longer stop in the regiment.
"Brigadier Preston" she says "made me a present
of a handsome silk gown; every one of the officers
contributed to furnishing me with whatever was
requisite for the dress of my sex, and dismissed me
the service with a handsome compliment." Her
husband having been questioned relative to their
previous acquaintance, it was thought prudent to
have them married again; and this second wedding
was celebrated with much solemnity, in presence of
all the officers, "who, everyone, at taking leave,
would kiss the bride, and left me," adds Christian,
"a piece of gold, some four or five, to put me in a
way of life."
For a short time she carried on the business of
cook to the 6th Dragoons; but finding the work too
heavy, she turned sutler, and was permitted, as a
special favour, to pitch her tent in the front of the
army, the other sutlers being driven to the rear.
She spent much time in marauding; and one day in
1708, being in male garb, she and her mule were
taken prisoner. However, she persuaded the French
officer to let her go. Shortly before this she hired
herself as cook to the head sutler of the British
army, Mr. Dupper, who afterwards kept a tavern on
Fish Street Hill, London.
Richard Welsh was slain at the siege of Mons, in
September, 1709. Her grief, she tells us, was something
terrible. It was on this occasion that she
first came to be styled Mother Ross. "Captain
Ross came by, who seeing my agony, could not forbear
sympathizing with me and dropped some tears,
protesting that the poor woman's grief touched him
nearer than the loss of so many brave men. This
confession from the Captain gave me the nick-name
of Mother Ross, by which I became better known
than by that of my husband."
Eleven weeks after the death of Welsh, his
sorrowing widow was persuaded to bestow her
hand on Hugh Jones, Grenadier, who was killed at
the siege of St. Venant, 1710. During this and
the following year Christian held the post of under-cook
in Lord Stair's kitchen.
On the close of the campaign of 1712 she
returned to England, and called on the Duke of
Marlborough; but he, being in disgrace, advised
her to wait on the Duke of Argyle. The latter told
Christian to draw up a petition to the Queen. Her
majesty received Mother Ross very graciously, and
gave her an order on the Earl of Oxford for fifty
pounds. But having waited on the Earl several
times and seen neither him nor the money, she
petitioned the Queen again. Anne granted a second
order for the same sum, payable this time on Sir
William Windham, and Christian was also put on
the pension list for a shilling a day. Sir William at
once paid the fifty pounds; but the Earl of Oxford,
without speaking to Queen Anne, cut down the
pension to five-pence. On the accession of George
I., she succeeded in having it raised again to a
shilling; and this pension she retained till her
death.
Immediately after receiving the money, Christian
returned to Dublin; but being unable to recover either
her house or furniture, she set up a beershop. She
was keeping herself very comfortably, "till my evil
genius," she laments, "entangled me in a third
marriage." This time the bridegroom was named
Davies, and belonged to the Welsh Fusileers. His
regiment was ordered, soon after the marriage, to
England; Christian therefore sold her effects, and
returned to London, where she established a shop in
Willow Walk, Tothill Fields, Westminster, for the
sale of strong liquors and farthing pies. This was
in 1715. She prospered so well, that after the return
of her husband from Preston (where he had gone to
fight the Pretender), she was able to purchase his
discharge; but "in two days after his arrival in
London, being drunk, he enlisted in the Guards."
During the November of this year, Mother Ross
kept a sutler's tent in Hyde Park where the Life and
Foot Guards were encamped.
Her husband was a constant source of trouble and
vexation. Some friends having obtained his discharge,
he spent her money so fast that she was
obliged to give up, successively, public-houses at
Paddington and in Charles-street, Westminster.
She returned to Dublin, when the Lord-Lieutenant
granted her the exclusive privilege of selling beer in
the Phœnix Park on review-days. Tiring of this, in
less than a year, she returned to England; and after
living three years in Chester, she entered Chelsea
College as a Pensioner. She also succeeded in
obtaining a sergeantcy in the College for her
husband. Here she resided till her death: being
supported by the benevolence of several members
of the nobility—principally officers who had known
her as Mother Ross. She went to Court twice a-week
to keep herself in the minds of her patrons;
"but," she laments, "the expense of coach-hire,
as both my lameness and age increases, for I cannot
walk ten yards without help, is a terrible tax upon
their charity, and at the same time many of my old
friends no longer going to Court, my former subsistence
is greatly diminished from what it was."
For some months previous to her death Christian
Davies's health was undermined by dropsy, scurvy,
and other disorders. But the chief cause of her
last illness was sitting up several nights by the bed-side
of her husband. This brought on a severe cold,
which threw her into a fever, of which she died,
July 7th, 1739. She was interred with military
honours in the burial-ground of Chelsea College.
Her autobiography, edited by Daniel Defoe, was
published in 1740. A second edition came out in
1741, with a vignette frontispiece representing
Christian Davies first in her Dragoon's uniform, and
then in the dress of a sutler.
According to the embarkation returns of the 20th
Foot, dated 1st July, 1702, preserved among the
Harleian MSS. at the British Museum, one of the
soldiers in Captain St. Clair's Company was found
to be a woman. The regiment was embarking to
join the expedition against Cadiz.
During the war of the Spanish Succession,
Catalonia having declared against Philip, the French
claimant to the crown, was invaded and ravaged by
the forces of Louis Quatorze. Barcelona, the
capital, was invested for several months, and the
formidable artillery of France played, almost
unceasingly, on the walls. But the people, nothing
daunted by the arrival of Marshal Berwick with
twenty thousand men to reinforce the besiegers,
made a most resolute defence. All who could bear
arms flew to aid in the defence; the priests and the
women enrolled themselves in the ranks, and fought
with the same desperate valour as the rest. Their
courage, however, was unavailing; for the city was
taken by assault, Sept. 11th, 1714.
Hannah Snell, another British heroine, was born
in Fryer-street, Winchester, on the 23rd of April,
1723. Military predilections ran in the family; her
grandfather served under King William and the
Duke of Marlborough, and was slain in the battle
of Malplaquet. Her father, however, was a simple
dyer and hosier. Hannah was the youngest but one
of a family of three sons and six daughters.
On the death of her father and mother in 1740,
Hannah came to London, and lived for some time in
Ship-street, Wapping, in the house of one of her
sisters, Mrs. Gray, whose husband was a carpenter.
She had not resided in the house very long before
she became acquainted with James Summs, a
Dutch sailor, whom she married, Jan. 6th, 1743,
after a courtship of about two years. Her marriage
was not a happy one. After squandering the little
property belonging to his wife, spending it in the
lowest debauchery, James became heavily involved
in debt, and deserted her altogether. Hannah, left
without the means of support, was obliged to return
to the house of her sister, where, two months after,
her child, a girl, was born.
Notwithstanding his vile conduct, Mrs. Summs
still dearly loved her husband; and on the death
of her child, she resolved to set out in search
of the truant. Dressing herself in a suit of clothes
belonging to her brother-in-law, which, together with
his name, she borrowed, Hannah left London, Nov.
23rd, 1743, and reached Coventry without hearing
any news of her missing husband. On the 27th
of the same month she enlisted, under the name of
James Gray, in General Guise's regiment of Foot
(the 6th, or Royal First Warwickshire). After
remaining about three weeks in the town, during
which she made numberless inquiries about James
Summs, Hannah was sent with seventeen comrades
to join her regiment at Carlisle.
She was soon very proficient in the drill; but at
the same time she had the misfortune to incur the
enmity of Davis, a sergeant in her company, who
wished to employ the new recruit in a somewhat dishonourable
affair with a girl who lived in Carlisle.
Hannah, however, disclosed the real intentions of
the sergeant to the intended victim, and gained the
love of the girl, while she made a bitter enemy of
Davis. The latter, from seeing Hannah and the
other very frequently together, grew terribly jealous;
he seized the first opportunity to charge his
supposed rival with neglect of duty. Hannah was
sentenced to receive six hundred lashes. After five
hundred had been administered, the officers interceded,
and obtained for her the remission of the
other hundred.
The tyranny of Davis soon became unbearable;
and, to make matters worse, a carpenter from
Worcester, who had lodged in the house of Hannah's
brother-in-law, enlisted in the regiment, and she was
in constant terror lest he should recognise and
betray her. To get away without the discovery of
her sex was now the great object of her thoughts.
She borrowed a small sum of money from the girl
in Carlisle, deserted, and set off on foot for Portsmouth.
About a mile from Carlisle she saw several
men and women picking peas; their clothes lay
about, at a short distance, and Hannah very speedily
exchanged her soldier's coat for an old jacket.
At Liverpool she entered a small public-house;
and, by affecting to make love to the landlady, made
the landlord so jealous that a match of "fisticuffs"
ensued. Boniface, however, got the worst of it, and
was compelled to keep his bed all next day.
Hannah borrowed some money of the landlady, and
made the best of her way to Chester, where she took
genteel lodgings in a private house.
It chanced that a pretty young mantua-maker
lodged in the same house. Hannah contrived to
make the acquaintance of the girl, and speedily
won her heart, together with five guineas. The
handsome young suitor levanted to Winchester,
where, in an attempt on the heart of a widow, she
met her match. She speedily quitted the town, with
only a few shillings in her pocket.
In about a month from the day she left Carlisle,
Hannah reached Portsmouth, where she enlisted in
Colonel Fraser's Regiment of Marines. With
others of her regiment, she embarked, three weeks
later, for the East Indies. The "Swallow" formed
part of Admiral Boscawen's fleet. Hannah soon
earned the praises of the officers for her dexterity in
washing, mending, and cooking. Mr. Wyegate,
Lieutenant of Marines, was so greatly interested in
the young private, that he invited her to become one
at the officers' mess.
The "Swallow" suffered from some terrible
storms, which destroyed almost all her rigging, and
reduced the vessel almost to the condition of a
wreck. It was refitted at Gibraltar; proceeding
thence by the Cape of Good Hope to the Mauritius,
which Admiral Boscawen unsuccessfully attacked.
Thence the fleet sailed to Fort St. David on the
Coromandel coast; where the marines being disbanded,
joined the British force encamped before
Areacoping. The place surrendered after a siege of
ten days. During the siege Hannah displayed so
much courage that she received the commendations
of all her officers.
The British next laid siege to Pondicherry; but
after suffering terrible hardships, they were forced
by the rainy season to raise the siege in eleven
weeks. Hannah was one of the first body of British
soldiers who forded the river, breast high, under an
incessant fire from the French batteries. She was
also for seven nights successively on duty in the
picket-ground, and worked exceedingly hard for upwards
of fourteen days in the trenches.
She was dangerously wounded in one of the attacks.
During this action she fired thirty-seven
rounds, and received in return six shots in her right
leg, five in the left leg, and a dangerous wound in
the abdomen; the last-named being excessively painful.
She was terrified lest these wounds would lead
to the discovery of her sex; so in place of letting
the army-surgeons dress all her wounds, she kept
silence about the most dangerous of them, though
it was at the risk of her life. Entrusting the secret
to no one but a black woman who waited on her,
Hannah extracted the bullet with her finger and
thumb; the negress obtained lint, salve, and other
necessaries for dressing, and the wound was soon
perfectly cured.
Hannah was removed for the cure of her other
wounds to the hospital at Cuddalore; and before
her recovery, the greater part of the fleet had sailed.
She was sent on board the "Tartar Pink," and performed
all the regular duties of a sailor, till the return
of the fleet from Madras, when she was turned
over to the "Eltham" man-of-war. On board this
ship she sailed to Bombay. The vessel sprang a
leak, and they were obliged to stop here five weeks
to repair.
One night the Lieutenant of the "Eltham," who
commanded in the absence of Captain Lloyd, wishing
to pass the time agreeably, asked Hannah for a
song. She declined, on the plea of being unwell;
but the officer would take no denial. Hannah became
obstinate, but soon she had cause to regret her folly.
Shortly after, she was accused of stealing a shirt
belonging to one of her comrades. The Lieutenant,
having a grudge against Hannah, ordered her to be
put in irons; and after five days' confinement, ordered
her to the gangway, where she received five lashes.
The shirt was afterwards found in the box of the very
man who had complained of losing it.
Returning to Fort St. David, the "Eltham" rejoined
the squadron, which departed soon after
on its homeward voyage. Hannah was terribly
"chaffed" during the voyage because she had no
beard; and she became known among the sailors by
the name of Miss Molly Gray. But in place of resenting
this, Hannah, to show she was as good a
man as any of them, plunged headlong into all the
amusements and enjoyments of the others, and they
soon forgot the old nickname, for which they substituted
that of "Hearty Jemmy."
One night, in a house of entertainment at Lisbon,
she learned, from an English sailor who had been
in a Dutch ship at Genoa, that James Summs, her
husband, was dead. He had murdered a gentleman
of high position in Genoa, and for this
crime he was put into a bag full of stones, and flung
into the sea.
The British fleet arrived at Spithead in 1750.
Hannah left the "Eltham," and came to London,
where she was cordially welcomed by her sister. The
strange story of Hannah Snell soon became generally
known; and as she had a good voice, the
managers of the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square,
engaged her to appear before the footlights as Bill Bobstay,
Firelock, and other military and naval heroes,
and to go through the manual and platoon exercises
with a musket. But she did not long remain on the
stage, as, in consideration of the wounds she received
during the siege of Pondicherry, she was put on the
out-pensioners' list at Chelsea Hospital. Her pension
was increased by a special grant to twenty
pounds a year, and paid regularly to the day of her
death. With the assistance of some friends she set
up a public-house at Wapping, by which she realized
a very good income. On one side of the sign-board
there was painted the figure of a jovial British tar,
on the other a portrait of herself in her marine's
uniform. Underneath the last was inscribed, "The
Widow in Masquerade, or the Female Warrior."
Hannah preferred masculine attire, and continued
to wear men's clothes for the rest of her life. She
lived long to enjoy her prosperity; but during the
latter years of her life she became a lunatic, and
died, at the age of sixty-nine, in Bedlam.
Phœbe Hessel (or Hassel) was for many years a
private in the 5th Regiment, and served under the
Duke of Cumberland in many engagements, amongst
others the battle of Fontenoy. The fatigues and
hardships of war certainly did not tend to shorten
her days. Born during the reign of Queen Anne, she
lived to see the accession of George IV. Indeed, it
was through the liberality of the last-named monarch
that Phœbe was enabled to live comfortably during the
latter years of her life. When the Prince Regent
visited Brighton, he saw old Phœbe, who was living
there, maintained by some of the more benevolent inhabitants.
Having heard her strange story, the Prince
told some one to ask her what sum she required to
make her comfortable.
"Half-a-guinea a week," replied Phœbe, "will
make me as happy as a princess."
This annuity was, by order of the Prince Regent,
paid to her as long as she lived.
Phœbe Hessel was a woman of good information,
and very communicative. Her stories were always
worth hearing. She retained all her faculties till
within a few hours of her death, which took place
Dec. 12th, 1821. She was buried in Brighton
Churchyard, and a tombstone erected over her grave
by public subscription. The following inscription
was carved thereon:—
"Sacred to the memory of Phœbe Hessel, born
Sept. 1st, 1713. She served for many years as a
private soldier in the 5th regiment, in different parts
of Europe, and in 1745 fought under the Duke of
Cumberland in the battle of Fontenoy, where she
received a bayonet wound in the arm; her long life
which commenced in the reign of queen Anne, induced
his present Majesty George IV. to grant her a
pension. She died at Brighton, where she had
long resided, Dec. 12th, 1821, aged 108 years."
In August, 1761, as a sergeant was exercising
some recruits on board a transport at Portsmouth,
he noticed that one of them, who had enlisted under
the name of Paul Daniel, had a more prominent
breast than the others. When the firing was over,
the sergeant sent for Daniel to the cabin, and told
him his suspicion that he was a woman. After some
evasions the recruit confessed her sex; and said that
she had a husband, to whom she was devotedly
attached, who, after squandering a plentiful fortune,
had reduced himself and her to beggary, and had
then enlisted. His regiment had been ordered to
Germany in 1759 to serve against the French, and
had remained abroad ever since. Not having heard
from him for two years, she had resolved to roam the
world in search of him. She heard that the British
Government were sending more troops to Germany,
so she enlisted in one of the regiments ordered
thither, thinking to meet her husband. When the
discovery of her sex frustrated this design, she declared
herself to be inconsolable.
In October of the same year, a young woman aged
about twenty, attired in nautical garb, was seized at
Plymouth by the Press-gang, and sent to Captain
Toby. On her capture she was placed for safety in
the town jail. Not relishing her imprisonment, she
roundly abused Captain Toby, told him she was a
woman, that her name was Hannah Whitney, that
she was born in Ireland, and had served on board
several British men-of-war for upwards of five years.
She concluded by informing the astounded captain
that she would never have discovered her sex if they
had not placed her in a common jail. Of course she
was immediately released.
There is (or was) a monument in Chelsea church,
commemorative of the masculine courage of Anne
Chamberlayne, only daughter of Edward Chamberlayne,
Doctor of Laws. She appears to have been
infected with an ardour for naval glory by her two
brothers, who were both distinguished officers on
board men-of-war. Putting on the dress of a sailor,
she joined the crew of a fine ship, commanded by
one of her brothers; and in an engagement with the
French, she fought most gallantly for upwards of
six hours.
On the 27th of June, 1808, died at Liverpool Mary
Ralphson, a Scottish heroine. She was born in
Lochaber, June 1st, 1698; and married Ralph
Ralphson, then a private in the British army.
She followed her husband in all his campaigns under
the Duke of Cumberland, and was present with him
in several famous engagements. On the breaking
out of the war in French Flanders she embarked
with the troops, and shared their toils and vicissitudes.
Being present on the field of Dettingen
during the heat of the conflict, surrounded with heaps
of the slain, she saw a wounded dragoon fall dead
by her side. She disguised herself in his clothes,
and regained the British camp; then returned with
her husband to England. After this she accompanied
him in his later campaigns under the Duke of Cumberland.
She lived to a fine old age, and was
supported during her declining years chiefly by some
benevolent ladies of Liverpool.
There is just a hint of a loyal Jacobite heroine
in a curious old Scotch ballad called "Polly Oliver's
Ramble." The song commences:—
"As pretty Polly Oliver lay musing in bed, A comical fancy came into her head; Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove, I'll list for a soldier and follow my love."
There is an old song on the Pretender which
appears to be a parody on this ballad. This
begins:—
"As Perkin one morning lay musing in bed, The thought of three kingdoms ran much in his head."
In June, 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the young
Pretender, landed in Scotland to assert his father's
right to the British crown. He was joined
by most of the Highland chieftains with their
clans, and he sent to all those lairds who had
not yet paid their allegiance, to do so without delay.
Lochiel, his lieutenant, wrote to Cameron, the Laird
of Glendessary, commanding him to appear at head-quarters
immediately, with as many of his clan,
armed, as he could muster in so short a notice.
The laird was a minor, and, moreover, a youth
of little capacity; so his aunt, Miss Jenny Cameron,
roused the clan to arms, and marched, at the head
of two hundred and fifty claymores, to the camp of
Bonnie Prince Charlie. She rode into camp on a
bay gelding decked out in green trappings, trimmed
with gold. She wore a sea-green riding habit with
scarlet lappets edged with gold. Her hair was tied
behind in loose buckles, and covered by a velvet cap
with scarlet feathers. In her hand, in lieu of a
whip, she carried a drawn sword.
A female soldier was a sight not to be seen every
day. The Prince immediately quitted the lines to
receive her. Miss Jenny rode up to him without the
slightest embarrassment; and giving the military
salute, told him "as her nephew was not able to
attend the royal standard, she had raised men, and
now brought them to his highness; that she believed
them ready to hazard their lives in his cause; and
that, although at present they were commanded by a
woman, yet she hoped they had nothing womanish
about them; for she found that so glorious a cause
had raised in her own heart every manly thought
and quite extinguished the woman. What effect
then must it have on those who have no feminine
fear to combat, and are free from the incumbrance
of female dress. These men," she added, "are yours;
they have devoted themselves to your service, they
bring you hearts as well as hands. I can follow
them no farther," she said, "but I shall pray for
your success."
The clansmen then passed in review before the
prince. When this was over, he conducted Miss
Cameron to his tent, where she was entertained with
the utmost courtesy and hospitality. Prince Charlie
gave her the title of "Colonel Cameron," and
by this epithet she was distinguished for many
years.
Miss Jenny remained with the Jacobite army
until it invaded England, and joined it again on its
return, in Annandale. She was still in camp in
January, 1746, and fought in the battle of Falkirk on
the 23rd; when she was made prisoner, and lodged
in Edinburgh Castle. She was ultimately set at
liberty, and returned to the guardianship of her
weak-minded nephew.
A Highland song was composed in her honour,
relating how:
"Miss Jenny Cameron,
She put her belt and hanger on,
And away to the Young Pretender."
Anne Sophia Detzliffin, who served four years
in the Prussian army, was born in 1738 at Treptow
on the Rega. In 1757, during the Seven Years' War,
she was excited by a thirst for glory to quit her
father's house and go to Colberg, where she enlisted
in Prince Frederic's regiment of cuirassiers. She
remained in this corps for two years, and fought in
several actions; in one of which, near Bamberg, she
received a sabre-wound in her left arm.
She next fought in the battle of Kunnersdorff.
Her regiment returned some days later to Saxony,
where Anne fell dangerously ill, and was sent to the
hospital of Meissen. She soon recovered, but having
no opportunity for rejoining her regiment, she
enlisted in a battalion of Grenadiers, which was
decimated shortly after in the actions of Strechlin
and Torgau, in 1760. In the latter, fought on Nov.
3rd, Sophia Detzliffin received two severe wounds
on the head, and was captured by the Austrians,
who took her to the hospital at Dresden.
When she had almost recovered, the heroine found
means to escape from the hospital. Passing
through the Austrian outposts without being discovered,
she enlisted (in 1761) with Colonel Colignon,
who sent her to a regiment of Le Noble's
Volunteers.
After serving in this corps for two months, she
was accused on the 14th of July by one of her
comrades of robbing him of fourteen-pence. There
was not the slightest foundation for the accusation;
but a subaltern immediately placed her under
arrest. Anne was determined not to submit to such
an indignity. Sending for her lieutenant, she told
that she was a female, and declared that during
four years' service in various regiments she had
never once been ordered under arrest, nor even
received a blow for neglect of duty. She concluded
by telling the officer that after this insult she would
no longer remain in the army—which was, however,
a needless remark, as she would not have been
permitted to stop after her sex was known.
This heroine, when she quitted the army, was
twenty-three years old, with strongly-marked features,
and a brown complexion.
On the 8th of June, 1758, General (afterwards
Lord) Amherst, with an army of twelve thousand men,
in which General Wolfe served as a brigadier, landed
on the island of Cape-Breton, in Canada, and
commenced the siege of Louisbourg. This town
was so strongly fortified that the French, believing
it to be impregnable, left only two thousand eight
hundred men for its defence. The military
commander, the Chevalier de Drucourt, was a brave
and resolute soldier, and made a gallant defence.
The British, however, determined to make up for all
their recent disasters, commenced the siege with
more than ordinary vigour and energy. The
Chevalier was ably assisted in the defence by his
wife; who, appearing on the walls among the
common soldiers, exhorted them to fight bravely in
defence of the town. And not only did she thus
cheer them by encouraging words; she carried
round food and ammunition to the exhausted
soldiers, and occasionally took her turn at the guns,
which she loaded and fired with skill and rapidity.
But the efforts of the Chevalier and his wife were of
no avail against the superior numbers of the
English. Louisbourg surrendered on the 26th of
June; and the Chevalier and Madame de Drucourt
were made prisoners. However, General Amherst
treated his brave captives with the greatest respect
and hospitality.
In 1759, when the British were besieging Guadaloupe,
the native planters were incited to resist the
invaders by M. Dutril, the French Governor.
Amongst others, Madame Ducharmy, wife of a
planter, armed her servants and negroes, and led
them to an attack on the British forces.
Amongst the celebrities of the eighteenth century,
none was more famous than the Chevalier d'Eon.
Even before the strange question as to his real sex
had been raised, the Chevalier was well known in
every European court as a skilful diplomatist and a
brave soldier. In 1761, having attained the summit
of his glory in the political world, he sighed for
military renown. As aide-de-camp to Marshal
Broglio, he distinguished himself most highly against
the British and Prussians. Being entrusted with the
removal of the military stores from Hoxter, which
the French were evacuating, he passed the Weser
with several boats, under a heavy fire from the
enemy, and saved all the baggage. Shortly after
this he was wounded in the head and thigh in a
skirmish at Ultrop.
On the 7th September, at the head of the
Grenadiers de Champagne and the Swiss Guards,
the Chevalier attacked a Highland regiment
("Montagnards Ecossais," Broglio styles them in
his despatch) near the village of Meinsloff, and after
a slight skirmish, drove them back to the British
camp. At Osterwick, with about fifty dragoons and
hussars, D'Eon charged a Prussian battalion six or
seven hundred strong, which was intercepting the
communications of the French with Wolfembutel.
The Prussians, seized with a panic, threw down their
arms, and surrendered. The capture of Wolfembutel
by Marshal Saxe was the result of this brilliant
action.
The preliminaries of peace in September, 1762,
terminated the Chevalier's military career, and he
returned to the political world, where he had already
made himself so distinguished. He was sent to
London, as Secretary of Legation under the Duc de
Nivernois, the Ambassador-Extraordinary. On the
return of the Duc to Paris, the Chevalier remained
in London first as resident, and afterwards as
minister plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James's.
At this period his star was at its zenith. Fortune
lavished her favours upon him with the most profuse
liberality. Suddenly the wheel turned; and,
without any reason being assigned, D'Eon was
dismissed from all his appointments, and compelled
to reside, disgraced, in London. The French
ministers who had negotiated the peace now
effected his ruin. The treaty had been considered
disgraceful to France, both by the king and the
people; and the negotiators, afraid of the Chevalier,
who knew too much, found means to disgrace
him. Louis XV., however, settled upon D'Eon a
pension of twelve hundred livres.
During the Chevalier's residence in London,
suspicions arose in the minds of several persons that
D'Eon was a disguised woman. The notion soon
reached the Continent; and both in England and
abroad, some very extraordinary wagers were made
on the subject. In July, 1777, a trial took place
before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield on an action
brought by a Mr. Hayes against a Mr. Jacques, the
latter of whom had received several premiums of
fifteen guineas, to return one hundred whenever it
should be proved, beyond a doubt, that the Chevalier
D'Eon was a woman. MM. Louis Legoux and de
Morande deposed to this as a fact so thoroughly
established, that the defendant's counsel actually
pleaded that the wager was unfair, because the
plaintiff knew, before it was laid, that the Court of
France had treated with the Chevalier as a woman.
The plaintiff, however, obtained a verdict, which was
afterwards set aside on the ground of the bet being
illegal.
Shortly after the conclusion of the trial, the
Chevalier d'Eon, for some unaccountable reason,
put on female attire, which he contrived to wear
until his death.
Everybody now believed that D'Eon was a woman.
Several portraits were published representing him in
various characters—as an officer of dragoons, as a
French minister, as a fashionable lady, etc. Mr.
Hooper, of Ludgate-hill, published a mezzotinto
engraving of the Chevalier as Pallas, a casque on
her head, a lance in her right hand, and the ægis
on her left arm. Round the edge of the shield were
the words At nunc dura dedit vobis discrimina Pallas.
On each side were drums, muskets, pyramids of
cannon-balls, heavy pieces of ordnance, and a pair of
colours on which were written, Impavidam serient
ruinæ. In the middle distance might be seen a
citadel and a camp. The lower part of the engraving
contained representations of the principal events
of the Chevalier's life, with a eulogy, in English,
on his talents and virtues. After rapturously praising
the genius, the courage, the personal beauty of
D'Eon, this eulogy concludes by saying that "her
military comrades offer this homage as an eternal
monument of their affection."
The breaking out of the French Revolution
deprived D'Eon of his pension. He returned to
France in 1792 and offered his services to the
National Assembly. But they were declined; and
on his return to England his name was placed on the
list of Emigrants. He was now plunged into the
depths of poverty, and supported himself as best he
could by giving lessons in fencing. But he depended
chiefly on the kindness of Elisée, first surgeon to
Louis XVIII., and other friends. He died May the
21st, 1810, when Elisée assisted in the dissection of
his body; and declared that the Chevalier belonged
to the male sex.
During the American War of Independence
several women donned masculine attire and enlisted
in the Revolutionary Army. One of these heroines
was named Deborah Samson. Born at Plymouth,
U.S., of very poor parents, she was received at an
early age into a respectable family, where the
members treated her with great kindness. Her
education was at first totally neglected, though she
remedied this, to the best of her ability, by teaching
herself to read and write; later in life she saved
enough to pay for her schooling. In 1778, having
dressed herself in male attire, she enlisted under
the name of Robert Shirtliffe for the whole term of
the war.
Deborah was used to all kinds of hardships, so the
fatigues incident to her new life had as little effect
on her as on her comrades. Her courage and
obedience to military discipline, soon gained for her
the esteem of the officers. She served as a volunteer
in several expeditions, where her regiment was not
engaged, and received two severe wounds—one in
the head, the other in the shoulder. She managed,
however, to avoid the disclosure of her sex.
At last Deborah Samson was seized with a brain
fever in Philadelphia. The physician who attended
her made the dreaded discovery, and sent word to
the colonel of her regiment. When her health was
restored, the colonel sent her with a letter to
General Washington. Deborah saw that the truth
was known, and it was with great reluctance she
obeyed. Washington read the missive, without
speaking a word. When he had finished, he handed
Deborah Samson a discharge in which was enclosed
some money and a letter containing good advice.
Some years after her discharge Deborah married
Benjamin Garnett, of Sharon, Massachusetts. For
her services as a revolutionary soldier, she was presented
with a grant of land and a pension for life.
Another American heroine was Molly Macauley,
a Pennsylvanian woman, who rose to the rank of
sergeant in the national army, and fought bravely in
several battles and skirmishes. Nobody suspected
that she was other than she seemed to be—a brave,
enthusiastic young American patriot. She was tall
and stout, rough-looking, with all the manners of a
soldier. In the enthusiasm of the moment she
would swing her sabre over her head, and hurrah for
"Mad Anthony," as General Wayne was styled.
She was wounded at Brandywine, and her sex discovered.
She then returned home.
Another woman, whose name was long remembered
in American homes, was Elizabeth Canning. She
was at Fort Washington, her husband was slain, she
took his place at a gun, loading, priming, and firing
with good effect, till she was wounded in the breast
by a grape shot.
Besides these examples, many women were frequently
detected, disguised, in the American armies;
and as they endured the same privations, with even
less murmuring than the men, there was nothing,
save accident, to reveal their sex. The instances are
numerous of women and girls who aided in the defence
of private houses. Their names, however,
have very seldom reached Europe.
When Catherine the Second of Russia was conspiring
to dethrone her husband, Peter III., she
based her hopes of success almost entirely on the
belief that the Imperial Guard would declare in her
favour. On the 26th of June, 1762, she was seated
in her palace at St. Petersburg, taking a slight repast
in company with her early friend and confidant
Catherine Romanowna, Princess of Daschkow, or
Daschkova. The latter was born in 1744, a
descendant of the noble family of Woronzoff, and
became a widow at the early age of eighteen. She
applied all her woman's wit to place Catherine on
the throne. When their repast was concluded,
Catherine proposed that they should ride at the head
of their troops to Peterhoff; and to make themselves
more popular with the soldiers, the Empress
borrowed the uniform of Talitzen, a captain in the
Preobraginsky Guards, while the Princess Daschkova
donned the regimentals of Lieutenant Pouschkin,
in which, she says, she looked "like a boy of fifteen."
It chanced by good luck that these uniforms were
the same which had been worn from the time of
Peter the Great until superseded by the Prussian uniform
introduced by Peter III.
On the 29th July the Empress and her friend, still
in uniform, passed in review twelve thousand soldiers,
besides numberless volunteers. As Catherine
rode along the ranks, amidst the cheers of the
soldiers, a young ensign, observing that she had no
tassel on her sword, untied his own and presented it.
Thirty years afterwards, this man died a field-marshal
and a Prince of the Russian Empire. His name
was Potemkin.
It is said the Princess (though she makes no mention
of it in her memoirs) requested, as the reward
of her services, to be given the command of the Imperial
Guard. The Empress refused; and the
Princess, finding her inflexible, gave up her military
aspirations and devoted herself to study. After her
return from abroad in 1782, she was appointed
Director of the Academy of Sciences, and President of
the newly-established Russian Academy. She wrote
much in her native tongue; amongst other works,
several comedies. She died at Moscow in 1810.
It is a curious fact that no one has been able to say
precisely when and where Nelson lost his left eye.
Some say that the disaster occurred during the siege
of Bastia, in 1793, while others decide that it was at
the siege of Calvi. According to Signor D. Liberato
Abarca, general in the service of the Nicaraguan Republic,
both these accounts are false. He says that
it was in the year 1780, when the future "god of
the seas," then a post-captain in the royal navy, was
cruising along the coast of Central America, that he
received the wound which added him to the list of
one-eyed warriors. After inflicting every possible
injury on the Spanish colonies, Nelson resolved to
take the Castle of San Carlos de Nicaragua by
assault. He rowed up the river of San Juan, which
flows into the Gulf of Mexico, with a flotilla of
launches and other flat-bottomed boats. The
Spanish commander was laid up in bed with a
severe illness; and the garrison, terrified at the imposing
preparations of the English sailors, hastily
evacuated the fort. Doña Rafaela Mora, the wife
or daughter of the commander, was left alone in the
castle; and with great—what would at first sight
appear to be reckless—daring resolved to drive the
enemy from before the place. The guns were
pointed towards the river, and nearly all loaded.
Snatching up a burning match which the terrified
soldiers had thrown down in their hasty retreat,
Rafaela fired all the cannons one after another. One
of the balls struck the boat in which Nelson stood;
a splinter from the bulwark hit him in the face,
just below the left eye. Such was the force of the
blow, he was knocked down, and rendered perfectly
insensible. This disaster broke up the siege, and
the flotilla descended the stream with all speed.
The heroine received by royal decree the brevet of
a captain on active service, together with a full suit of
regimentals, which she was permitted to wear whenever
she pleased. Besides this, a pension was
settled upon her for the rest of her life. General
Thomas Martinez, Director of the Republic of
Nicaragua, is a descendant of Doña Rafaela Mora.
General Abarca says the truth of this story is proved
incontestably by documents which he has seen in the
archives of the city of Granada, in Nicaragua.
During a sea-fight between the British and French
fleets, Admiral Rodney observed a woman helping at
one of the guns on the main deck of his ship. He
asked her what brought her there?
"An't please your honour," said she, "my husband
is sent down to the cock-pit wounded, and I
am here to supply his place. Do you think, your
honour," she added, "I am afraid of the French?"
After the battle was over, the Admiral sent for the
woman, and told her that she had been guilty of a
breach of discipline in being on board at all. However,
he modified his rebuke by a gift of ten guineas.
II.
The Furies—Rose Lacombe—Théroigne de Méricourt—Madame
Cochet—Marie Adrian (Siege of Lyons)—Renée Langevin—Madlle.
de la Rochefoucault—Madame Dufief (War in La
Vendée)—Félicité and Théophile de Fernig, Officers on Dumouriez's
Staff—Mary Schelienck—Thérèse Figueur, French Dragoon—"William
Roberts," the Manchester Heroine, Sergeant in
the 15th Light Dragoons and the 37th Foot—Mary Anne Talbot,
Drummer in the 82nd, Cabin Boy on board the Brunswick, and
Middy on board the Vesuvius—Highland Soldier's Wife at the
Storming of New Vigie—Susan Frost—Peggy Monro (Irish
Rebellion)—Martha Glar and other Swiss Heroines—Queen
of Prussia at Jena—Marie Anne Elise Bonaparte, Princess
Bacciochi—Maid of Saragossa—Manuella Sanchez, Benita, and
other Heroines of Saragossa—Spanish Female Captain—Mrs.
Dalbiac (Battle of Salamanca)—Ellenora Prochaska, Private
in Lutzow's Rifle Corps—Augusta Frederica Krüger, Prussian
Soldier—Louise Belletz, French Artillery Soldier—Mrs. Heald
and Mrs. Helm (Chicago Massacre).
The Furies were the female warriors of
the Reign of Terror. When we think
of their ferocious bravery, their barbarous,
maniacal cruelty, the ascendency
which they held, even over the great Republican
leaders, their wild cries and still wilder deeds, they
seem more like the weird figures in some hideous
German legend than real, living, sentient women,
with human hearts. Women, indeed, they could
scarcely be termed; Amazons they were, as brave
and as cruel as those of the Euxine. Yet, fiends
though they appeared, they had often the pangs of
hunger to goad them on; and if cruelty such as
theirs can be excused, starvation is the most reasonable
plea that could be advanced.
Though many of the large towns possessed Furies
in those days, Paris was their proper home. There
they lived on the sight, the smell, the taste of human
blood. To picture their history rightly, the pen
should be dipped in blood. Blood, since they were
denied bread was all they cared for; and when aristocratic
heads grew scarce, these fiends turned on
one another, like famished wolves, to glut their
insatiable thirst. The Guillotine was a central
rallying point for the Furies. Round it they danced
and sang by day; its steps formed their pillow by
night. There they crowded together—Tricoteuses, Fileuses,
Poissardes—shouting, gesticulating, screaming
the "Marseillaise" or the "Ça Ira" with their
wild, demoniac voices, as they watched the red cart deposit
its living freight at the foot of the National Razor.
When hunger pressed them very sore, they would
snatch up swords, pikes, or scythes, and rush in
crowds along the narrow, muddy, ill-paved streets,
beating drums, waving red flags, brandishing
their weapons, to demand bread from those who
professed to guide the Republic.
There was always some female leader, brave and
eloquent, round whom the Furies would rally, and
who was, if possible, more bloodthirsty, more ruthless
than the rest. The great leaders of the
Parisian Women were Rose Lacombe, the actress,
and Théroigne (or Lambertine) de Méricourt, the
Amazon of Liége. These two women, equally beautiful,
equally brave, and equally popular, had wholly
different reasons for plunging into the seething
whirlpool of blood. Rose Lacombe (who was born
in 1768, and was therefore past twenty when the
Revolution broke out), appears to have joined in the
scenes of atrocity through a love of excitement, a
wish to be a leader, that feeling so natural in the
breast of an actress. She was a wild, excitable
girl, and although not great on the stage, had a
certain fiery eloquence, which, though bombastic,
exaggerated, even grotesque, was suited to an
audience chiefly gathered from the Halles. Théroigne
de Méricourt, however, had quite another
object in coming forward as a Republican leader;
this was an unquenchable thirst for revenge on the
entire aristocracy, to one of whom she owed the
shame of her life.
Théroigne was the daughter of a wealthy farmer
in the village of Méricourt near Liége, and received
a finished education. When scarcely seventeen her
excessive beauty attracted the notice of a young
Belgian noble, who owned a château close by her
father's home. In those days of the old régime an
aristocrat would never have recovered the disgrace
of marrying a farmer's daughter; so the consequences
of their mutual passion might easily have
been foreseen. Deserted by her lover, Théroigne
fled to England, and remained here for some
months, in an agony of shame and grief. When
Paris rose against the ill-starred Louis Seize, she
returned to France, and became acquainted with
Mirabeau, and through him she was introduced to
to the Abbé Siéyes, Joseph Chénier, Brissac, Danton,
Marat, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Ronsin,
Romme, and others of the Republican party.
Théroigne de Méricourt was barely eighteen in
'89, when the first rumblings of the storm were
heard. Plunging headlong into the vortex of Revolution,
she soon acquired for her daring the names
of "the Amazon of Liége" and "the Jeanne d'Arc
of the Revolution;" while her surpassing beauty
procured for her the title of "La Belle Liégoise."
Attired in a blood-coloured silk riding-habit, and a
hat surmounted by a magnificent plume of feathers,
she made herself conspicuous in all those deadly
conflicts between the People and the Royalists. She
was first amongst the infuriate mob who burst open
the gates of the Invalides and seized the cannon.
She was foremost in the storming of the Bastille,
June 14th, 1789; and such was her reckless valour
on this occasion, that the victors, assembling
on the spot, voted her a sabre d'homme. Another of
the heroines who joined in the attack on the Bastille,
afterwards joined the army, and fought against the
enemies of the Republic, for which she was made
Captain of Artillery. Her husband was a soldier.
On the 5th of October, Théroigne and Rose led
eight or ten thousand starving Parisian Women
against Versailles. Previous to this, Rose had
commanded a body of Furies in the attack on the
Hôtel de Ville, August 7th. Théroigne rode to
Versailles astride on a cannon. By her side came Cut-Throat
Jourdan, the "Man with the Long Beard."
The expedition owed its success almost entirely to
the Amazon of Liége. The triumph of the people
was complete. Le Boulanger, la Boulangère, et le
petit Mitron were brought to Paris, escorted by a
seething, howling mob, preceded (as a hint to the
aristocrats) by two pikes, on which were placed the
heads of two Gardes-du-Corps. Several Poissardes
performed the return journey on the backs of
cannon.
For a time the popularity of Théroigne de Méricourt
and Rose Lacombe was unbounded; they
were estimated by the Parisians as the first of their
sex. Rose founded a female club on the same plan
as the Jacobins, and became the chief speaker there.
Théroigne held a club at her own house, and frequently
spoke at the "Old Cordeliers," of which
Danton and Camille Desmoulins were the leaders.
Speaking of the enthusiasm with which her orations
were received, Camille says "Her similes were
drawn from the Bible and Pindar. It was the eloquence
of a Judith."
One evening Théroigne proposed that the Temple
of the Representatives of the People should be
erected on the site of the Bastille, the scene of their
first triumph.
"To found and embellish this edifice," said she,
"let us strip ourselves of our ornaments, our gold,
our jewels. I will be the first to set the example."
And with these words she tore off all her jewels
and flung them on the table.
Her power increased every day. She was
appointed commander of the 3rd corps of the army
of the Fauxbourgs; and so great was her ascendancy
over the mob, that she could by a single word acquit
or condemn a victim. She thus became both feared
and hated by the Aristocrats. One day when she
was at the zenith of her power, she recognised her
faithless lover. He sought to avert his impending
fate and humbly implored her forgiveness; but
Théroigne had not the generosity to save him. He
perished in the September massacres, 1792.
A fearful doom was reserved for the beautiful
and unfortunate Théroigne de Méricourt. Like
Robespierre, she believed that her power was such
that she could at any moment arrest the progress
of the Revolution. Only a few months after the
death of her seducer, the very Furies whom she
had commanded, by whom she had been almost
worshipped, suspecting her of being a Girondist,
turned against their Amazon leader with all the
fury they had formerly displayed against Marie
Antoinette. They surrounded her on the terrace
of the Tuileries, May 31st, 1793, stripped her
naked, and subjected her to a public flogging.
Abandoned and despised by all, the beautiful
amazon became a raving lunatic. Years crept on.
The Directory superseded the Convention, the
Consulate the Directory, the Empire the Consulate,
and the Restoration the Empire, and still, in a
cold grated cell of the Bicêtre, in Paris, a gibbering,
white-haired, wrinkled hag crawled on all
fours to and from the bars of the window, whence
she shrieked forth warlike orations to phantom
meetings of Republicans; again and again calling
for the blood of Suleau, the Royalist author.
From the day of her fall till her death in 1817,
she refused to wear clothes. Her only covering
was her long white hair.
Rose Lacombe terminated her career more
happily than her sister-in-arms. True, she also had
her downfall, but it did not terminate so horribly.
She fell violently in love with a young nobleman
who was imprisoned in one of the dungeons of
the Republic. With her usual wild impetuosity
she tried to save him; but so far from rescuing
him, she very nearly shared his fate. From
this day Rose Lacombe's power was gone. Her
voice was no longer listened to as it had once
been. Jacobins and Cordeliers no longer strove to
gain her support. Taking a more sensible view of
the matter than one would expect, she retired from
public life, and became a small shopkeeper. In
this capacity she ended her days, selling petty
articles over a counter all day long. The date of
her death is unknown.
The citizens of Lyons, unlike those of Paris, were
devoted to the Royal cause. At last the Convention
resolved to tolerate this no longer; and General
Kellermann was despatched against the city in
August, 1793. The people made a gallant defence;
never did the female sex show greater bravery. The
city fell on Oct. 8th; and, furious at having been
resisted, Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and the other
emissaries of the Convention tried to stamp out the
very existence of Lyons. Wholesale massacres were
perpetrated daily; and the friends of liberty were if
possible more enraged against those brave women,
who so nobly aided in the defence, than they were
against the male leaders. One of the most intrepid
female soldiers, named Madame Cochet, when she was
on her way to the guillotine, addressed her countrymen
from the tumbril, and upbraided them with
their cruelty, and their cowardice in tamely submitting
to the Terrorists. The crowd at first followed
in silence; at last a cry of "Mercy," was heard: but
the falling of the National Razor cut short the
appeal.
Another heroine of Lyons was Marie Adrian, a
young girl of seventeen, whose features bore a
strange resemblance to Charlotte Corday. She
fought desperately by the side of her brother and
her lover in one of the batteries. After the city had
fallen she was made prisoner.
"What is your name?" demanded the judges,
struck by her youth and beauty.
"Marie," she replied. "The name of the mother
of that God for whom I am about to die."
"Your age?"
"Seventeen. The age of Charlotte Corday."
"How could you combat against your country?"
"I fought to defend it."
"Citoyenne," said one of the judges, "we
admire your courage. What would you do if we
granted your life?"
"I would poignard you as the murderers of my
country," was her daring reply.
She was, of course, condemned to the guillotine.
She ascended the scaffold in silence, and refused
the aid of the executioner. Twice she cried with a
loud, clear voice "Vive le Roi!" After her death
a note was found among her garments; it was the
farewell letter of her lover, who had been shot some
days previously in the Plaine des Brotteaux.
This letter was written in blood!
The same loyal, unselfish courage was displayed
by the Royalist insurgents in La Vendée. The
rough, yet kind-hearted Chouans form a striking
contrast to the ferocious, bloodthirsty Republicans,
far from advantageous to the latter. There was not
one Republican leader who could bear comparison
with the enthusiastic self-sacrificing young Rochejacquelin,
who risked everything for his King.
The most prominent Vendéan leaders, next to
Rochejacquelin, were La Rochefoucault de Beaulieu
and the Marquis de Lescure. The former was one
of the first to raise the standard of Louis XVIII.
Scarcely had he called together a few hundred
neighbours and their peasant tenantry when he
received a visit from Madlle. de la Rochefoucault, a
near relative, and at this time only eighteen. She
was accoutred en Amazon, with a sword by her side
and a brace of pistols in her belt. She presented
the troops with embroidered standards, worked by
her own hands, and declared her resolution to
fight personally for the royal cause.
Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault displayed the
greatest possible daring in the numerous encounters
between the contending armies. She was always
the first to advance and the last to retreat. But
though she was so fierce while the battle raged,
directly it was over she showed her kind and humane
disposition by the care which she took of the
wounded. She made no distinction between friends
and foes; the unfortunate, whether Royalists or
Republicans, were always sure of her sympathy and
assistance.
In the disastrous battle of Chollet, when the
superior numbers of the Republicans spread such
confusion through the Chouan ranks, Mademoiselle
de la Rochefoucault rallied her troops three times
successively, and charged the foe. Repulsed a fourth
time, she ascended a slight eminence, and addressed
seven hundred of her followers in a speech well
calculated to rouse their sinking energies. Once
more she led them against the foe. This time they
returned without her!
But the most famous heroine of this war was
Renée Bordereau, commonly called Langevin, known
as the "Military Heroine of La Vendée," who
afterwards wrote and published her autobiography.
She was born in June, 1770, at the village of
Soulaine, near Angers, of poor, but honest parents.
When the insurrection of 1793 broke out, the
Republican troops ravaged and massacred without
mercy throughout La Vendée. It chanced that
forty-two of Renée's relatives fell victims, successively,
to this fury. At last the barbarous
murder of her father before her eyes so transported
Renée with rage and a thirst for revenge that she
devoted herself thenceforth to the royal cause.
She bought a light musket with double sights, and
learned privately to load, fire, and aim at a mark.
She also practised the military drill; and when she
considered herself sufficiently expert, she procured a
suit of masculine clothes, and joined a corps commanded
by M. Cœur-de-Roi—whose name, by the
way, was only a nom de guerre. She enrolled under
the name of Hyacinthe, that of her brother, but her
comrades soon gave her the soubriquet of Langevin,
a name she never lost.
During a war of six years, the heroine was
engaged in over two hundred battles and skirmishes.
She usually fought on horseback, but sometimes, to
be nearer the foe, she combated on foot. She
always solicited to be placed in the most dangerous
posts, and never quitted the field till compelled by
her wounds, or the toils and fatigues of the battle.
Although no one at this time suspected her sex, she
was conspicuous all through the country for her
bravery. All the Royalists strove to emulate her
deeds of valour, but none could ever equal her
daring. She had entered on the war with a firm
determination to conquer or die, and her resolution
never flagged. Her only ambition, her sole passion,
was to drive the Republicans from France, and
restore the legitimate Church and King.
When Napoleon had subdued La Vendée, he was
so afraid of the brave Langevin that he excepted her
from the general amnesty, and set the price of forty
million francs on her head. She was betrayed into
the hands of her enemies; and the Emperor threw
her into a loathsome dungeon, weighting her limbs
with iron chains lest she should escape. She
remained in the prison of Angers for three years,
and in that of Mount St. Michael for two, and was
fed on nothing save the coarsest bread, and rainwater
which she collected for herself in a basin.
Her piety and fortitude, however, never forsook her
during these cruel hardships. She was at last set
free on the Restoration of that King for whom
she had fought so bravely and endured such
privations.
The sex of Renée had become known by an accident
before her imprisonment; so it was no surprise,
at least to her comrades, when her autobiography
appeared, to learn that she was a woman. In 1816,
she was presented to Louis XVIII.; but what recompense
if any, was awarded, her memoirs do not
say. She was still living in 1818.
Madame Dufief, a native of Nantes, was another
heroine of this war; and, in reward she received at
the Restoration the Ribbon of the Order of St.
Louis.
The French Revolution, it must be confessed,
aroused throughout the land a feeling of earnest,
self-sacrificing patriotism, which no monarchical
government, however popular, had ever called
forth. A wild, enthusiastic desire spread through
France to drive the enemies of the Republic from its
sacred soil or perish in the attempt. Young and old
were alike infected with the eager longing to die for
the Republic. "Married men," says Lamartine,
"dragged themselves from the arms of their wives
to rush to the altar of their country. Men already
advanced in life, old men, even, still green and
robust, came to offer the remainder of their life to
the safety of the Republic. They were seen tearing
off their coats or jackets, before the representatives,
and exposing, naked, their breasts, their shoulders,
their arms, their joints still supple, to prove that
they had strength enough to carry the knapsack
and the carbine, and to brave the fatigues of the
camp. Fathers, devoting themselves with their
children, themselves offered their sons to the country,
and demanded to be allowed to march with them.
Women, in order to follow their husbands or their
lovers, or themselves seized with that delirium of
the country, the most generous and the most
devoted of all passions, divested themselves of the
garments of their sex, put on the uniform of volunteers,
and enrolled themselves in the battalions of
their departments."
The greater number of these brave women and girls
left their bones to bleach on the various battle-fields
of the Republic without their sex being ever discovered.
Those who became known were but few.
Amongst these latter were the two sisters Félicité and
Théophile de Fernig, who held the nominal rank of
orderly officers on the staff of General Dumouriez,
wearing the uniform, and performing all the duties
appertaining to their position. Their father, M. de
Fernig, was Captain of Dumouriez's Guides; while
their brother was lieutenant in the regiment
d'Auxerrois. Thus the entire family were fighting
in defence of the Republic.
The De Fernigs were natives of French Flanders,
whence they were driven in August, 1792, by the
invading Austrians, who amongst other atrocities,
burnt the house of this family. Having no longer a
home, they joined the army of Dumouriez which
arrived shortly after in the neighbourhood. The
girls, whose sex was known to all, when on the
march rode near their father or brother; but during
battle they acted as aide-de-camp to one or other of
the French generals.
They entered at once on active service, and
marched to the woody heights of Argonne in
Champagne, which General Dumouriez was vainly
endeavouring to hold against the Austrians. On
his retreat to St. Ménéhould the De Fernigs distinguished
themselves, September 20th, during the
famous cannonade of Valmy by the Duke of
Brunswick; when the superior skill of Kellermann
forced the Allies to retreat.
The Convention, informed of the gallant conduct
of the Desmoiselles de Fernig, sent them horses and
arms of honour in the name of the Republic.
Dumouriez, in the camp of Maulde, made a striking
example of these two young girls to inspire his
soldiers with courage.
In October, Dumouriez returned to Paris, and
formed a plan with the Executive Council for the
winter campaign. On his return to the army he
issued a proclamation calling on the Belgians to rise
against their sovereign; and on the 6th of November,
he attacked the Austrian camp at Jemappes. In this
battle, which was perhaps the most hotly contested
of all those fought during the entire war, Félicité,
the eldest girl, acted as aide-de-camp to the Duc de
Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe, King of the
French, while her sister performed the same duty
for the brave veteran, General Ferrand, who stormed
the redoubts on the heights. Both girls were
young and exceedingly pretty—Félicité was scarcely
sixteen; and "their modesty, their blushes, and
their grace," observed Lamartine, "under the uniform
of officers of the staff, formed a contrast to the
masculine figures of the warriors who surrounded
them."
Before the battle, while reviewing his troops,
Dumouriez pointed out the heroines to his soldiers
"as models of patriotism and auguries of victory."
Throughout the day they were conspicuous for their
reckless bravery, which rendered them of inestimable
price in an army composed of raw soldiers.
When the regiments which formed the centre of the
French army gave way before the overwhelming
masses of Clerfayt's cavalry, the Duc de Chartres
and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, followed
by Félicité de Fernig and half-a-dozen aides-de-camp,
rode, sword in hand, through the Austrian hussars
which separated him from the infantry. The latter
were restored to their former courage, partly by the
words of the Duc, but more especially by the
reproaches of a fragile girl of sixteen, who, a
pistol in each hand and her bridle between her teeth,
accused them bitterly of cowardice in flying from
dangers which she fearlessly braved.
After the battle had raged for several hours the
Austrians were driven from the field. The capture
of Mons followed shortly after; and the French
entered Brussels, November 14th, after a series of
skirmishes between their advance-guard and the
rear-guard of the Austrians. During one of these
contests, Félicité de Fernig, while bearing the orders
of Dumouriez to the heads of the columns, was
surrounded by a troop of Uhlans, from whom she
extricated herself with difficulty. As she was turning
her horse's head to rejoin the column, she saw a
young officer of Belgian Volunteers, who had just
been flung from his horse, by a shot, defending himself
desperately against several Uhlans. Riding
hastily to the spot, Félicité with her pistols shot
two of his assailants, and the rest took to flight.
Dismounting from her horse, she confided the care
of the wounded officer to her hussars, and with their
assistance conveyed him to the military hospital of
Brussels.
The spring of 1793 saw the popularity of
Dumouriez wane rapidly. He was suspected firstly
of Girondism, and, worse again, of wishing to rescue
Louis Capet, the unfortunate ex-King, whose trial
was in preparation, or, some said, he meditated
placing Philippe Egalité on the throne. In addition
to all these accusations, he had the misfortune to
lose nearly as many battles as he had previously
gained; and, knowing well that his head was very
far from secure on his martial shoulders, he entered
into negotiations with Austria. But he mistook the
patriotism of his soldiers for personal attachment to
himself. On the 7th April his army was in a state
of open mutiny; but hoping to set matters right,
he set out for Condé, followed by the Duc de
Chartres, Colonel Thouvenet, Adjutant-General
Montjoie, eight hussars of ordnance, and his
immediate staff, including the sisters De Fernig.
On the road he met three battalions of Versailles
Volunteers who were marching without orders to
Condé. Dumouriez commanded them to halt; but
the Volunteers fired on his escort. Dumouriez
fled amidst a rain of bullets, sprang, on foot, across
a canal which interrupted his flight, and made his
escape over the Dutch marshes.
Théophile de Fernig was not wounded, though her
horse was slain. Félicité dismounted, and gave her
steed to the Duc de Chartres. The two young girls
and nearly all their companions reached the opposite
shore of the canal safely; when they dispersed in all
directions. The girls, who were acquainted with
the country, guided Dumouriez to the ferry-boat, in
which he, they, and the Duc de Chartres passed the
Scheldt. On landing they returned to the French
camp at Maulde; but very soon the fugitives had to
take refuge in the camp of Clerfayt, the Austrian
general, at Tournay.
In those days one star eclipsed another so fast,
that the soldiers were only too ready to forget their
former idols. Of course when the troops could
easily forget the general who had first led them to
victory, they could hardly be expected to trouble
themselves about two friendless girls. When
Vanderwalen, the young Belgian officer, recovered
from his wounds, he could not banish from his mind
the young Amazon who had saved his life. But
neither his brother officers nor the soldiers could give
him any information respecting the De Fernig
family. Vanderwalen left the army, and wandered
all over Germany and northern Europe seeking his
preserver. For a long time his search was vain;
but at last, when he had almost given up the search,
he found the family buried in the heart of Denmark.
The sisters had resumed "the dress, the graces,
and the modesty" of their own sex. The love of
Vanderwalen was very soon reciprocated; and they
returned, as man and wife, to Belgium. Théophile
accompanied her sister to Brussels; where, after
spending a few years in the study of music and
poetry, she died, unmarried. She has left, it is said,
several exquisite poems.
"These two sisters," says Lamartine, "inseparable
in life, in death, as upon the field of
battle, repose under the same cypress—in a foreign
land. Where are their names upon the marble
monuments of our triumphal arches? Where are
their pictures at Versailles? Where are their
statues upon our frontiers bedewed with their blood?"
Mary Schelienck, or Shellenck, was one of the
most remarkable women whose names occur in the
roll-call of warriors. She was a native of Ghent,
but nothing is known of her early youth. In March,
1792, she entered the Second Belgian Battalion, as
a male Volunteer. At the battle of Jemappes, in
the succeeding November, she distinguished herself
by her bravery, and received six wounds. Afterwards
she entered the 30th Demi-Brigade (Batavian),
and made the campaigns of Germany. She was
next removed to the 8th Light Infantry, and displayed
great bravery at the battle of Austerlitz.
Unfortunately for her, she there received a severe
wound on the thigh, and was left for dead on the
field, which led to her real sex being discovered. In
spite of this, she continued to follow the regiment,
and at last presented a petition with her own hand
to Napoleon. The Emperor received her with
"marked distinction:" he invested her with the
cross of the Legion of Honour, giving her the very
decoration he had himself worn, and he placed her
tenth on the list of lieutenants. In 1807, Napoleon
granted her a pension of 673 francs (£20). On
her return from Italy, Mary Schelienck, in her
military uniform, waited on the Empress Josephine.
That imperial lady, either in kindness or as an
ironical compliment, presented her with a velvet
robe. Mary Schelienck's commission of lieutenant,
the decoration of the Legion of Honour, and the
velvet robe were afterwards (1841) in the possession
of William Shellenck, cloth merchant of Ghent.
Mary Shelienck died in January, 1841, at Menin,
where she was buried. Her funeral was attended by
every member of the Legion of Honour belonging
to the garrison, and an immense concourse of people.
Thérèse Figueur, better known as "Le Dragon sans
Gêne," was born, January, 1774, at Talmay, a town
six leagues from Dijon. She became a dragoon
in the 15th and 9th regiments, and, from 1793 to
1812, served in all the campaigns of the Republic
and of the Empire. At this time she was known to
her comrades by the soubriquet of "Sans Gêne."
One day the Comité du Salut Public issued a decree
forbidding any woman to remain in the regiments.
The commissioned officers and generals of the army
of the Pyrenees, however, begged that an exception
might be made in favour of the Citoyenne Thérèse
Figueur; and special authorization was granted,
permitting her to remain in the service.
At the siege of Toulon, 1793, Thérèse received an
English bullet in her left shoulder. She had the misfortune
to be placed under arrest during the same
siege by General Bonaparte, for being guilty of a
delay of twenty-five minutes in the execution of an
order. Some years subsequently, when the former
Commandant d'Artillerie had become First Consul, he
wished to see once more the Dragon sans Gêne, who
came willingly enough to St. Cloud under the escort
of M. Denon. The First Consul made some complimentary
remarks to the "Dragon," and added that
"Mademoiselle Figueur est un brave:" then gaily
pledged her in "a glass of something stronger than
wine."
Thérèse Figueur served in the "Armée d'Italie"
in 1792, and in the army of the Eastern Pyrenees
during the 2nd and 3rd year, and in the Army of
Italy during the years 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Among
her exploits were several campaigns in Germany,
and she took part in the war in Spain. In July,
1812, she was made prisoner by the Guerillas of the
Curé Marino, and sent off to England, where she
remained until the Peace in 1814.
She was frequently wounded, and had horses
killed under her. At the battle of Savigliano, she
was wounded four times.
A modest pension hardly sufficed for her simple
wants, yet being very generous, she constantly
helped others poorer than herself. In disposition
she was remarkable for piety, delicate tact, singleness
of heart, and self-forgetfulness.
About 1840, Thérèse Figueur, then veuve Sutter,
was admitted into the Hospice des Ménages. In
that retreat her last years glided calmly away,
enlivened by the frequent visits of her many faithful
friends, who delighted in hearing her military
reminiscences. In June, 1861, her simple funeral
passed from the gates of the Hospice.
During the long wars between England and the
French Republic, women continued to enlist in
the British Army. One of the best known female
soldiers of this period was a woman named Roberts,
afterwards styled the "Manchester Heroine" from
the place of her death. On the 15th November, 1814,
a middle-aged woman applied for relief at the Church-Warden's
offices in Manchester; and on being
questioned, it appeared that she had in days gone
by served her King as a soldier. Her romantic story
afterwards appeared, in great detail, in the
Manchester Herald.
The father of this heroine, William Roberts, was
a bricklayer, and used to employ his little girl, dressed
in boy's clothes, as a labourer. When she was about
fourteen years old, being tall of her age, Miss
Roberts enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons. In
the course of two months she learned the drill sufficiently
for all purposes of parade; and the rough-riding
master told her she was the best rider in the
squad he was teaching. Private William Roberts
was promoted in the course of a few years, first to
be a corporal, and then a sergeant; and at the
expiration of her twenty-one years' service, the
colonel tendered her discharge. She demurred
accepting it; but being under size, was, with her
own consent, transferred to the 37th foot; which
she joined at the island of St. Vincent, in the West
Indies.
At St. Vincent the heroine was attacked by the
yellow fever; and this being the first time in her life
that she was ever laid prostrate by an illness, her sex
was soon made known. On her recovery she was
obliged to resume (or rather put on) female habilaments.
But being still enamoured of a soldier's life,
she married, in May, 1801, a private in the 37th, named
Taylor. She followed her husband through various
climates; and in time became the mother of three
children. She was imprisoned for two years with
her husband in France, and they were only set free
at the general peace of July, 1815. Her husband
died the same day they landed in England; leaving
his widow in great distress.
During the course of her military career, Mrs.
Taylor visited the East and West Indies, and fought
in Flanders, Spain, Italy, and Egypt. She received
many wounds, none of which, however, were serious,
though they left their scars all over her body. Her
head was graced by a sabre-wound, while her leg
showed where a musket-ball had been extracted. Yet
despite the dangers and hardships of war, this
woman sighed after the life of a soldier to the very
last. She said that the only really miserable part of
her life was the two years' imprisonment in France;
which, she said, did her constitution more harm than
even the terrible march, under a blazing African
sun, from the Red Sea to Egypt. Like a brave old
veteran, she kept up her spirits even in adversity,
"fought her battles o'er again," and loved to
"shoulder her crutch and show how fields were
won." Like most old soldiers, she was very fond of
relating anecdotes about her past career—the battles
she had fought in, the wounds she had received,
and the various noble or distinguished officers she
had seen.
Another of these British heroines was Mary Anne
Talbot, who served as drummer-boy in the 82nd
regiment when it was despatched to the Netherlands
in 1793. The career of this young woman was so
romantic, so very much out of the ordinary routine
of every-day life, it is strange that her story has not
become more generally known—especially as a long
and detailed memoir was published, which she was
supposed to have written herself.
Mary Anne Talbot was born in a house in
Lincoln's Inn Fields on the 2nd February, 1778, and
was the youngest of sixteen natural children, whom
her mother, whose name has not transpired, had by
the Earl of Talbot. Until she had reached the age
of five, Mary Anne was kept at nurse at a little
village about twelve miles from Shrewsbury. Her
mother died when she was an infant; and at the
death of Lord Talbot, Mary Anne was removed to a
boarding-school in Foregate-street, Chester. Here
she remained for nine years under the care of her
only surviving sister, Mrs. Wilson. On the death
of Mrs. Wilson, Mr. Sucker, of Newport, Shropshire,
came forward as guardian of Mary Anne Talbot.
He was a harsh man, and treated her so cruelly
that she trembled at the sound of his voice. She
had not been in her new home very long when Essex
Bowen, a captain in the 82nd, appeared at the
house; and the girl was commanded by Sucker to
consider him as her future guardian, under whose
protection she was to finish her education on the
continent.
Early in the year 1792 they proceeded to London
and stopped at the Salopian coffee-house, Charing
Cross; where, taking advantage of the poor girl's
friendless situation, Captain Bowen acted the part
of a villain. Immediately after this the 82nd was
ordered to the West Indies; and the captain forced
his victim to dress herself as a foot-boy and follow
him. By his directions, too, she assumed the name
of John Taylor. They sailed on the 20th March,
from Falmouth, in the Crown Transport; and
during the voyage her tyrant used her like a slave,
and forced her to eat and drink with the common
sailors.
Early in the following year the regiment was
remanded to Europe, to join the army of the Duke
of York at Tournay. Bowen again intimidating the
forlorn girl by the threat of sending her up the
country to be sold for a slave, compelled her to enlist
under him as a drummer, though he plainly told
her that this would not release her from her duties
as his servant.
When they arrived in Flanders, Mary Anne was
obliged to endure all the horrors of war. During
the frequent skirmishes which took place between
the English and French, she was compelled to keep
up a continuous roll of the drum to drown the groans
and cries of wounded and dying comrades. On the
2nd of June, the Duke of York besieged Valenciennes;
within a few days of its surrender, the female drummer
received two wounds—one from a musket-ball
which glanced between her collar-bone and breast-bone,
and struck one of her ribs, the other in the
small of her back from the sabre of an Austrian
trooper, who mistook her for a Frenchman. Being
in dread and fear lest her sex should be discovered,
she had the fortitude to conceal her wounds, and
cure them herself by the use of some lint, Dutch
drops and basilicon.
Captain Bowen had the reward of his villainy and
tyranny, by being slain during the attack on
Valenciennes, July 25th, 1793. Having no longer
the wrath of a tyrant to fear, Mary Anne disguised
herself as a sailor boy, deserted from the regiment,
and started for the coast. Carefully avoiding all
towns or large villages, she reached Luxembourg,
which being in the hands of the French, hindered
her further progress. She was compelled, through
sheer want, to hire herself to the captain of a French
lugger. The vessel turned out to be a privateer, and
cruised about the Channel for four months. Mary
Anne was compelled to do all the rough work. At
last the vessel was captured by the British fleet, and
the crew were taken prisoners on board the "Queen
Charlotte" to be examined by the admiral, Lord
Howe. Previous to their capture, Mary Anne was
severely beaten because she refused to fight against
her countrymen.
Lord Howe questioned Mary Anne as to who
and what she was, and how she had got on board a
French ship. She stated, in explanation, that she
had been foot-boy to an English gentleman travelling
on the continent, that on his death she had been
obliged to seek employment, and had taken Le Sage
the French captain, for an honest trader. The
Admiral was satisfied; and the girl was sent on
board the "Brunswick" man-of-war, where she was
appointed powder-monkey on the quarter-deck. Her
cleanly habits, and her quiet respectful demeanour,
attracted the notice of Captain Harvey, who raised
her to the post of principal cabin boy.
The "Brunswick" having fallen in with a French
ship, in June, 1794, a sharp action ensued, in which
Captain Harvey was slain, and Mary Anne received
a grape-shot in the ankle of her left leg. So severe
was the wound that, though she tried three several
times to rise, the broken bone protruding through
the skin gave her such agony she fell back almost
fainting. A few minutes after this a musket-ball
pierced her thigh, just above the knee of the same
leg. After the engagement she was carried to the
cock-pit, and after numberless attempts had been
made to extract the grape-shot (inflicting excruciating
agony all the while on the sufferer), the surgeons
were obliged to leave it where it was, fearful of
cutting the tendons of the leg.
When the "Brunswick" arrived at Spithead,
Mary Anne Talbot was placed in Haslar Hospital,
where she was attended as an out-door patient
during four months. She lived meanwhile on the
money which Captain Harvey had given her. When
she was at last discharged from the Hospital, she
went as a midshipman on board the "Vesuvius,"
which formed part of Sir Sydney Smith's squadron.
After cruising some time on the coast of France the
"Vesuvius" sailed to Gibraltar and back again
without meeting the enemy until near Dunkirk,
where she was boarded and captured by two privateers,
after keeping up a running fight for seven
hours.
Mary Anne and another middy named William
Richards were taken on board one of the privateers,
and imprisoned for eighteen months in Dunkirk,
where they were treated very harshly—being allowed
nothing but bread and water, and a bed of straw
which was never changed. An exchange of prisoners
took place at last; and Mary Anne Talbot was
engaged almost immediately after by a Captain
Field to go as ship's steward on a voyage to
America.
She sailed from Dunkirk on board the "Ariel,"
August, 1796, and arrived in due time at New York.
During her stay there she resided in the family of
Captain Field at Rhode Island; and the pretty niece
of the captain was so absurd as to fall in love with
her uncle's steward. Before Mary Anne's departure
she was obliged to pay eighteen dollars for a portrait
of herself in the uniform of an American officer to
give to her affianced as a memento.
The "Ariel" dropped anchor in the Thames in
November, 1796; and some days after their arrival,
Mary Anne and the mate went on shore, where they
were seized by the press-gang. To obtain her
freedom she was obliged to reveal her sex.
Mary Anne applied several times at the Navy-Pay
Office for moneys due to her for service on board
the "Brunswick" and "Vesuvius." One day she
became abusive, and was taken to Bow Street Police
Court; whence of course she was very soon discharged.
Several gentlemen who were in court
made up a subscription, the amount of which was
twelve shillings a week, to last until she received
her pension from Somerset House.
Mary Anne Talbot wasted her money shamefully
at the theatres and at certain public-houses near
Covent Garden, where her real sex was not even
suspected; all her friends giving her the name of
bon compagnon. In February, 1797, owing to her
fondness for grog, the grape-shot worked itself out
of her ankle, and left her leg in so bad a state that
she was taken into St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
After her discharge she was attended in different
hospitals by several medical men, none of whom
were able to effect a permanent cure. She became
at last so famous that a beggar was sent to the
House of Correction charged with passing himself
off as John Taylor, the midshipman. In 1799, she
became, for the second time, an inmate of Middlesex
Hospital.
For some years her principal support was a
pension of twenty pounds a year from the Crown;
besides this she received frequent presents from the
Duke of York, the Duke of Norfolk, and other
members of the nobility. She was advised by
Justice Bond, the magistrate of Bow Street, to
endeavour to find out something about her early life.
She went to Shrewsbury and called on Mr. Sucker,
in Newport. Being unable to procure an interview
while in "coloured" clothes, she returned to
Shrewsbury, dressed herself in an ensign's uniform,
hired a horse, and rode back to Mr. Sucker's. She
sent in word that an officer, a friend of the late
Captain Bowen, had an important message to deliver.
This ruse succeeded; she declared who she was, and,
drawing her sword, demanded an explanation of Mr.
Sucker's conduct towards her. He stared as though
an apparition had risen from the grave, and, trembling
violently, repeated that he was a ruined man.
Three days after this he was found dead in his
bed.
Mary Anne Talbot lived for many years after this,
maintaining herself in various ways. At one time
she thought of going on the stage, and joined the
Thespian Society in Tottenham Court Road; where
she performed the parts of Irene, Lady Helen, Juliet,
Floranthe, and Adeline, and sometimes appeared in
low comedy as Mrs. Scout, or Jack Hawser. However,
she gave up the stage, which was to her more
amusing than profitable.
Once she was summoned before the Commissioners
of the Stamp Office for wearing hair-powder
without a licence. But she was honourably discharged;
whereupon she made the observation that
"although she had never worn powder as an article
of dress, she had frequently used it in defence of her
King and country." The clerks were so tickled
with her wit that they immediately made up a
subscription.
In June, 1796, the British attacked the New Vigie,
in the Island of St. Vincent. The Royal Highlanders
were conspicuous for their valour, as Highlanders
have ever been. Major-General Stewart, at that
time a captain in the regiment, relates how one of
the men of his company was followed to the scene
of action by his wife. He (Captain Stewart) ordered
the man to remain behind and guard the knapsacks,
which the soldiers threw down preparatory to charging
up the hill. The woman, however, perhaps
thinking that the family honour was at stake, rushed
up the hill, and made herself conspicuous, cheering
and exciting the troops. When the British had
captured the third redoubt, Captain Stewart was
standing at a short distance, giving some directions
relative to the storming of the last entrenchments,
when he was tapped on the shoulder by the female
Highlander, who seized his arm, and exclaimed:
"Well done, my Highland lads! See how the
brigands scamper like so many deer! Come, lads,
let us drive them from yonder hill."
And she charged off again, much to the delight of
her Gaelic brothers-in-arms. When the storm was
over, she helped the surgeons in looking after the
wounded.
During the Irish Rebellion of '98, women very
often risked their lives both on the battle-field and
in the defence of houses. Amongst the latter was
Susan Frost, a Suffolk woman, nurse to General Sir
Charles James Napier. During the temporary
absence of the Napier family in England, this
woman remained at Celbridge House, in Ireland, with
a few of the younger children. The "Defenders"
having ascertained that this mansion contained a
great number of arms, surrounded it one night.
The only persons in the house, besides Susan and
the children, were a few maids and Lauchlin Moore,
an old serving-man. The rebels, who numbered
several hundreds, anticipated an easy capture; but
the house was strongly built, and, besides, was
defended by Susan Frost, of whose obstinate courage
they were as yet ignorant. Collecting all the
children together in one room, she stationed herself
with a brace of pistols outside the door. The
"Defenders" called on the little garrison to
surrender; but Lauchlin Moore, acting under the
orders of Susan, shouted out defiant refusals.
Every time he passed a window, volleys of shot
whizzed around his head.
When the assailants began to batter the door
with a beam of wood, Moore's courage failed him,
and he wished to give up the arms. But Susan
invariably answered "No! No! Never! Never!"
At last the arrival of some men-servants, from a
neighbouring mansion, put the rebels to flight.
Another heroine of the Irish Rebellion was Peggy
Monro, who fought bravely in the battle of Ballinahinch,
where the rebels were commanded by her
brother.
At the latter end of 1797 the French invaded
Switzerland, with the ostensible view of spreading
liberty, equality, and fraternity. However, in place
of being welcomed by the republican Swiss, they
were met on all sides by armed peasants who
defended every foot of ground before giving way.
The women acted with the same courage as the
men. The most conspicuous was Martha Glar, a
peasant-woman. When the war broke out she was
far from young; being then in her sixty-fourth year,
and having both children and grandchildren.
In February, 1798, her husband marched with the
rest of the farmers and peasants to check the
advance of the French. On the last Sunday in the
month, Martha collected all the women and girls of
the parish in the church-yard, half an hour before
divine service, and addressed them in an impressive
oration, inciting them to take up arms in defence of
their native land.
Two hundred and sixty women, urged by her
patriotism, armed themselves, and marched to meet
the invaders. In this little regiment were two of
Martha Glar's daughters, and three of her grand-daughters,
the youngest of whom was only ten years
old. After exciting the admiration of both friends
and foes by their extraordinary bravery, this female
corps was decimated in the battle of Frauenbrun,
March 3rd, 1798. One hundred and eighty of them
were killed, and the rest carried, more or less
wounded, from the field. Martha Glar, together
with her husband, her father, her two sons, both her
daughters, her brother, and her three grand-daughters
were amongst the slain.
In 1806, when Prussia was arming against the
"Colossus of Europe," the Queen, who was young,
beautiful, and fascinating, appeared several times at
the head of the troops attired in a military uniform,
which, it is said, became her exceedingly well; and
in this costume she made fiery speeches inciting the
people to rise against the "Modern Attila."
Besides this display of martial ardour, the Queen,
mounted on a superb charger, accompanied the
Prussian army to the field of Jena, Oct. 14th, 1806,
and remained in the midst of the fight till her troops
were routed. On her head she wore a helmet of
burnished steel, overshadowed by a magnificent
plume. She wore a tunic of silver brocade, reaching
to her feet, which were encased in scarlet boots with
gold spurs. Her breast was protected by a cuirass
glittering in gold and silver. Accompanied by the
élite of the young Berlin nobility, she rode along in
front of the most advanced ranks, whence, the day
being clear, she was easily seen by the French. As
she approached each regiment, the flags, embroidered
by her own fair hands, besides the blackened rags—all
that remained of the time-honoured banners of
Frederick the Great—were lowered respectfully.
When the battle was over and the Prussians in
full rout, the Queen remained on the field, attended
by three or four equerries, who, for some time, contrived
to defend her against the French troops, who
had strict orders to capture the Queen at all risks.
A squadron of hussars riding up at full speed soon
dispersed the little escort of her Majesty. The
horse ridden by the Queen fortunately took fright,
and galloped off at full speed. Had it not been for
his swiftness, the royal heroine would inevitably have
been captured.
Pursued by the detachment of hussars, who were
several times within a few yards of the royal fugitive,
she arrived at last within sight of Weimar, and was
congratulating herself upon having escaped so
imminent a danger, when, to her dismay, she
observed a strong body of French dragoons endeavouring
to cut off her retreat. However, before they
could come near, she was inside Weimar, the gates
of which were immediately closed upon the discomfited
troopers.
The Queen found her costume exceedingly inconvenient
during her flight; and it was principally
owing to this that she was so very near being made
prisoner.
Marie-Anne-Elise Bonaparte, sister of the first
Napoleon, was a woman of superior intellect, and
shared to a considerable extent her brother's
military predilections. When she married Bacciochi,
Prince of Lucca and Piombino, it was she who
conducted the government, while the Prince was
kept in a subordinate position. From her fondness
for military shows she acquired the title of the
"Semiramis of Lucca." Whenever she reviewed
the troops, Prince Bacciochi discharged the duties of
aide-de-camp.
Next to Joan of Arc, the Maid of Saragossa is the
most famous female warrior that ever lived. Pictures
and statues without number have been exhibited
commemorative of this Spanish girl's heroism; and
what renders her resemblance even greater to Jeanne
is the fact that the Maid of Saragossa was young,
handsome, and interesting.
The siege of Saragossa (or Zaragoza), was one of
the most extraordinary recorded in modern history.
The town was not even properly fortified, but merely
enclosed by a badly-constructed wall twelve feet high
and three feet in breadth. This was, moreover,
intersected by houses, which, with the neighbouring
churches and monasteries, were in a most dilapidated
condition. The inhabitants numbered only sixty
thousand, and amongst these there was barely two
hundred and twenty soldiers. The artillery consisted
of ten dilapidated old guns.
When the rest of Spain was at the feet of
Napoleon, Marshal Lefebvre was despatched in June
1808, with a strong division of the French army to
besiege Saragossa. Never, in our days at least, have
the inhabitants of a beleaguered town displayed such
courage. Women of all ranks assisted in the
defence; they formed themselves into companies of
two or three hundred each, and materially aided the
men. They were always the most forward in
danger, and the great difficulty was to teach them
prudence and a proper sense of their own danger.
The French Marshal, astounded at this unexpected
resistance, bribed the keeper of a large
powder-magazine to blow it up on the night of June
28th. The French immediately pressed forward to
the gates, and commenced a vigorous cannonade.
The confusion within the walls was fearful. The
people, terrified by the explosion, stupefied by the
noise of the cannon thundering in their ears, were
paralysed with terror. It was at this critical
moment, when the French were pouring into the town,
already considered it as their own, that Agostina
(or Angostina) the Maid of Saragossa performed that
heroic action which has made her name famous
throughout the world.
According to the popular version of the story
current at the time, the deed was unpremeditated,
and simply the result of a sudden impulse. She
was carrying round wine and water to the parched
and fainting soldiers; entering the Battery of El
Portillo, she found that all its defenders had been
slain. She tore a match from the hand of a dying
artilleryman (whom Southey incorrectly supposes to
have been her lover) and fired off a twenty-six
pounder gun which was loaded. But in Mrs.
Hale's "Woman's Record," and some other
biographical dictionaries, Agostina is represented as
having gone to the battery with the previous
determination of performing great deeds.
"At this dreadful moment," says Mrs. Hale, "an
unknown maiden issued from the church of Nostra
Donna del Pillas, habited in white raiment, a cross
suspended from her neck, her dark hair dishevelled
and her eyes sparkling with supernatural lustre!
She traversed the city with a bold and firm step;
she passed to the ramparts, to the very spot where
the enemy was pouring in to the assault; she
mounted to the breach, seized a lighted match from
the hand of a dying engineer, and fired the piece of
artillery he had failed to manage; then kissing her
cross, she cried with the accent of inspiration—'Death
or victory!' and re-loaded her cannon.
Such a cry, such a vision, could not fail to call up
enthusiasm; it seemed that heaven had brought
aid to the just cause; her cry was answered—'Long
live Agostina.'"
The people, inspired with new courage, rushed
into the battery, and blazed away at the French.
Agostina swore not to quit her post while the assault
continued. The enthusiasm soon spread through
the town. Shouts of "Forward! Forward! We
will conquer!" resounded from all sides, and the
besiegers were driven back at every point.
Marshal Lefebvre saw it would cost too many
soldiers to take the town by storm; so he endeavoured
to reduce it by famine, aided by a heavy
bombardment. The horrors of war—people dying
of hunger, shells bursting in the streets, the destruction
of houses—reigned paramount in Saragossa.
Agostina risked her life daily to assist the wounded.
But she was seen daily working a heavy gun in the
battery at the north-western gate.
The French, from their superior numbers and
their determined perseverance, soon became masters
of nearly half the town. Lefebvre sent to General
Palafox, the Spanish Commandant, requesting him,
once more, to surrender. Palafox read this message
in the public street. Turning to Agostina, who,
completely armed, stood near him, he asked:—"What
answer shall I send?"
"War to the knife!" said she.
And this answer, echoed by all, was sent back to
the Duke of Dantzic.
The latter gave immediate orders for his troops to
press the siege by every possible means. For eleven
days and eleven nights the town was like the crater
of a volcano. The Spaniards disputed the possession
of every street, every house, sometimes every room
in a house. Agostina was seen at all points,
wherever there was most danger to be encountered.
Running from post to post, she fought almost incessantly.
At last the French, thoroughly exhausted,
retired from before Saragossa early on the morning
of the 17th August, and the brave townspeople had
their reward when they saw the legions of France
retiring towards Pampeluna.
When General Palafox was rewarding the surviving
warriors, he told Agostina to select whatever
reward she pleased; for, said he, anything she asked
for would be granted. The only favour she asked
was permission to retain the rank of an artillery-soldier,
and to have the privilege of taking the
surname, and wearing the arms of Saragossa. This
was at once granted, with the double-pay of an
artilleryman and a pension; while she was decorated
with medals and crosses by the Spanish Junta, and
given the additional surname of La Artillera.
During the second siege of Saragossa, Agostina
distinguished herself again as a warrior. When the
French sat down before the gates, she took up her
former station at the Portillo battery, beside the
same gun which she had served so well.
"See," said she to Palafox, pointing to the gun,
"I am again with my old friend."
Her husband was severely wounded, but Agostina
took his duties, while he lay bleeding at her side.
Besides loading and firing this famous gun, Agostina
frequently headed sallying parties; when, knife or
sword in hand, her cloak wrapped round her, she
cheered and encouraged the soldiers by her example
and her words. Although constantly under fire, she
escaped without a wound. Once, however, she
was flung into a ditch, and nearly suffocated by the
bodies of dead and dying which fell upon her.
When the town capitulated in February, 1809,
Agostina became a prisoner. She was too much
feared for Marshal Lannes to let her escape.
Fortunately for herself, she was seized with a contagious
fever then raging in the town, and was
removed to the hospital; where, as it was supposed
she lay dying, so little care was taken in watching
her that she contrived to escape in a few days.
When Lord Byron visited Spain in 1809, the maid
of Saragossa used to walk every day on the Prado at
Seville, attired in the Spanish military uniform—retaining,
however, the petticoat and skirt, of her
sex. Byron devoted half-a-dozen verses of "Childe
Harold" to her praises. Sir John Carr, who was
introduced to her about the same time, describes
the heroine as "about twenty-three," with a light
olive complexion. "Her countenance soft and
pleasing, and her manners, which were perfectly
feminine, were easy and engaging." When he saw
Agostina she wore the national black mantilla; but
on the sleeve of one arm she had three embroidered
badges of honour, commemorative of three different
acts of bravery.
"The day before I was introduced to this extraordinary
female," says Sir John, "she had been
entertained at dinner by Admiral Purvis on board
his flag-ship.... As she received a pension from
Government, and also the pay of an artilleryman,
the admiral considered her as a military character,
and, much to his credit, received her with the honours
of that profession. Upon her reaching the deck, the
marines were drawn up and manœuvred before her.
She appeared quite at home, regarding them with a
steady eye, and speaking in terms of admiration of
their neatness, and soldier-like appearance. Upon
examining the guns, she observed of one of them, as
other women would speak of a cap, 'My gun,' alluding
to one with which she had effected a considerable
havoc among the French at Saragossa, 'was not so
nice and clean as this.'"
Agostina lived to the age of sixty-nine, and died
at Cuesta in July, 1857; when her remains were
interred with all the honours due to her public
position as a Spanish patriot.
Although the women of Saragossa had been ordered
to leave the town in November, 1808, previous to
the commencement of the second siege, most of
them remained, and assisted bravely in raising
fortifications. During the siege they exceeded even
their past valour. In the short space of two months
no fewer than six hundred women and children
perished by the bayonets and musket-balls of the
French; without reckoning the thousands who
owed their deaths to the frequent explosions of
powder-magazines and the constant bursting of
shells in the streets. A girl named Manuella Sanchez
was shot through the heart. A noble lady named
Benita, who commanded one of the female corps
raised to carry round provisions, to bear away the
wounded, and to fight in the streets, narrowly
escaped death again and again; and at the last she
only survived the dangers of war to die of grief on
hearing that her daughter had been slain.
All through the Peninsula women displayed the
same Amazonian prowess. Those towns which
ventured to resist the Imperial Eagles were as much
influenced in their stubborn patriotism by the
courage of the women as by the exciting speeches of
the priests or the promise of assistance from
England. And all those places which were besieged
by the French were defended by women as well as
by men. In 1810 there was, it is said, a woman
holding the commission of Captain in a Spanish
regiment.
In 1811, Mrs. Dalbiac, wife of a British colonel,
"an English lady of gentle disposition and possessing
a very delicate frame," accompanied, or perhaps
followed, her husband to the Peninsula, and shared
in all the hardships of more than one campaign. At
the battle of Salamanca, July 22nd, 1812, she rode
into the midst of the fight, and was several times
under fire.
The King of Prussia, unable to shake off the yoke
of Napoleon in 1806, when the star of the "Modern
Attila" was at its zenith, took advantage of the
Emperor's misfortunes in 1813 to call upon the
Germans to rise against the tyranny of France.
His call was warmly responded to from all parts of
the realm; and, like France in the early days of
the Republic, almost all who could bear arms
hastened to enrol themselves as volunteers, and
march away to fight the Gaul. Perhaps the best
known rifle-corps was that commanded by Major
Lutzow. Young men of the best families, men of
genius (amongst others, Körner the poet, who has
celebrated it in verse) joined this battalion. In this
corps there was a female soldier, who enrolled under
the name of Renz. A monument was erected to the
memory of this heroine at Dannenberg, in September,
1865. It is in the form of a pyramid, one foot
high. Nothing further is known concerning her
history, beyond what is told by the inscription on
this memorial.
"Ellonora Prochaska, known as one of the Lutzow
Rifle Volunteers, by the name of Augustus Renz,
born at Potzdam on the 11th March, 1785, received
a fatal wound in the battle of Göhrde on the 15th
September, 1813, died at Dannenberg on the 5th
October, 1813. She fell exclaiming:—'Herr Lieutenant,
I am a woman!'"
In 1869 a young man was received, by the
express order of the King of Prussia, as a candidate
for an ensign's commission into the second company
of the first battalion of the 9th regiment, in Stargard,
the same company in which his grandmother had
served as a subaltern officer during the war of
liberation against the French, and bravely won the
Iron Cross and the Russian order of St. George.
This lady—Augusta Frederica Krüger—was a native
of Friedland, in Mecklenberg. Not content with
offering, like many of her countrywomen, her
trinkets and her flowing hair on the altar of
patriotism, she entered the ranks as a volunteer,
under the name of Lübeck, and distinguished herself
by her intrepidity on many a hard-fought field.
On October 23, 1815, she received her discharge,
and her services were mentioned in this document
in the most flattering terms. In January, 1816,
being present, dressed in the garments of her own
sex, at the festival of the Iron Cross, held at Berlin,
she attracted the attention of a sub-officer of
Lancers, named Karl Köhler, to whom she was
married, in the garrison church of Berlin, on
March 5, of the same year. The church was densely
packed with spectators on the occasion, every one
anxious to witness the marriage of two Prussian
subaltern officers. The heroic bride appeared in
a handsome silk gown, and wore on her breast the
orders she had honourably won, which, with her
short hair, were the only signs or symbols of her
former military career.
Marshal Massena once related how, during an
action between the French and Russians at Buezenghen,
he observed a young soldier, apparently
scarcely more than a child, who belonged to the
French Light Artillery, defending himself bravely
against several herculean Cossacks and Bavarians.
This young artilleryman, whose horse had been
slain by the thrust of a Cossack lance, displayed the
most determined courage. "I immediately despatched
an officer and some men to his assistance,
but they arrived too late. Although the action had
taken place on the borders of the wood and in front
of the bridge, the artilleryman had alone withstood
the attack of the small body of Cossacks and
Bavarians whom the officers and men I had despatched
put to flight. His body was covered with
wounds inflicted by shots, lances, and swords.
There were at least thirty. And do you know,
Madame," asked the Marshal, "what the young man
was?"
"A woman!"
"Yes, a woman, and a handsome woman too!
Although she was so covered with blood that it was
difficult to judge of her beauty. She had followed
her lover to the army. The latter was a Captain of
Artillery; she never left him, and when he was
killed, defended like a lioness the remains of him she
loved. She was a native of Paris, her name was
Louise Belletz, and she was the daughter of a
fringe-maker."
It was in 1812 that the Chicago Massacre took
place. For more than a year before, the Indian
tribes residing near the remote lakes and the sources
of the Mississippi had displayed great hostility
towards the pale-faces; though for a long time they
did not venture to proceed to extremities. But
after the declaration of war between the United
States and Great Britain, on the 18th May, 1812,
the savages came forward in great numbers as the
allies of the British, and acted with their customary
barbarity. One of their worst deeds was the
Massacre of Chicago, August 15th, 1812.
The Fort of Chicago was commanded by Captain
Heald. On the 7th August, he received despatches
announcing that the Pottawatomie Indians had
declared war against the United States, and commanding
him to evacuate the place. He marched
out on the 15th, accompanied by all the women and
children, and had not proceeded very far before they
were surrounded by overwhelming numbers of redskins.
The Americans defended themselves with
their usual bravery; and though hardly more than
one to twenty, they sold their lives dearly.
Mrs. Heald, who was in the thick of the fight,
received seven wounds. Her horse, a splendid
animal, was prized by the Indians, who valued it
far higher than its rider, and tried their best to avoid
hurting it. A savage was in the act of tearing off
Mrs. Heald's bonnet to scalp her, when one of the
St. Joseph's tribe ransomed her for ten bottles of
whiskey and a mule.
Mrs. Helm, wife of the officer second in command,
fought bravely for her life. She was wounded
slightly in the ankle, and had her horse shot under
her. Being attacked by a young savage who aimed
a blow at her head with his tomahawk, she sprang
on one side, and the stroke fell on her shoulder,
inflicting a severe wound. She seized him round
the neck, and endeavoured to snatch his scalping-knife;
but another Indian came up and dragged her
away. The new-comer proved to be a friend.
Plunging Mrs. Helm into the lake, he held her
there, despite her struggles, till the firing was
over.
After fighting with desperate valour, until only
twenty-seven of them were left, the Americans
were compelled to surrender. The wife of one of the
soldiers, hearing of the tortures which the savages
inflicted on their prisoners, resolved to die sooner
than let herself be taken. When her companions
had given up their arms, the Indians wished to
capture this woman; but rejecting all their promises
of kind treatment, she fought so desperately that
she was literally cut to pieces.
Captain Helm, twice wounded, was sent with his
wife and children to Mackinaw on the eastern coast
of Michigan, and delivered as prisoners of war to
the British general, who received them kindly, and
sent them to Detroit. Lieutenant Helm, also
wounded, was taken to St. Louis; where he was
liberated through the entreaties of Mr. Forsyth, an
Indian trader. Mrs. Helm was taken to Detroit,
where she was exchanged, together with Captain
and Mrs. Heald, some time after.
III.
Doña Maria de Jesus, Private in the Brazilian Army (War of
the Reconcave)—Russian Female Soldiers—Juana de Areito
(Civil Wars in Spain, 1834)—Anita Garibaldi—Appolonia
Jagiello (Rebellions in Poland, 1846 and '48, and Vienna and
Hungary, '48)—Bravery of the Croatian Women—Countess
Helena St. ——, a Hungarian Patriot—Garde Mobile—Louisa
Battistati (Milanese Revolution, 1848)—Fatima, a Turkish
Commander (Russo-Turkish War)—Lady Paget (Attack on the
Mamelon, June, 1855)—Miss Wheeler (Cawnpore Massacre)—Queen
of Naples—Polish Insurrection—Mdlle. Pustowjtoff, Adjutant
to Langievicz—Female Polish Chasseurs—Female Lieut.-Colonel
in the Mexican Army—Civil War in America—Female
Privates in the Potomac Army—Female Lieutenant and
Privates in the Army of the West—Mrs. Clayton, Private in
the Federal Army—Emily ——, Private in the Drum Corps of
a Michigan Regiment—Female Confederates at Ringgold,
Chattanooga—Mrs. Florence Bodwin—Female Mulatto Sergeant—Native
Contingent in New Zealand—Herminia Manelli,
Corporal of Bersaglieri (Battle of Custozza, 1866)—Lopez's
Amazons—Cretan Amazons—Women of Montenegro—Female
Brigands—German Order to Reward Courage in Women—Franco-Prussian
War—Minna Hänsel's Amazon Corps.
Since the first French Revolution, monarchs
have not always sat easily upon
their thrones. They fancied they had cut
down the Tree of Liberty after the downfall
of Napoleon, and that it would never grow up
again; but in a very short time it brought forth new
branches, and has since borne fruit in a way which
the most sanguine Republican of olden times would
scarcely have ventured to predict. Since the battle
of Waterloo, Europe and America—even parts of
Asia and Africa—have been convulsed by rebellions,
civil wars, and revolutions, which have often shaken
the world to its centre. The peoples learnt to hate
their rulers; and one nation after another, catching
the revolutionary fire from the smouldering brand
half stamped out in France, rose in rebellion against
the monarch who refused them immediate enfranchisement.
Again and again have the nations been
compelled by force of arms to submit; but they rise
again whenever they fancy they see a favourable
opportunity. Thus it happened that almost every
war, fought in Europe or America since Waterloo
up to some ten years since, had its origin in the
same cause—the struggles of nations to cast off their
rulers.
Amongst those states which took the initiative in
raising the standard of revolt, the South American
colonies of Spain and Portugal were foremost.
Brazil declared its independence in 1821, and elected
Don Pedro, the Crown Prince of Portugal, to be
Emperor. The latter had a hard struggle to
maintain his throne against not only the Portuguese
troops, but against the Republicans, who composed
a large party in Brazil. His emissaries were
despatched all over the country, to the most distant
plantations, to raise recruits for the Imperial Army.
One of these messengers arrived one day at the farmhouse
of Gonzalez de Almeida, a Portuguese settler
in the parish of San José, on the Rio de Pax. The
patriot was invited to dinner; and, mindful of his
object, he endeavoured to enlist the sympathies of
his host for Don Pedro. Almeida listened very
attentively; but it awakened no feelings of patriotism
in his breast. He was old, and could not join
the army himself, nor had he a son to give.
"As to giving a slave," added he, "what interest
would a slave have in fighting for the independence
of Brazil?"
But though Almeida had no sons, he had two
daughters. One of them, Doña Maria de Jesus, was
desirous, for many reasons, to leave home and seek
employment elsewhere. Her father had married
again, and the step-mother and her young children
made home exceedingly uncomfortable for Maria.
She was much excited by the patriot's words; "So
that at last," she said, "I felt my heart burning in
my breast!"
She stole from the house, and went to that of her
married sister. After recapitulating the stranger's
discourse, she expressed a wish that she were a man
and could join the Imperial standard.
"Nay," said her sister. "If I had not a husband
and child, for one half of what you say, I would join
the ranks of the emperor."
This decided the wavering resolution of Doña
Maria. Her sister supplied her with a suit of clothes
belonging to the husband, so Maria took the opportunity,
as her father was going to Cachoeira, about
forty leagues distant, to dispose of some cotton, to
ride after him; not close enough to be seen, but
sufficiently near for protection. When in sight of
Cachoeira, she halted; and going a little way from
the road, dressed herself in male attire.
She entered the town on a Friday, and by the
following Sunday she had enlisted in an artillery
regiment, and had already mounted guard. She was,
however, too slight for the heavy duties of an
artilleryman; so she exchanged into an infantry
corps, in which she remained till the close of the war.
Her real sex was not even suspected till Almeida
applied to the commanding officer of her regiment.
In the summer of 1823 she was sent with despatches
to Rio Janeiro, and there presented to Don Pedro,
who gave her an ensign's commission and the Order
of the Cross—the latter of which he himself placed
upon her jacket.
Maria Graham in her "Journal of a Voyage to
Brazil," gives, as one of the illustrations, Maria de
Jesus in her uniform. "Her dress," says this
traveller, "is that of a soldier of one of the emperor's
battalions, with the addition of a tartan kilt, which
she told me she had adopted from a picture representing
a Highlander, as the most feminine military
dress. What would the Gordons and Macdonalds
say to this? The 'garb of old Gaul' chosen as a
womanish attire!" This lady further says that
Maria, though clever, was almost totally uneducated;
"she might have been a remarkable person. She is
not particularly masculine in her appearance, and her
manners are gentle and cheerful."
In a census of the population of St. Petersburg,
published about 1829, there appears the following
curious item:—
"Soldiers and Subalterns.
Men.
Women.
Total.
46,076
9,975
56,051."
When the civil war broke out in Spain, in 1834,
the town of Eybar, in the province of Guipuzcoa,
being attacked by Zabala, the Carlist general,
several women and girls assisted the Christino
troops in its defence. One of these brave girls, Juana
de Anito, at this time barely fifteen, was married
six years later to Don Eulogio Barbero Quintero,
a young officer in the Spanish Army. In 1840 he
became mixed up in a conspiracy against the Government;
and on the failure of the plot, attempted to
escape into France. He was intercepted on his road,
and imprisoned in the citadel of San Sebastian.
Directly Juana heard of his capture she resolved to
effect his escape; which she accomplished in Nov.
1841, by exchanging clothes with him. Don Eulogio
succeeded in reaching the French frontier; but the
courage and devotion of his young wife did not avert
the wrath of the Spanish Regent, by whose orders
she was condemned to imprisonment for life.
It was whilst fighting in Brazil as a rebel against
the Imperial Government that Garibaldi first met his
beloved wife, Anita. She was a Brazilian by birth,
and possessed all the beauty of her countrywomen.
Her complexion was a clear olive, set off by piercing
black eyes, her figure tall and commanding. She
was a fit companion for the brave Garibaldi; being
to the full as courageous as he. The general himself
said that his wife took part in battle as "an
amusement" and "a simple variation to the
monotony of camp-life."
Anita accompanied her husband in all his expeditions
both on shore and at sea. Ably did she second
him in the struggle for Brazilian freedom. Shortly
after marriage they were one day at sea, when the
Imperial fleet hove in sight, and bore down upon
them. Garibaldi entreated his bride to land, and
remain on shore whilst the engagement lasted; but
she firmly refused, and not only remained during
the action, but took a very leading share in it. One
of the sailors fell dead at her feet; she snatched up
his carbine, and kept up a constant fire on the
Brazilians for several hours.
When the battle was at its height, Anita was
standing on deck, waving a sword over her head,
encouraging the men to resist bravely. Suddenly
she was struck down by the wind of a cannon-ball,
which killed two men close by. Garibaldi rushed
forward, expecting to find that life was extinct; but
to his astonishment and delight she rose up unhurt.
Again he entreated her to go below, and remain
there till the fighting was over.
"Yes," said Anita. "I will go below; but only to
drive out the cowards who are skulking there."
And running down the hatchway, she speedily
reappeared, driving before her three men who had
gone below to escape the storm.
Anita was also present, on horseback, in a battle
fought at a place called Coritibani, where the Garibaldians,
numbering scarcely eighty men, half of
whom were infantry, were attacked by a large body
of Brazilian cavalry. She was not satisfied with
being a mere spectator; knowing that the rebels, as
they kept up a constant fire, would soon exhaust
their ammunition, she went to the baggage-waggons to
see that the men were properly supplied with cartridges.
She had not been there very long before the
baggage-train was attacked by twenty or thirty
Brazilian horsemen. Anita was a good rider, and
could have saved herself; but she preferred to remain
on the spot, encouraging the Garibaldians.
The Brazilians were victorious in this battle;
Anita surrounded on every side, received orders to
yield. Clapping spurs to her horse, she dashed
through the midst of her foes. Several shots were
fired after her; one, a pistol shot, went through her
hat, cutting off a lock of hair, while another pierced
her horse's head. The animal fell heavily to the
ground, flinging her with violence from the saddle.
Before she could recover her feet, the Brazilian
troopers had made her prisoner.
Anita believed that her husband had been killed;
so the Brazilian colonel gave her permission to
search the battle-field for his body. She looked
through the corpses again and again for several
hours, and at last came to the conclusion that Garibaldi
still lived, and she determined to rejoin him.
That night, when the Brazilians had retired to rest,
and when even the sentry began to nod, she succeeded
in escaping to a farmhouse a quarter of a mile
distant; where she seized a horse, and plunged into
the forest, in the direction which she believed the
Garibaldians to have taken.
For more than a week, Anita Garibaldi wandered
alone amidst the almost impenetrable wilds of the
dense Brazilian forests, without food, and exposed to
the hourly chances of capture. More than once she
was pursued by the enemy placed in ambush at
various points. One stormy night, four horsemen,
who were stationed at a ford of the river Canoas,
believing her to be a phantom, fled in terror. Anita
plunged boldly into the stream; and, although it was
five hundred yards broad, and swollen by the mountain
rivulets till it had assumed the aspect of a
roaring cataract, she succeeded, holding on by her
horse's mane, in reaching the opposite shore, amidst
a shower of bullets from the Brazilians, who had
found out their mistake.
After enduring for eight days every kind of danger
and privation, she overtook the Garibaldians, and
rejoined her husband.
"Yes, yes, gentlemen," added Garibaldi, when he
related this anecdote, "my wife is valiant."
There are many more of these anecdotes related
concerning the extraordinary bravery of Anita. She
afterwards accompanied her husband on his return
to Italy, in 1848, and was with him during the insurrection
of Lombardy against Austria. In the
following year she attended him throughout the siege
of Rome. After the fall of the Eternal City in 1849,
when Garibaldi was escaping to Venice, Anita, worn
out by long suffering, died at Mandriole, a small
village in the marshes of Ravenna.
Apollonia Jagiello, a Polish heroine, who acquired
no little celebrity for her bravery during the insurrections
of '46 and '48, was born in Lithuania, in
1825. She was educated at Cracow, in which city
she passed her early life; sometimes changing for a
few weeks to Warsaw or Vienna. In 1846 the insurrection
broke out in the former city. Apollonia
was, at this time, rather more than twenty, of
medium height, with a graceful and slender figure.
She was a brunette, with big black eyes, and a profusion
of dark hair. Her arms and hands, which
were more than once admired by those who saw her,
were beautiful, and delicately formed. Although her
lips were usually compressed, with a resolute expression
of one who was not easily daunted, yet she
could also smile most sweetly. "In that," says the
National Era (an American journal), "the woman
comes out; it is arch, soft and winning—a rare and
indescribable smile. Her manner," adds this paper,
"is simple and engaging. Her voice is now gentle
or mirthful, now earnest and passionate—sometimes
it sounds like the utterance of some quiet home lyre,
and sometimes startles you with a decided ring of
the steel."
Apollonia, inspired by that enthusiastic love for
her country, which we so often find amongst Polish
girls, joined the national army; and, throughout the
struggle, which lasted only two or three months, was
always found wherever danger was greatest.
Mounted on horseback, she was one of those patriots
who planted the White Eagle and the flag of freedom
on the Castle and Palace of Cracow. She also
formed one of that gallant little band which fought
the battle near Podgorze against an army ten times
their strength.
When the insurrection was suppressed, Madlle.
Jagiello, resuming her own attire, remained in
Cracow for several weeks without detection. She
then removed to Warsaw, where she stayed until the
year 1848, the Year of Revolutions. Directly the
Cracovians took up arms, she joined their ranks, and
displayed the same courage which she had shown
two years previously.
The insurrection of '48 proved, if possible, a greater
failure than the first. Apollonia fled from Cracow,
and reached Vienna just in time to take share in the
skirmish of the Faubourg Widen. She remained here
only a few days, her object being to join the Hungarian
insurgents under Kossuth. With the assistance
of some friends she succeeded in reaching
Presburg; whence, disguised as a peasant, she was
conveyed to the village of St. Paul by those unfortunate
country-folks who were compelled to carry
provisions for the Austrian army. Crossing that part
of the country occupied by the German troops, she
reached the Hungarian camp, near the village of
Ezneszey, on the 15th August, 1848. This was
immediately before the battle fought here, in which
the Austrians were defeated, and General Wist slain.
Apollonia took part in this battle as a volunteer; but
such was her courage that the Hungarian general
presented her with a lieutenant's commission.
Apollonia, on the urgent solicitation of all, undertook
the superintendence of the hospital at Comorn.
This post she resigned for a while to join as a volunteer
in the expedition of twelve thousand men, commanded
by General Klapka, who captured Raab.
Returning to Comorn, the heroine resumed her
hospital duties, and remained there until the fortress
surrendered.
In December, 1849, in company with Governor
Ladislaus Ujhazy and his family, Apollonia Jagiello
sailed to the United States, where they received an
enthusiastic welcome. Here she continued to show
that hatred of tyrants for which she had ever been distinguished.
One day, when she was at Washington,
an album was handed to her, with the request that
she would add her autograph to those it already contained.
She took it with a smile, but it chanced that
on the very page at which she opened, the signature
of M. Bodisco, the Russian ambassador, figured
prominently. Flinging the album from her, with
flashing eyes, she declared that her name should
never appear in the same book with "the tool of a
tyrant."
While the hatred of Austria was felt by all
throughout Hungary, Croatia and Sclavonia were
actuated, on the contrary, by feelings of the deepest
loyalty to the house of Hapsburg. Baron W., who
published his adventures under the title of "Scenes
of the Civil War in Hungary in 1848-9, with the
personal adventures of an Austrian officer, etc.,"
declares that the Croatians joined the Imperial
standard by thousands; even the women, moved by
an ardent and loyal courage, aided in defending the
frontiers against the Bosnians, who, excited by the
emissaries of Kossuth, took every opportunity for
raids and invasions over the border. While the men
were flocking to the banners of Jellachich, the ban
of Croatia, their wives and daughters took up arms
and repaired to the chain of posts on the Turkish
boundary, "that all the men might be able to take
the field; and such an eight days' duty as these
frontier posts," he adds, "is no trifle, and requires
not a little firmness." Old, half-invalided frontier
subalterns, incapacitated for taking the field, were
the commandants; young, many of them handsome,
females composed their troops. "By my faith!" exclaims
the Baron, "I should have no objection
to be the commander of such a corps of Ottochan
females myself!"
Numbers of Croatian and Sclavonian women
accompanied the Austrian army into Germany and
Italy. "We had," says the same author, "wives
and daughters of frontier soldiers with us in
Peschiera and on the march through Hungary, who
equalled the men in the endurance of fatigue, and
displayed undaunted courage in battle. In Hungary
we had with us a young Croatian, the daughter of
an old Seressan, who was as daring a rider as the
best hussar, and more than once fearlessly joined the
men in the charge. A Hungarian jurat gave her in
an action a cut on the left cheek, which she returned
with a severe blow on the arm, seized the
bridle of his horse, and took him prisoner. This
horse, a grey stallion, she ever afterwards rode, and
refused to sell, though I offered her forty ducats for
him."
The Countess Helene St. ——, a Hungarian patriot,
was the sister of an old comrade of Baron W. The
brother, who owned a magnificent estate, was a
Magyar to the very core; and directly the insurrection
broke out, he took up arms, and fell bravely
fighting for his country in February, 1849. His
dying agonies were soothed by an unexpected meeting
with his early friend; the Baron.
Helene joined the insurgents soon after her brother
left home, and served as aide-de-camp to his maternal
uncle, who commanded a considerable Magyar
corps. One cold, moonlight night, a few days after
the death of the count, the author of the "Adventures"
discovered the corpse of this beautiful girl,
dressed in the military uniform of a Hungarian
soldier, stretched out at the foot of a tree, her life's
blood crimsoning the white snow.
"Forcibly mustering my spirits," says he, "I
ordered my men to carry the body to the fire. There
we examined it more closely, and with extreme
anxiety I sought to ascertain whether there was any
hope left of reviving her. Vain hope! It was several
hours since her spirit had departed; the ball of one
of our riflemen had gone through her heart. From
the small red wound blood was still oozing in a
single drop, which I carefully caught in my handkerchief
to be preserved as a relic.
"My only consolation was that the deceased
could not have suffered long; that she must have
expired the very moment she was struck. Those
pure, noble, still wondrous beautiful features; on
her brow dwelt peace and composure, and the lips
almost smiled. There she lay, as if in tranquil
slumber, and yet those eyes were never more to
open—those lips never more to utter noble sentiments
or words of kindness.
"My hussars were visibly affected, and thought it
a pity that one so young and so beautiful should die
so early. Many of them who had been with me on
our first march through Hungary for two days together
at St. ——'s mansion, instantly recognised
Helene, and doubly lamented her death, because she
had shown such kindness to them."
They dug a deep grave beneath the frozen snow.
"The corpse, in full uniform; the holpack, with
plume of glistening heron's feathers on her head,
the light Turkish sabre by her side, was then carefully
wrapped in a clean large blanket which we had
with us, and so deposited in the grave, which we
filled up again with earth. Then regardless of
caution, I had a full salute fired with pistols over
the grave. I have preserved a small gold ring and a
lock of her hair for a memorial."
The Baron, it should be added, plainly tells the
reader that he was very nearly, if not quite, over
head and ears in love with the beautiful Helene.
One of the hussars, who could do carpenter's
work, made a cross of two young, white maple trees,
which was placed over the heroine's grave.
The Garde Mobile (which, as an extra battalion
to the National Guard, did good service to the
people in '48,) when it was disbanded, proved to be
half composed of Parisian women and girls.
Louisa Battistati, a heroine of the Lombardian
Revolution, was a native of Stradella, in Sardinia,
and a mantua-maker by trade. She was dwelling in
Milan, following this business, when the five days'
Revolution broke out. On Sunday, the 10th
March, 1848, Louisa attacked and disarmed an
Austrian cavalry soldier, although he carried a carbine.
At the head of a valiant band of young
women, she now took up her station at the Poppietti
bridge, and defended it all through the 20th, the
21st and the 22nd. At every shot from her musket
a Croat fell dead.
In June, 1853, the war between Russia and Turkey
broke out. The Turkish government, to swell the
ranks of the army, were obliged to beat up for
recruits among the semi-barbarous tribes of Asia
Minor. The chief of one of the wild tribes in the
Cilician mountains having been imprisoned by order
of the Sultan, his wife, Fatima, a little old woman,
about sixty years of age, with a dark complexion, who
governed during his absence, exercising the double
duty of Queen and Prophetess, raised three hundred
of her best horsemen and led them to the Allied Camp
at Scutari, in the summer of 1854. Her appearance
created no little sensation amongst English and
French. There was very little of the Amazon in
her personal appearance, though she bestrode her
steed like a trooper, and wore a costume intended
to represent the military dress of a chieftain. She
was attended by two handmaids, also in male attire.
Fatima, apprehensive that her entreaties for the
release of her husband would prove insufficient to
move the Sultan, thought the best means of propitiating
the Turkish Government was to lead a few
hundreds of her bravest warriors to fight the frozen
Russ. The pay for her troops was to be eighty
piastres a month, besides tooth and stirrup money
in every village through which they should pass.
When the Allies were storming the Mamelon in
June, 1855, Lady Paget (wife of Lord George, and
daughter of General Sir Arthur Paget, brother of
the famous Marquis of Anglesey) was present on the
field, at a short distance from the scene of action.
General Pennefather went up to the dead body of a
Russian officer, and cut a medal off his coat. He
then pinned the medal on Lady Paget's shawl, paying
her a handsome compliment to the effect that she
deserved a medal as much as any one present.
Most people can remember the fortitude and
courage displayed by the British ladies at Cawnpore,
Lucknow, and other Indian cities during the terrible
Mutiny. Ladies, some of them mere girls, delicately
nurtured, unused to hardships of any kind, endured
without a murmur, the most heartrending privations;
and so far from giving way to useless repinings or
sinking into apathy, they tried in every way to cheer
up their brave defenders. They bore provisions and
ammunition to the soldiers, loaded the rifles, and
more than once took their turn in mounting guard
and firing on the rebels.
The heroine of Cawnpore, Miss Wheeler, was one
of the prisoners captured by the notorious Nana
Sahib on the 26th June, 1857, and all who survived
the terrible Massacre bore witness to her unflinching
courage. She is said to have shot five Sepoys with
a revolver; that she was then taken away by a
sowar (trooper) to his hut, when she snatched his
sabre, cut off his head, and flung herself down a
well. An ayah, belonging to an English family,
stated that it was in the hut, after killing the sowar,
that she shot the five Sepoys.
The romantic conquest of Naples and Sicily, by
General Garibaldi in 1860, has already melted into
the past and become an almost distant event in
European history. It was said at the time that if
Francis II. had possessed a particle of the military
courage of his Queen, it would have been easy for
him with his trained battalions to have captured or
dispersed the handful of Garibaldian volunteers.
When Bombino had taken refuge in Gaeta, the
great stronghold of Southern Italy, he fancied himself
secure from the attacks of the foe; but the
Sardinian troops were soon battering the walls with
long-range guns, and all the appliances necessary for
a modern siege.
Amongst the besieged, Queen Marie Sophie
Amelie was the only leader who encouraged the
soldiers to make a brave defence. Standing on the
ramparts of Gaeta, she incited the Neapolitan troops
to shed the last drop of their blood for the Bourbon
cause. Doubtless there was much exaggeration in
those marvellous anecdotes published in the newspapers
of the time relating deeds of Amazonian
valour performed by the Queen; but it is certain that
she acted the part of King, while her cowardly
husband hid away in the darkness and security of
bomb-proof galleries. In December, 1860, and
January, 1861, it was remarked by the troops of
Cialdini that every morning, at a particular hour,
the fire of the Neapolitan batteries slackened for a
short time; re-commencing, however, with renewed
vigour. They soon learned that the Queen, dressed
in Calabrian costume, visited a particular battery
(named after herself the "Queen's Battery") every
morning, sometimes on horseback, but generally in
a coach; and would assist in the firing of the heavy
guns. The artillerymen were ready to sacrifice their
lives in the service of their beautiful and courageous
Queen, while they heartily despised the contemptible
Francis.
The chief heroine of the last Polish insurrection
(1862-3-4) was Madlle. Pustowjtoff, or, as some have
written it, Pustovoydova, aide-de-camp and Adjutant
to General Langievicz, the Dictator. When the
ill-starred rebellion was at its height, cartes-de-visite
of the heroine, in the costume of a Polish
officer, were displayed in the shop-windows of
the great European and American cities, side by
side with all the public celebrities of the day. She
was decidedly pretty, though rather childish looking:
her features were good, and she had a profusion of
fair hair.
Though her family and her proclivities were
essentially Polish, Madlle Pustowjtoff was not a
native of the country, but was born in Russia of a
Polish mother. When the insurrection broke out,
she escaped from a convent where she had been
placed (probably by her parents) and joined
Langievicz, who almost immediately appointed her
to be one of his aides. She was present in numberless
battles and skirmishes between the Russians
and Poles; and finally accompanied Langievicz in
his precipitate—some say cowardly—flight into
Galicia, where, being arrested by the Austrian
authorities, the fugitives were imprisoned. Madlle.
Pustowjtoff was afterwards released on parole,
though she was requested not to quit Galicia. In
November, 1863, she exchanged the profession of
arms for the occupation of companion to a lady in
that country; but after the release of Langievicz
and his followers by the Austrian Government in the
summer of 1865, she resigned this employment, and
travelled westwards.
There was many another Polish heroine as brave
though not so famous as the female Adjutant.
When national liberty is at stake, there will
always be found women as well as men ready
to arm in its defence; and the women of Poland
have ever been remarked for more than ordinary
patriotism. A writer in Fraser's Magazine for
December, 1863, speaking of the part taken by the
Polish women in the struggles with Russia, relates
the following anecdotes of female courage:—
"The following incident of the active heroism of
the Polish women, was told me by an officer
who had commanded a detachment of cavalry in
Lithuania in the early days of the insurrection:—
"One day about twenty of his Cossacks surrounded
the house of a lady, living in a retired part of the
country, whose daughter was the betrothed of one of
the chiefs of bands known to be in the neighbourhood.
At that very moment he and several other
leaders were in the house, consulting with the two
ladies over their plans. Alarmed by the arrival of
the Cossacks, the men hastened to escape from the
back windows, and fled to the woods; the two
women actually protecting their retreat by keeping
up a fire from their pistols from the front. When
the Cossacks at last forced their way into the house,
they found only the two women, whom they do not
seem to have molested, but contented themselves,
after their manner, with filling their pockets with all
the portable valuables within reach. On retiring,
they pitched their horses a short distance off, yet in
sight of the house. Presently the young girl was
seen to come out, and proceed to the stables, from
which she soon again came forth, mounted, when
she set off in the direction her lover had taken.
One of the Cossacks, having a sorry beast of his
own, and admiring that which the girl rode, galloped
after her, took hold of her bridle, and, as good-humouredly
as his rough nature allowed, proposed an
exchange, observing that as she was going to join
the band, she had no need of such a good horse. The
reply was a bullet from her revolver which sent
the Cossack reeling from his saddle. Meanwhile
his companions, who had followed him, had come up,
and seeing the fate of their comrade, surrounded
her. The intrepid girl then snapped her pistol at
one after the other, and when all the chambers of
this one were discharged, flung the empty weapon at
the head of the nearest, knocking him from his
horse, and immediately drew forth a second. This
was too much for the politeness of the Cossacks, of
whom three or four were already on the ground;
they lifted the poor girl completely off her horse on
the points of their lances, and so she perished.
"As a further example," continues this writer, "I
will translate an extract from a private letter lately
received from an officer serving in the kingdom of
Poland:—'Yesterday,' says the officer who wrote it,
'we defeated a band and took nineteen prisoners,
one of whom was a woman. There were altogether
seven of them belonging to that band, but we do not
as yet know if the others were killed or escaped.
All the women, our prisoner tells us, were dressed as
chasseurs, wearing the same uniform of coarse cloth
as the men, only without the red epaulette. Their
caps, such as are worn by all the Confederates, were
coquettishly made, and decorated with a white
ostrich feather. We captured her by the merest
chance. She was a girl from Cracow, finely built,
with broad shoulders, and muscular hand and arm,
which showed she had been used to gymnastic exercises,
while her weather-beaten complexion proved
she must have belonged to the band for some length
of time. Her features, without being pretty, were
regular and agreeable. On our asking her reasons
for serving with the band, she confessed she had
followed her lover to the woods, adding that, when
he was killed, she would have gone back home, but
was prevented by her comrades. Somebody asking
if she had not served as aide-de-camp to C—(the
chief of another band), she blushed deeply, and indignantly
denied the imputation. After this reply,
she was very haughty and retired for a time; but,
seeing that we were all respectful to her, she
gradually became more at home with us and confiding
in her conversation. As she had lost her boots,
and was bare-footed, we furnished her with a pair
of our long boots and some stockings, for which the
poor girl was very thankful. The next day she was
released and sent home, her male companions being
forwarded on to Warsaw.'"
During the war between France and Mexico,
several women and girls were discovered fighting
in the ranks of Juarez. One of them, a young
Indian, aged twenty-two, enlisted with her husband,
in the regiment of Zacatécas. She fought so bravely
as to speedily gain her epaulettes. Her husband was
slain; but the widow remained in the regiment, where
her daring courage soon not only procured the
esteem of her superior officers, but caused the Mexican
generals to promote her to the rank of lieutenant-colonel,
May 5th, 1862. When the French captured
Puebla, in the summer of 1863, she was made
prisoner, and sent to Vera Cruz; whence she embarked
in the "Rhône" steam transport for France.
During the voyage, though a prisoner, she was
treated with all the respect due to a superior officer.
She arrived in France in August, 1863, and was
seen by many persons, who described the female
colonel as rather good-looking, but somewhat unfeminine
in outward carriage and bearing.
If we may believe Transatlantic newspapers, the
Civil War in America was more productive of female
warriors than almost any conflict since the days of
the Amazons. The ranks of both Federals and Confederates,
from the very commencement of the great
struggle, were swelled by numbers of women, who,
for various reasons, chose to risk their lives under
the Stars and Stripes, or the Stars and Bars. In
the summer of 1864, it was said that upwards of
one hundred and fifty women were known to be
serving in the Army of the Potomac. It was generally
supposed that these women had been in collusion
with an equal number of men who had been
examined by the surgeons; after which the fair ones
substituted themselves, and went to the seat of war.
More than seventy of the valiant demoiselles were,
when their sex became known, acting as officers'
servants.
Early in May, 1863, a Pennsylvania girl was discovered
serving in one of the regiments in the
Federal Army of the West, to which she had belonged
for ten months. She said that there were many females
in the ranks of this army, and one female lieutenant.
She had herself, she declared, assisted in
burying three female soldiers whose sex was unknown
to any but her.
Mrs. Francis L. Clayton, another female Federal,
enlisted in 1861, in company with her husband at St.
Paul, Minnesota. The husband and wife fought
together, side by side, in eighteen battles, till the
former was slain in the engagement of Stone River.
After his death, the wife did not care to remain any
longer in the service, so she went to the general, and
told him she was a woman, and was at once discharged.
She then returned to Maine. During her
military career, Mrs. Clayton was wounded three
times, and once was made prisoner.
The following story, "strange if true," appeared
in the Brooklyn (New York) Times, in October, 1863,
just after the battle of Chattanooga:—
"About a twelvemonth since, when disaster everywhere
overtook the Union arms, and our gallant
sons were falling fast under the marvellous sword of
rebellion, a young lady, scarce nineteen, from an
academy in a sister State, conceived the idea that
she was destined by Providence to lead our armies
to victory, and our nation through successful war.
It was at first thought by her parents—a highly
respectable family in Willoughby-street—that her
mind was weakened simply by reading continual
accounts of reverses to our arms, and they treated
her as a sick child. This only had the effect of
making her more demonstrative, and her enthusiastic
declaration and apparent sincerity gave the family
great anxiety. Dr. B. was consulted, the minister
was spoken to, friends advised, family meetings held,
interviews with the young lady and her former companions
in the academy were frequent, but nothing
could shake the feeling which possessed her. It was
finally resolved to take her to Michigan. An old
maiden aunt accompanied the fair enthusiast, and
for weeks Anne Arbour became their home. But
travel had no effect upon the girl. The stern command
of her aunt alone prevented her from making
her way to Washington to solicit an interview with
the President for the purpose of getting command of
the United States Army. Finally it was found
necessary to restrain her from seeing any one but her
own family, and her private parlour became her
prison. To a high-spirited girl that would be unendurable
at any time, but to a young lady filled with
such an hallucination it was worse than death. She
resolved to elude her friends, and succeeded,—leaving
them clandestinely,—and, although the most distinguished
detectives of the east and west were employed
to find her whereabouts, it was unavailing.
None could conjecture her hiding-place. This was
last April. She was mourned as lost, the habiliments
of mourning were assumed by her grief-stricken
parents, and a suicide's grave was assumed to be
hers. But it was not so. The infatuated girl,
finding no sympathy among her friends, resolved to
enter the army, disguised as a drummer boy, dreaming,
poor girl, that her destiny would be worked out
by such a mode. She joined the drum-corps of a
Michigan regiment at Detroit, her sex known only
to herself, and succeeded in getting with her regiment
to the Army of the Cumberland. How the
poor girl survived the hardships of the Kentucky
campaign, when strong men fell in numbers, must
for ever remain a mystery. The regiment to which
she was attached had a place in the division of the
gallant Van Cleve, and, during the bloody battle of
last Sunday, the fair girl fell, pierced in the left side
with a Minié ball, and, when borne to the surgeon's
tent, her sex was discovered. She was told by the
surgeon that her wound was mortal, and advised to
give her name, that her family might be informed of
her fate. This she finally, though reluctantly, consented
to do, and the colonel of the regiment, suffering
himself from a painful wound, became interested
in her behalf, and prevailed upon her to let him send
a despatch to her father. Here, then, is a short incident
of the war, which might read like romance,
but to the unhappy family which are now bowed
down by grief, romance loses its attraction, and the
actual sad, eventful history of poor Emily —— will
be a family record for generations to come."
In December, 1863, the correspondent of the
Cincinnati Times, describing a skirmish between the
Federals and a detachment of General Bragg's
army at Ringgold, near Chattanooga, says "Several
of the fair sex were in the Confederate ranks, and
certainly conducted themselves with a great deal of
courage. We make no reflection on their taste in
entering the ranks with negroes and greasy grey-backs.
Rebellion now needs every aid on the earth
above or in the caverns under it."
At Timonsville, S.C., is the grave of Mrs. Florence
Bodwin, of Philadelphia, Pa. She was a member of
a Federal regiment, and as such, being dressed as a
soldier, her sex was not discovered until after her
death.
The following anecdote went the round of the
papers in October, 1865, though the event chronicled
must have taken place some time previously, doubtless
before the close of the war:—
"At Theresina, a mulatto girl, nineteen years old,
cut her hair, bandaged her bosom, and dressed as a
man, went to the President to offer herself as a
volunteer. The President detected her sex, and
supposed at first that she was mad, or had taken
this plan to accompany a lover; but finding that
she was really actuated by patriotism, he accepted
her, and appointed her second sergeant, and she
does all the duties of her post, dressed in the
proper uniform."
The Maori War in New Zealand, like the conflicts
between the Red Skins and the Pale Faces in
North America, gave many opportunities for the
wives and daughters of settlers to play the heroine.
Some of the native women, too, displayed great
prowess, both for and against the English. A
correspondent of the Irish Times, writing from
Wanganui, under date of the 7th January, 1866, in
describing the native contingent (a force recruited
from the Wanganui River Tribes) to which he was
Assistant Surgeon, says "Numbers of women accompany
us, who generally carry the baggage of
the men. This is not their only use in campaigning.
They fight, and fight well, carrying their gun and
tomahawk."
During the Austro-Italian war of 1866, a Florence
journal related that, after the battle of Custozza
(June 27th), a surgeon of the Italian army discovered
among the wounded a young corporal of Bersaglieri
still alive, notwithstanding three severe injuries in
the neck, left arm, and right leg. When about to
dress those wounds the surgeon perceived that the
sufferer was a young woman, who then declared her
name to be Herminia Manelli, and her age twenty.
Just before the opening of the campaign her brother,
who was a corporal of Bersaglieri, had fallen ill,
and returned home to his family until his recovery.
The sister, whose parents had previously had some
difficulty in preventing from joining the Garibaldians,
took advantage of that circumstance, and, cutting
short her hair, dressed herself in her brother's
uniform, and joined his regiment, her resemblance
to him enabling her to pass unnoticed. Four hours
later her regiment was engaged, and she was
wounded on the field of battle. After the discovery
of her sex by the surgeon she was taken to Florence,
where she died a few days later.
In the summer of 1868, there was a great deal of
talk about an army of women which had just been
raised by the savage Lopez, Dictator of Paraguay.
A correspondent writing from Buenos Ayres under
date May 14th, says:—
"An army of women confronts the allies! Lopez
has enrolled the Amazons of Paraguay, and we have
entered upon what may be called for the sake of
distinction—the petticoat campaign? Brigadier-General
Eliza Lynch commands the main body of
the female army, which is encamped midway between
the pass of the river and a small inland town. On
the road to Villa Rica her right wing, under Mrs.
Captain Herrero, has deployed to the left a little, to
hang on the allies should they assail the position of
Tebiquary, held by Mrs. Lieutenant Colonel Margaret
Fereira and her fair brigade of womankind.
Can 'stern-visaged Mars' prove unpropitious?...
According to authentic accounts, relays of women
and girls are constantly at the head-quarters of the
feminine commander-in-chief to whom has been
entrusted the guerilla portion of the campaign."
The Brazilian journals were of course indignant
at what they termed an outrage on civilization, and
alternately sneered and railed at Lopez's petticoat
corps d'armée. Very little was afterwards heard of
these Amazons. Since their first formation, with
the exception of a few stray anecdotes related by
travellers and adventurers returning to the States or
to this country, absolutely nothing transpired concerning
the movements of this female army.
Again we meet with female warriors in the struggle
between Crete and Turkey. "Whether they have
been effectual defenders of their country," says a
writer in a newspaper eleven years ago, "or whether
their enthusiasm decreased before the stern necessity
of a camp, is hardly known, for very little intelligence
comes from the mountains of Crete." However,
in January, 1869, a body of about fifty Cretan
Amazons, in uniform, was seen at Michali, practising
shooting with carbines at a mark. They were,
it is said, very good shots, and had been organised
into a regular corps, with a regimental flag,
which was carried by a religieuse who had turned
Amazon.
The Philo-Cretan Committee recognised the
patriotism of these Lakkoite damsels, by providing
them with arms (consisting of a rifle of the English
pattern with a sword-bayonet) and handsome uniforms
similar to those worn by the Palikares. This
costume included the fez, a corset embroidered in
gold and silver, a short, piquant half-sleeved jacket,
a white petticoat and "continuations," and the
most charmingly neat buckskin gaiters. A cartridge-box
hung to the belt, while a havresack depended
from the shoulders. Picturesque sketches of these
heroines, in uniform, appeared in the French and
English journals of January, '69.
But while a few of the Cretan women have proved
themselves heroines, bravery has been the character
of those of Montenegro for more than half a century.
War against the Mussulman is the object, the engrossing
passion of nearly every Montenegrin—men,
women, and children, cripples even, rush to the
fight with enthusiasm. In truth, the Turkish
Government has never been able thoroughly to
subdue the Black Mountain. Women accompany
their male relatives in all their expeditions against
the infidels, wives are ever ready to seize up the
yataghan and pistols of a slain husband, and avenge
his death. Various heroic ballads have been sung
or recited from time to time in the fastnesses of the
Tsernogora relating the martial deeds of some
valiant widow who has slain Turkish Agas, captured
or dispersed, single-handed, whole companies
of the foe, or in other ways distinguished their
military courage and their hatred of the Moslem.
A singular incident is alleged to have taken place
some nine years since on the occasion of a marriage
before the chief authorities in Algeria. The official
required the consent of the bride's mother, and asked
if she was present. A sonorous bass voice answered
"Yes." The Mayor looked up and saw a tall soldier
before him. "That is well," said he. "Let the
mother come here. Her consent and signature are
necessary." To the astonishment of all present,
the soldier approached the Mayor with long strides,
saluted military fashion, and said—"You ask for
the mother of the bride. She stands before you."
"Very well, sir," replied the Mayor. "Then stand
back. I can take no proxy. I must see the mother—the
mother, I tell you." "And I repeat that she
stands before you," rejoined the soldier. "My
name is Maria L——. I have been thirty-six years in
the service. I have been through several campaigns,
and obtained the rank of sergeant. Here are my
papers—the permission to wear uniform, and my
nomination as sergeant-major." The mayor carefully
examined the documents, and found them
perfectly correct. There was nothing to be done
but to complete the marriage of the young couple.
The mother bestowed her blessing fervently with
her deep bass voice in a manner which impressed
all present, but the company were "more startled
than touched."
The Brigand chiefs of Southern Italy are the last
representatives of the Condottieri who ravaged the
land in olden times. But so far from improving
with the march of intellect and growing more
civilized, the bandits of our days would seem to have
very decidedly retrograded as regards the more polite
arts of life; indeed, they are nothing but savage
beasts, who can handle the carbine or the dagger,
and have the passions of avarice and the thirst for
gold added to the reckless cruelty of the tiger. These
ferocious brigands are almost invariably accompanied
in their adventurous journey through life by
some beautiful fiend, either the wife or the mistress
of the redoubtable chief. These women are often
the most abandoned and worthless of their sex,
without even the virtue of mercy—the tigress is not
uncommonly worse than the tiger.
Amongst those brigand captains who, though
almost unknown in Western Europe, have earned a
terrible renown in the South of Italy, none was more
feared and respected some seventeen or eighteen
years ago than Monaco. His deeds of violence and
daring audacity rendered him famous throughout the
Neapolitan provinces. His wife, Maria Oliveiro, a
remarkably handsome woman (about twenty years
old in 1864), was his constant companion in all his
marauding expeditions. She was unmistakably
brave, but her nature was so ruthless that the sight
of blood rendered her half mad. Monaco was at
last slain in a desperate encounter with the Italian
troops near Rossano. Maria was severely wounded;
but without losing her courage or presence of mind,
she planted one knee firmly on her husband's
corpse, and continued to load and fire with extreme
rapidity, exciting the admiration even of her
opponents. At last she received a severe wound in
the leg, and was made prisoner. She was tried by
court-martial at Cattanzaro, and condemned to be
shot; but this sentence was commuted to thirty
years' penal servitude, and she had not been very
long in gaol before the gaoler fell desperately in love
with her, and they fled together. At a short distance
from Cattanzaro they were met by her brothers,
also brigands. They immediately slew the gaoler,
who was of no further use, and Maria formed a new
band of brigands, of which she was made captain,
and commenced ravaging the tract of mountainous
country lying between Cattanzaro and the river
Crati. The reckless, useless acts of cruelty excited
the indignation of the people for miles round. She
sacked the villages of Spinelli, Cotzenei, and Belvedere;
and in spite of the exertions made by the Italian
Government of the province, who, in the autumn of
1864, despatched two battalions of the line in
pursuit of the band, the rural population were in
such dread of Maria that the soldiers could do
nothing.
Another locally famous brigand, Crouo Donatello,
was accompanied in his campaigns by his inamorata,
who was as brave as he. In an encounter with the
royal troops in August or September, 1863,
Donatello, compelled to fly, left behind him this
woman, who fought desperately before letting herself
be taken.
In 1866, in a skirmish between the Papal troops
and the brigands in the neighbourhood of the
Eternal City, two of the latter were slain. One of
the corpses proved to be that of a large, good-looking
peasant woman, about thirty years of age, armed
and dressed like her comrades. She was subsequently
recognised as the wife of the bandit chief
Cedrone; and the latter was inconsolable for the
loss of his brave spouse, being seen for days and
days to weep bitterly, though his followers surrounded
him, proffering empty consolations.
The famous Brigand Pietro Bianchi, some eighteen
or nineteen years since the terror of the district of
Nicastro, in the Calabrian mountains, was accompanied
in nearly every expedition by a girl named
Generosa Cardamone (aged about seventeen in 1861,
the chief himself being then twenty), who might
frequently be seen on horseback at the head
of the band, encouraging them in the fight. In
point of ferocity and ruthless courage she was
worthy of her lover—nay, she far surpassed him,
and is said to have repeatedly cooked human flesh,
and served it up to him and his followers. Bianchi
loved the young and beautiful demon most passionately,
and was madly jealous of her. One day a
bandit kissed her, but his audacity was instantly
punished by a score of dagger-stabs dealt by the
unerring hand of his chief. Generosa was deeply
religious after a fashion, and marvellously superstitious;
when she was arrested, in 1867, a religious
book and a Madonna were found upon her, which
she carried, through a blind idea that they rendered
her invulnerable.
In March, 1867, a lieutenant of gendarmes discovered
the cave of Bianchi at Soveria, and with his
own men, aided by a detachment of the line, forced
the brigand and his mistress to surrender, after they
had been the terror of the country for seven
years.
De Martino, for some time the worst and most
ferocious bandit in the Abruzzi, was likewise accompanied
by his paramour, who had the character of
being more cruel than he was himself. For months
the Royal troops were engaged constantly hunting
them up and down the woods. At last, in August,
1869, they discovered and surrounded the lurking
place of De Martino. The brigand, firing upon the
carabineers, by mishap set the dry twigs of the
hut in a blaze, and was burnt alive, together with
the partner of his crimes.
Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, on the
occasion of the 25th anniversary of his accession,
February, 1869, founded an Order of Decoration to
recompense courage in women.
The Franco-Prussian War, and the subsequent
Communist Insurrection, proved that the military
spirit was not extinct in the hearts of women, and
that modern female warriors were as ready and as
eager for the fray as any of their ancestresses. But
the numerous newspaper anecdotes and reports were
in many instances more or less creations of fancy,
often false, frequently written in haste, as a rule full
of gross exaggerations, whether emanating from
French or German quarters, consequently always
unreliable. One of the most remarkable and best
authenticated female warriors of the period was
Minna Hänsel, of Berlin, who, in the early days of
the war, before the Germans had swept all before
them, raised an Amazon corps, all ready equipped
and full of military ardour. These warlike women
were much ridiculed by the Berlinese, but the
Fräulein Hänsel, disregarding the adverse criticism
which, she said, was "of course only to be expected
in these frivolous days of ours," addressed a letter
to the Governor of the city, General Von Falkenstein,
asking him in what place the services of the corps
would prove most effective. The General—purposely,
perhaps—delayed returning an answer till the closing
days of August, 1870, when Miss Hänsel, although
her offers of service had by no means been rejected,
considered that the "rapid and victorious progress of
the war" put an end to any necessity for her corps
being employed, and accordingly disbanded her
troop.
A wounded soldier in November, 1870, passed
through Berlin, and was the object of general attention.
This soldier was a young woman only
twenty-four, carefully educated, but imbued with a
strong bias in favour of masculine dress and an
active life. She passed the ensign's examinations,
and, with good recommendations, entered the
army under the name of Weiss. She distinguished
herself by the recovery of a Prussian
standard, which had been taken by the enemy, and
was presented with the Iron Cross. Having received
four shot wounds, she was sent for recovery to her
native place, Tilsit.
But the hurried, fragmentary mention of either
French or German "heroines" is hardly worth
serious record or investigation. To ascertain the
truth or the falsity of any one anecdote would be
now clearly impossible. That noble spirit and
patriotic ardour glowed on both sides throughout the
desperate struggle is without a doubt; and in the
universal enthusiasm women shared as freely as their
fellow-countrymen, and were ready to spend life and
treasure in the service of their native land and
national honour.
IV.
India.—Indian Amazons—Cleophes, Queen of Massaga—Moynawoti,
Queen of Kamrup—Ranee of Scinde—Sultana
Rizia—Gool Behisht—Booboojee Khanum and Dilshad Agha,
Mother and Aunt of a King of Bijapur—Durgautti, Queen of
Gurrah—Khunza Sultana, Regent of Ahmednuggur—Chand
Sultana, Regent of Ahmednuggur—Nour Mahal, Empress of
Hindostan—Princess Janee Begum—Juliana—Madam
Mequinez, Colonel in the Service of Hyder Ali Khan—Begum
Somroo, General in the Service of the Emperor Shah Aulum—Begum
Nujuf Cooli—Mrs. W., Wife of a British Sergeant—Lukshmi
Baee, Ranee of Jhansi—Female Mutineer captured
before Delhi, 1857—Female Guards in the Zenanas of Indian
Princes—Begum of Oude—Female Soldiers in Bantam.
The early history of India is involved in such
deep obscurity that we have no reliable
information before the invasion of Alexander
the great. True, we read of a nation
of Indian Amazons, mentioned by Nonnus, but we
have no details on the subject. Amongst the sovereigns
who opposed the invincible Macedonian, was
Cleophes, Queen of Massaga, whose capital city was
said to have been impregnable. While reconnoitring
the fortress, Alexander was wounded in the leg. But
without waiting for the wound to heal, he commenced
battering the walls with various military
engines of the most redoubtable aspect; which
so terrified the Queen, who had never even
heard of anything like them, that she speedily tendered
her submission. Alexander, who merely conquered
cities for the sake of glory, permitted her to
retain all her dominions in peace.
In Martin's "History of Eastern India" we read
of a warrior-queen named Moynawoti. She was
married to Manikechandro, brother of Dhormo Pal,
a King of Kamrup, and on the death of her husband,
she made war on the king, who was defeated and
slain on the banks of the Tista. Gopichondro, son
of Moynawoti, succeeded his uncle on the throne,
but he left the management of state affairs to his
mother, and gave himself up to a life of pleasure.
When he grew up, however, the young king wished
to take an active share in the government, but his
mother persuaded him to dedicate his life to religion,
and he ever after practised the utmost humility and
self-denial.
It was during the caliphate of Walid that the
Mahommedans made their first conquests beyond
the Indus. About the year 711 A.D., an Arab ship
having been seized at Dival, or Dewal, a port
connected with Scinde, Hejaj, the Moslem governor
of Bosra, demanded its restitution. Daher, Rajah of
Scinde, refused; and this led to the invasion of India
by six thousand followers of Islam. Daher marched
at the head of fifty thousand men to oppose the
invaders, but in the battle which ensued he was
slain, and his troops routed with terrible slaughter.
Daher's widow, with a courage worthy her
deceased lord, raised fifteen thousand men, and
offered battle to the conquerors. They declined the
challenge, and she retired within the walls of Adjur.
The Moslems closely invested the city; and the
garrison, reduced to the last extremities, sacrificed
their wives and children on the burning pile formed
by their gold and treasures, and, headed by the royal
widow, attacked the besiegers in their own camp.
They all fell, fighting gallantly to the last.
On the death of Altumsh, Emperor of Hindostan,
in 1235, he was succeeded by his son, Prince Feroze.
The latter was an effeminate, luxurious monarch,
who thought of nothing but spending on dancing-women,
comedians, and musicians, the treasures
accumulated by his father, and he left the affairs of
state to be ruled by his mother. Her cruelty, and
the indifference of Feroze, caused several of the omrahs
to revolt. The emperor marched against them with
a vast army; but he was deserted by his vizier, a
great portion of his army, and seven of his principal
nobles. The latter returned to Delhi, and placed
Sultana Rizia, the eldest daughter of Altumsh, on
the throne. When this news reached Feroze, he
hastened back to Delhi; but the new Empress
marched out to meet him, and he was delivered into
her hands. He died in confinement some time after.
The Sultana possessed every quality proper for
a ruler; even detractors could find no fault, save
that she was a woman. During her father's lifetime
she had entered heartily into state affairs and
was Regent for a short time during the absence of
Altumsh on an expedition against Gwalior.
Rizia was not long left in undisturbed possession
of the throne. The omrahs who had conspired
against her brother now marched from Lahore, and
encamped before Delhi; but she contrived to sow
dissensions amongst them, and each was compelled
to retreat to his own province. Some of them,
pursued by the Empress, were captured and put to
death. The omrahs finally tendered their submission
and the empire enjoyed peace for a time. But the
promotion of Jammal, who had once been an Abyssinian
slave, to the post of Captain-general of Hindostan,
gave such umbrage to the nobles as to ruin
the cause of Rizia. The viceroy of Lahore threw off his
allegiance in 1239; but the empress, collecting her
forces, marched against him, and the viceroy was compelled
to accept peace on the most humiliating terms.
Scarcely was this revolt quelled, when Altunia,
governor of Tiberhind, raised the standard of rebellion.
Rizia immediately marched against him;
but when she had gone about halfway, all the
Turkish chiefs mutinied. A tumultuous scene
ensued, the Abyssinian general was slain, and the
Empress sent prisoner to Tiberhind. The imperial
troops then returned to Delhi; and set Byram, the
Empress's younger brother, upon the throne.
Rizia married the Governor of Tiberhind, and by
their joint influence they raised a great army, and
marched to Delhi. They were defeated near the
city, by the troops of Byram, and the empress with
difficulty escaped to Tiberhind. Soon, however, she
rallied her scattered forces, and marched once more
towards the capital. But she was again defeated
at Keitel, and, together with her husband, made
prisoner, and barbarously put to death. Thus died
Sultana Rizia, after a brief reign of three years six
months and six days. Indian historians agree that
she was worthy of a better fate.
One day the Emperor Alla-a-Deen Khiljy was
boasting that no rajah throughout Hindustan would
dare to oppose his power. Nehr Dew, Rajah of
Jalwur, "in the plenitude of his folly," exclaimed,
"I will suffer death if I do not raise an army that
shall defeat any attempt of the king's troop to take
the fort of Jalwur."
The Emperor, in a rage, commanded the rajah to
quit Delhi. Hearing, shortly after, that Nehr Dew
was raising forces, he ordered a division of his army
to besiege Jalwur. This was in 1309. To signalize
his contempt for the rajah, he placed the troops under
the command of a slave girl of the palace, named
Gool Behisht, or, "the Rose of Heaven." She
displayed great courage during the siege, and had
almost effected the capture of Jalwur, when she was
seized with a mortal illness. On her death the
command was given to her son, Shaheen. Nehr Dew
made a sortie, defeated the imperial forces, and slew
Shaheen with his own hand. The Emperor, enraged
at this defeat, sent reinforcements to renew the siege;
Jalwur was taken, and Nehr Dew, with his family,
and the whole of the garrison, put to the sword.
In 1510 Ismail Adil Shah ascended the throne of
Bijapur. Being too young to rule the state, the
administration was entrusted to Kumal Khan
Deccany, the most powerful noble in the land. The
latter soon made up his mind to usurp the throne;
and in the following year he found himself in a
position to make the attempt.
He was warned by the astrologers that certain
days in the present month were unfavourable to his
designs; and recommended to avoid approaching
any one of whom he had suspicions. The regent,
acting on their advice, committed the charge of the
citadel to his own adherents, and shut himself up with
his family in a house close by the royal palace.
Booboojee Khanum, the queen-mother, now resolved
by a bold stroke to get rid of the regent.
Affecting uneasiness about his health, she despatched
one of her adherents with secret instructions for the
assassination of Kumal Khan. The plot succeeded,
though the murderer was immediately cut to pieces.
The regent's mother, with great presence of mind,
commanded the attendants to keep silent, and sent
orders to Sufdur Khan, the son of Kumal Khan, to
seize the king at once. Sufdur closed the gates of
the citadel and advanced with a strong force to the
palace. The queen-mother would have submitted,
but for Dilshad Agha, the king's foster-aunt, who
declared that in such a crisis valour was better than
submission. She ordered the palace gates to be
closed, and sent out to the Persians, on duty in the
outer court of the seraglio, entreating them to assist
their king against his enemies. The foreign generals
declared their readiness to defend the young prince.
Dilshad Agha and the queen-mother came out on
the battlements, clad in armour, with bows and
arrows in their hands. They were accompanied by
Ismail Adil Shah, who had the yellow umbrella of
his father held over his head by a Turkish girl
named Murtufa.
Sufdur Khan tried to force open the gates, but was
met with volleys of arrows; the king, his mother
and aunt, and Murtufa using the bow with considerable
effect. The brave little band were reinforced
presently by fifty Deccany matchlock-men;
and several score of foreigners from the city; but
though the besiegers were thus kept in check, their
force was so considerably superior in numbers that
they continued the assault with the utmost fury,
fully confident of ultimate victory.
Dilshad Agha, with a veil thrown over her face,
fought with bow and arrow in the ranks of the
soldiers, encouraging them by exciting speeches and
promises. Sufdur Khan at last made a desperate
attack with five hundred men, bringing cannon to
batter the walls; and the royal adherents fell in
great numbers. Some fled ignominiously, while the
rest, concealing themselves behind the parapet,
remained perfectly still. The enemy, believing
that all the garrison had taken to flight, burst open
the outer gate; but while he was endeavouring to force
the inner door, Dilshad Agha gave orders for her
troops to discharge a volley of shot and arrows,
which committed fearful havoc in the enemy's ranks,
and pierced the eye of Sufdur Khan. The latter ran
under the terrace on which the royalists stood; and
the king, rolling down a heavy stone, crushed his
enemy to death.
The death of Sufdur put an end to the rebellion.
The insurgents, giving themselves up for lost, opened
the gates of the citadel, and fled. By the advice of
Dilshad Agha, the heads of the regent and his son
were displayed through the streets of the city.
During the reign of Akbar the Great, Emperor of
Hindostan, that part of the Deccan which now
comprises Orissa and Bundelcund, was known by
the name of Gurrah, and was governed by a warlike
queen, named Durgautti, equally distinguished
for her beauty, her accomplishments, and the
talented manner in which she conducted the affairs
of her kingdom. She succeeded to the throne on
the death of her husband. The country was about
one hundred and fifty crores in length and about
fifty in breadth; yet so prosperous, that it contained
upwards of seventy thousand towns and villages,
closely populated.
About the year 1564, Asaf Khan Hirvys, an Indian
noble, was raised by the emperor to the rank of an
Omrah of five thousand, and appointed governor of
Kurrah and Mannichpoor. The new Omrah at once
began a series of predatory incursions into Gurrah;
and very soon he invaded the country with an
army of about twelve thousand foot and five or
six hundred horse. Durgautti assembled eight
thousand horse, fifteen hundred elephants, and a
few hundred foot, and advanced to meet the invaders.
Clad in armour, a helmet on her head, a lance
grasped in her right hand, a bow and a quiver lying
by her side, she led her troops to battle, riding in a
howdah on the back of an elephant. Though the
men were totally unaccustomed to war, the love of
liberty and the example of the Queen raised their
courage to such a pitch that, in their eagerness to
fight, they marched too rapidly, and would speedily
have become an undisciplined mob. But Durgautti,
perceiving the cause of their disorder, commanded
a halt; and after re-forming their broken ranks, she
gave them strict orders to march slowly, as compactly
as they could, and not to engage the foe until
they saw the signal displayed from the elephant
of the royal standard.
A sanguinary battle then ensued, in which
Durgautti displayed the greatest courage. After a
long and obstinate conflict, the Mahommedans were
routed, with a loss of eight hundred slain. The
queen pursued the flying enemy till night put an
end to the contest. She then halted, and gave
orders for the soldiers to wash and refresh themselves,
preparatory to a night attack on the camp of Asaf
Khan; but her vizier and the remainder of her
generals refused to aid in a night assault, and
seditiously demanded permission to inter their
fallen comrades. She unwillingly consented; and
when the bodies of the slain had been burned, she
entreated the chiefs, one by one, to assist her in
an assault on the Mogul camp. But all in vain.
Not one would second her in this daring enterprise.
Asaf Khan, seeing what kind of enemy he had to
do with, advanced next morning with the heavy guns,
which, on account of the bad state of the roads, he
had not been able to use in the previous action.
Durgautti posted her men at a narrow pass, and
prepared to meet the enemy once more. Asaf, with
his cannon, soon opened a lane into the open ground
beyond, where the forces of Gurrah were drawn up.
The Rajah Beir Shaw, Durgautti's son, a young
man of great promise, displayed great bravery in a
charge. Twice he repulsed the Moguls; in the
third attack he was severely wounded. He was
falling from his horse when the queen, who was in
the front of the battle, mounted on her elephant,
perceived that her son was expiring, and called to
some of her attendants to carry him to the rear.
Several crowded round him, glad of some excuse to
quit the field. The death of this young man and
the retreat of so many of her soldiers struck
terror into the queen's army. Durgautti was soon
left with only three hundred men on the field; yet
she held her ground, determined to conquer or die.
At last her eye was pierced by an arrow. She tried
to extricate it, but it broke off near the end, leaving
a piece of the steel barb sticking in the wound.
At this moment another arrow pierced her neck.
This she pulled out; but a mist swam before her
eyes, and for a few moments she was seen to rock to
and fro in her howdah.
Adhar, a brave officer of her household, who drove
her elephant, repulsed numbers of the enemy.
Perceiving that the day was irretrievably lost, he
entreated the queen to let him take her from the
field, but Durgautti would not hear of it. She
begged of him to stab her to the heart. He refused,
and Durgautti, suddenly leaning forward, snatched
a dagger from his belt, plunged it into her heart, and
immediately expired.
With her death the triumph of Asaf Khan was
complete. The queen's youngest son, a mere infant,
was trodden to death soon after, at the capture of
Chouraghus, and the whole country submitted to the
Moguls.
About this time, another warlike queen, Khunza
Sultana, was Regent of Ahmednuggur. During the
minority of her son, Murtuza Nizam Shah, she
transacted the affairs of the state, while he was
engaged in amusements suitable to his age. In 1566,
Ally Adil Shah, King of Bijapur, having invaded the
neighbouring state of Bijanuggur, Venkatradry, the
Hindoo chief of that country, applied for assistance
to Khunza Sultana. She marched at the head of a
large force against Bijapur, and obliged the king to
return and defend his own dominions. However,
peace was soon re-established between the two Mohammedan
states, and a league formed against the
Peishwah of Berar. The united forces of Ahmednuggur
and Bijapur entered that country, plundered
it, and marched home again, laden with booty. On the
homeward march, Ally Adil Shah treacherously endeavoured
to seize the young King of Ahmednuggur.
But Khunza Sultana, learning his designs, decamped
during the night, and a river, which intervened,
having swelled, the two armies were effectually
separated before morning.
The sultana, however, gave great umbrage to the
nobles by providing for her own relations at the expense
of more deserving men. In 1567, several rajahs
formed a conspiracy against her, and induced the
young king to join them. But the latter, afraid of
his mother's ire, betrayed the plot to her, and the
ringleaders were all seized.
In 1569, the dowager queen, with her son, marched
against Kishwur Khan, the Bijapur general, who
had invaded the state of Ahmednuggur. When they
reached D'hamungam, Murtuza Nizam Shah
resolved to free himself from his mother's trammels,
gained over the principal nobles, and sent one of
them to inform her that it was his royal will she
should no longer meddle in public affairs. Furious
at this unlooked-for audacity, Khunza assembled
her attendants, threw a veil over her face, and rode
out of the palace on horseback, armed with a sword
and dagger. She was seized after a short struggle,
and her people took to flight. Thenceforth, Khunza
Sultana lived in retirement, never again interfering
in public matters.
In 1594 died Burhan Nizam Shah, King of Ahmednuggur.
His son, Ibrahim Nizam Shah, who succeeded
him, was slain in battle, and the vizier,
Meean Munjoo, raised to the throne a boy named
Ahmed, said to belong to the royal family. The
nobles refused to acknowledge the new king, and besieged
the vizier in the capital. Unable to contend
with them, the vizier solicited aid from the Moguls,
promising to put the fort of Ahmednuggur into their
hands.
The Moguls had long sought an excuse to interfere
in the affairs of Ahmednuggur; so Murad Mirza,
son of the Emperor Akbar, marched thither with
great expedition, being joined on his road by several
rajahs and generals with their troops. But Meean
Munjoo, having suppressed the rebellion, in place of
surrendering the fort, resolved to defend it in case
he was called upon by the Moguls to fulfil his
promise. After laying in a store of provisions, he
gave the command to the Princess Chand Beeby,
daughter of a former King of Ahmednuggur, and
departed with the young Prince Ahmed towards the
Bijapur frontier.
Chand Beeby was one of the ablest Indian
politicians of her time. She had been for some years
queen and dowager-regent of Bijapur. She now
took the entire direction of affairs into her own
hands; in a few days she had raised her own nephew,
Bahadur Nizam Shah, to the throne, though he was
at this time a prisoner in a distant fortress, and
seemed likely to stay there.
The Moguls, seeing that it was useless to conceal
their hostile intentions, prepared openly to besiege
Ahmednuggur. On the 14th December, 1595, the
first shots were exchanged. The siege was pressed
with the utmost vigour. Mounds were raised,
trenches opened, battery after battery erected,
mines sunk; and on the morning of February 17th,
1596, eighty feet of wall were blown down by the
explosion of a mine. Chand Beeby, though many of
her principal officers had taken to flight, was not
dismayed. She put on armour, covered her face with
a veil, and, grasping a drawn sword in her hand,
rushed to defend the breach. This intrepidity
shamed the fugitives, and re-animated the panic-stricken
soldiers. Recovering from their first terror,
the soldiers calmly awaited the approach of the Mogul
storming-party. An obstinate conflict ensued at the
foot of the breach. Again and again did the Moguls
press onward—again and again they were driven
back by a galling fire of shot and rockets. The ditch
was soon more than half filled with dead and dying
warriors. Although fresh storming parties succeeded
one another from four o'clock in the afternoon till
dark, they were all repulsed with fearful slaughter.
At last the Moguls withdrew, discomfited, to their
camp.
Deccan traditions say that, during the storm, the
shot of the garrison having become exhausted, Chand
Beeby ordered the guns to be loaded, first with copper
coins, then with silver, and at length with gold;
and all the coins being likewise used up, she fired
away her jewels.
The valour of Chand Beeby formed the chief subject
of conversation round the camp-fires and in the
tents of the Moguls; and, after this memorable day,
her title of Chand Beeby, "the Lady Chand," was
changed by common consent to the grander one of
Chand Sultana.
The want of provisions, and the approach of seventy
thousand men from Bijapur, compelled the Moguls
to retreat a few days after the storm. Bahadur
Shah was now brought from the fort of Chawund,
where he had been held prisoner, and was placed on
the throne. But the ambition and duplicity of the
Ahmednuggur nobles brought about a second siege
in 1599. Chand Sultana, afraid to trust any of
them, applied to Humeed Khan, an officer of high
rank, who recommended her to defend the place to
the last extremity; but Chand declared that so many
chiefs had acted treacherously, it was plain no
reliance could be placed on them, and she proposed
that they should negotiate with the besiegers.
Humeed Khan rushed into the streets, crying out
that Chand Sultana was treating with the Moguls to
surrender the fort. The ungrateful and short-sighted
mob, believing him, and forgetting the
former services of the heroine, rushed to the private
apartments of Chand Sultana, and murdered her in
their fury.
It is satisfactory to know that the ungrateful
people got the reward they so richly merited. For, a
few days after the death of Chand, the Moguls
captured the fort, giving little or no quarter.
Mher-Ul-Nissa, or Nour Mahal, the "Light of the
Harem," sometimes styled Nour Jehan, the "Light
of the World," was the favourite Sultana of
Jehanghire, the "World-subduing Emperor" of
Hindostan. A romantic story is told of her strange
birth, her desertion by her parents, and how, like
Moses, she was entrusted to the care of her own
mother by her kind preserver, and how, by the
benevolence of the latter, the family rose from
poverty and obscurity to the government of the
greatest empire in Asia. The beauty of Nour Mahal
was famous throughout the East; Moore, in his
"Feast of Roses," has painted her portrait most exquisitely.
Her personal charms were rivalled by her
mental powers; and her political talents were speedily
seen by the numerous reforms and improvements
effected throughout the empire.
Nour Mahal was a widow when, in 1611, she became
the bride of Jehanghire, and it is said that she
took for her second husband the murderer of her
first. Her influence over the Emperor soon became
paramount. They had many tastes in common,
amongst others the passion for hunting; Nour
Mahal was as fond of the chase as Zenobia. In
company with Jehanghire she would slay tigers
and other savage beasts of the jungle, charming
her lord by the adroitness with which she handled
the bow or the more unwieldy matchlock.
It was strange that a haughty, overbearing,
courageous woman like Nour Mahal should never
have taken command of an army. We read of only
one battle in which she was personally engaged.
Her policy was to choose able generals to conduct
all her wars. However, one of these chieftains was
near causing her ruin. This was Mohabat Khan,
the most talented Indian warrior of his time. She
had the folly to quarrel with this man, and he,
seeing that his ruin was determined upon, took the
initiative, and seized the emperor in his own camp.
He soon saw that it would have been wiser to
arrest the empress; but on returning to remedy
this fault, he found she had fled to the camp of her
brother, on the other bank of the river—the
Chenab.
Next morning the empress led a party across the
river to rescue Jehanghire. She was armed with a
bow and two quivers of arrows, and sat in a howdah
on the back of an elephant. In fording the stream,
hundreds were swept away by the force of the current.
Those who escaped drowning were weighed
down by their armour and their wet clothes, and had
their powder spoilt. In this disastrous condition
they were obliged to fight hand to hand with the
rebels before a landing could be effected. Nour
Mahal, with her brother and a handful of the bravest
chiefs, was amongst the first who reached the shore;
but this little band could make no impression on the
ranks of Mohabat Khan, whose soldiers poured
volley after volley, shot, arrows, and rockets, upon
the men struggling in the water. The ford was soon
choked up with men, horses, and elephants, dead or
dying.
The contest raged fiercest round the elephant of
Nour Mahal, who never quailed before the infuriated
rebels who sought her life. Her gallant defenders
fell one after another, fighting manfully to the last;
but she herself appeared to bear a charmed life
amidst the perfect hail of bullets and winged shafts,
though her infant granddaughter, who sat close
beside her, was wounded, the driver of her elephant
was shot, and the beast himself received a cut
across the trunk. Half-maddened with pain, the
animal plunged into the river, and was carried away
by the stream. When at length the elephant
struggled up the bank, Nour Mahal was discovered
calmly extracting an arrow from the wound of her
grandchild, as cool and collected as though she had
been a spectator at a review in place of the leading
actor in a fierce encounter. The howdah was
saturated with blood.
The failure of this rash, though gallant attempt,
proved that Mohabat was too strong to be subdued
by open force; Nour Mahal therefore resolved to lull
his suspicions, and trust to chance for some expedient
to crush him. Next day she went to his
camp and surrendered herself a prisoner. For a
time Mohabat Khan ruled paramount throughout
the empire; but in a few months Nour Mahal,
partly by cunning, partly by appealing to the loyalty
of the omrahs, rescued her husband from the
clutches of this man, whose power thenceforth
ceased for ever.
Jehanghire died on the 28th of October, 1627.
Although Nour Mahal survived him for twenty-four
years, she held aloof from politics. She was
buried in a splendid tomb at Lahore, close by the
monument of Jehanghire.
Spontini has chosen the story of Nour Mahal as
the subject for one of his best operas.
In 1688 the Mogul army, commanded by Azim
Shah (son of Aurengzebe) was engaged in the siege of
Bijapur. The troops were much distressed for want
of provisions, as their supplies had been cut off by
the enemy. Aurengzebe, hearing of this, ordered one
of his generals to take twenty thousand bullock-loads
of grain to the camp of Azim Shah. The
enemy made a desperate attempt to seize this convoy
on its road; but after a fierce encounter with
the Moguls, they were driven off. During the
action, the Princess Janee Begum, who was proceeding
with the convoy to join her husband, Azim
Shah, rode on the back of an elephant into the
midst of the fight, and encouraged the soldiers by
her presence.
Juliana is perhaps the only European woman
who ever took a leading part in the politics of
the court of Delhi. She was born in Bengal in
1658, and her father was a Portuguese gentleman
named Augustin Dias D'Acosta. Early in life she
gained the favour of Aurengzebe, who made her
superintendent of his Zenana, and governess of his
son, Bahadur Shah.
In 1707 Aurengzebe died, and Bahadur Shah
ascended the throne. His right was disputed by his
brothers, and he was compelled to defend his throne
by force of arms. A battle was fought near Agra;
Juliana, mounted on an elephant, by the side of
Bahadur Shah, aided him by her advice, and cheered
him with inspiring words; when his troops began to
give way, she exhorted him not to despair. To her
presence indeed was he indebted for the ultimate
victory gained by his army.
Juliana was created a princess, and given the
rank of wife of an omrah, together with innumerable
honours and riches showered upon her. The Great
Mogul held her in such estimation that he used to
say:—"If Juliana were a man, I would make her
my vizier."
Jehandur Shah, who ascended the throne in 1712,
entertained the same respect for Juliana. She experienced
some persecutions when this emperor
was deposed in 1713 by his nephew Ferokshere; but
the death of this tyrant, in 1719, restored to her
all her influence, which she retained till her death,
in 1733.
During the latter half of the eighteenth century,
the native princes of India finding, by dearly
bought experience, that Indian discipline was ludicrously
inferior to the European system, determined
to introduce the latter into their own battalions.
With this view they offered high rewards to
European officers who would accept the command
of their troops and teach them how to fight. Hundreds
of adventurers—British, French, German,
Swiss, Portuguese—soldiers of fortune, in short, from
every part of Europe, took service under the various
rajahs and princes, and many of them attained to
high rank and honours. It was not uncommon for
the widows of these officers to be given the post
left vacant by their deceased husbands; and these
female commanders led their troops to battle, or
stopped at home, as they pleased.
One of these soldiers of fortune was Colonel
Mequinez, a Portuguese, who commanded a regiment
of Topasses in the service of Hyder Ali Khan,
Sultan of Mysore. At his death, Hyder Ali gave
the widow (also a Portuguese) the command of her
husband's regiment, to hold it till the adopted son of
her husband had attained his majority. Madam
Mequinez never went into action; she left the duty
of leading the Topasses in the field to the officer
next in command. But in every other respect she
fulfilled the duties of colonel; the colours were carried
to her house, at the door of which a sentry
paced up and down: she received the pay for the
entire corps, and caused the deductions for each
company to be made in her presence, and she always
inspected the regiment herself.
Madam Mequinez was excessively avaricious,
besides having a character for immorality. Having
been detected in a plot to cheat the Provincial
Father of the Mysore Jesuits out of a large sum in
rupees and jewels, she was excommunicated, and
sentenced to undergo public penance. Some
months latter she finally disgraced herself by
marrying a "mongrel Portuguese sergeant" belonging
to her regiment. But she was very much surprised
when the bacsi informed her that the Sultan had
reduced her pay to that of a sergeant, because she
had brought shame on the memory of her first husband,
who had been a great favourite with the
Sultan, Hyder Ali.
One of the most thoroughly unprincipled European
adventurers of these days was Somroo, a German
soldier, who, after serving as private in the French
and English armies, and in those of various native
chiefs, became general in the army of the Great
Mogul. His name was Gualtier Reignard, or
Reinehard, but when he enlisted in the French army
(in Europe) he assumed the nom de guerre of Summer,
which his comrades, on account of his saturnine
complexion, altered to Sombre; this, the
Hindoos changed to Somroo, and he was afterwards
best known by this last name. He will ever remain
infamous as the murderer of two hundred English
prisoners at Patna, in 1763. While in the service
of Shah Aulum, the Emperor, he commanded a
body of cavalry and several disciplined battalions of
sepoys officered by Europeans. To maintain this
army, the emperor assigned him, as a jaghire, the
fertile district of Serdhauna, in the Dooab.
Somroo married twice; his second wife was,
some say, the daughter of a Mogul noble who had
fallen into great distress, though others aver
she was a Cashmerian dancing-girl. He persuaded
the Begum to renounce Mohammedanism and
become a Roman Catholic. At Somroo's death,
in 1778, the Vizier Nujeef Khan gave the widow
the jaghire and the military post. She was a great
favourite with the Emperor, who had the highest
respect for her talents. He bestowed upon her the
name of Zul Al Nissa, which means "Ornament
of her sex." Under the government of this talented
woman the "small but fertile" town of Serdhauna
improved rapidly. A fort standing a short distance
from the town served as a kind of citadel, and
contained a barrack, an arsenal, and a foundry for
cannon. Her five battalions of sepoys were
officered from nearly every country in Europe, and
she had a body of five hundred European artillerymen,
armed with forty guns of various calibre.
George Thomas, afterwards the most famous of
all these European soldiers of fortune, accepted a commission
in the Begum's service; and her keen eyes
quickly discerned his superior military talent. He soon
rose to high favour with the Begum, whose esteem
he merited by courage, zeal, and untiring activity.
So greatly was her revenue and authority increased
by his talents, that he was for many years her chief
counsellor and adviser.
Begum Somroo enjoyed the respect of the leading
ministers at the court of Delhi; the Viziers
Nujeef Khan, Mirza Shuffee, and Afrasiab Khan
placed the most implicit trust in her judgment
on military matters. When Scindiah, the Mahratta
chief, attained to the rank of vizier, he not only
confirmed her in the jaghire of Serdhauna, but
added a grant of territory south-west of the Jumna.
Her generalship was not confined to occasional
reviews; she took an active part in the wars and
insurrections which disturbed the reign of Shah
Aulem. During the war with Pertaub Sing, the
Begum was stationed with her troops at Panniput;
which being an important post, proves Scindiah's
belief in her military capacities.
In 1787, during the insurrection of Gholaum
Cadir Khan, Prince of Sehraurunpore, Begum
Somroo displayed the utmost coolness and determination.
Previous to his open declaration of hostility,
Gholaum, by the most artful speeches, endeavoured
to gain the Begum's alliance; well aware of her
influence at court, he offered her an equal share
in the administration if she would assist him in
seizing the reins of government. The proposal
was tempting, but the Begum, well acquainted with
the perfidious nature of the wily Rohilla chief,
rejected all his offers, and repaired to the palace,
where she announced her resolve to sacrifice life
itself, if necessary, in defence of her sovereign.
Her arrival infused new courage into the Imperial
party; and some of the generals having assembled
their forces, Gholaum Cadir opened a heavy
cannonade on the palace. This was answered from
the fort of Delhi; and after the bombardment
had lasted for several hours, the rebel chief receiving
intelligence that a large force was marching
to relieve the Emperor, judged it most prudent to
tender an apology, which Shah Aulem thought
fit to accept.
In the following year, 1788, Shah Aulem left
Delhi with a large army, partly made up by three
battalions of sepoys, commanded by the Begum,
and commenced a tour through the provinces.
Although most of the rajahs and nabobs were
secretly disaffected, they were, with few exceptions,
easily prevailed upon to tender their submission.
One of those who openly declared themselves rebels
was Nujuff Cooli Khan, a powerful chief, who,
having possession of the almost impregnable fort
of Gocul Ghur, peremptorily refused to submit.
His head-quarters were situated at a village about
a mile from the fort, and only a portion of his army
had been stationed in Gocul Ghur.
The Emperor himself, with the main body of the
army, invested Gocul Ghur, while two of his
principal generals erected batteries against the
rebel head-quarters, which they bombarded most
vigorously. The village would have speedily been
taken, but for the disgraceful conduct of the
besieging force, both officers and men, who gave
themselves up to riot and excess. Nujuff Cooli
Khan, taking advantage of this, attacked the Mogul
entrenchments one night, when nearly all the soldiers
were fast asleep. Carrying all before them, the
rebels perpetrated an indiscriminate slaughter before
the others had time to arouse themselves. This
news rapidly spread to the main body and threw the
whole camp into dire confusion. To increase the
consternation, Munsoor Khan sallied out from
Gocul Ghur, and opened a tremendous cannonade
on the rear of the camp.
The entire Imperial army, together with Shah
Aulem and his family, would probably have fallen
into the hands of the rebels, but for the courage
and presence of mind of Begum Somroo. She was
encamped with her sepoys to the right of the camp,
and her troops not having been infected by the
panic, waited, drawn up ready for action. Perceiving
the disorder which prevailed, the Begum sent
a respectful message to Shah Aulem, entreating him
to repair for safety to her quarters. Then, stepping
into her palanquin, she proceeded at the head of
one hundred sepoys and a six-pounder (the latter
commanded by a European) to the ground occupied
by Munsoor Khan. She ordered her palanquin
to be set down, and ere long drove the rebels from
the field by a well-directed fire of grape, supported
by volleys of musketry from the sepoys.
This gallant exploit gave time for the Imperial
troops to rally. In their turn they now attacked
the rebels, and after a short sharply contested
engagement, the latter were defeated. Nujuff Cooli
Khan, disheartened by this reverse, entreated the
Begum to intercede for his pardon; which was
granted at last, after he had paid a large sum of
money into the Imperial treasury.
In 1791, Nujuff Cooli Khan again broke into
rebellion. Ismail Beg was despatched to arrest
him; but when the latter reached Rewari, where the
rebel chief had set up his head-quarters, he learned
that Nujuff was dead. However, the widow of
Nujuff Cooli, a woman akin to Begum Somroo, of a
masculine spirit, possessing, moreover, considerable
military abilities, took command of deceased's
forces. Knowing that Ismaeel Beg was courageous,
talented, and ambitious, she proposed an alliance,
which he accepted; and throwing himself into the
town of Canoor, defended it against the Mahrattas.
The Begum displayed the utmost courage throughout
the siege, and invariably joined in all the sorties
made by the garrison. Unfortunately, this brave
woman was slain in a skirmish by a cannon-ball,
and her death broke up the rebel camp. It was
resolved by the garrison to deliver up Ismaeel Beg
to the Mahrattas; but he was beforehand with
them, and surrendered the town.
General Thomas, in his zeal for the Begum
Somroo's interests, raised up enemies for himself in
the principal French and German officers. They
took occasion to poison the Begum's mind against
him by foul accusations; and in 1792 he was compelled
to withdraw to Anopsheer, one of the frontier stations
of the British army. Early in 1793, he took service
under Appakandarow, a Mahratta chieftain. Le
Vaissaux, or Levasso, a German adventurer, commanding
the Begum's artillery, had always been
Thomas's deadly foe, and was the leading man in
driving him away. He possessed great military
talents, and had rendered considerable services to
his mistress; but he was a man of haughty, overbearing
mien, and hated by all his brother-officers.
Great was their indignation, though they were
scarcely surprised, when the Begum, disregarding
their remonstrances, and the advice, the all but
commands, of the Emperor, surrendered her hand
and heart to the German artilleryman, in 1793.
Begum Somroo, instigated by her husband, now
determined to crush poor Thomas; and at the head
of four battalions of foot, four hundred horse, and
twenty pieces of cannon, she marched towards Jyjur,
where he was stationed. But the Mahratta chiefs,
who had long been jealous of her influence over
Shah Aulem, stirred up a mutiny amongst the troops
left in Serdhauna, and compelled her to return thither
with all speed. The officers, to give a sanction to
their proceedings, offered the jaghire to Zuffer Yab
Khan, son of Somroo by a former wife. He was a
young man of worthless and turbulent character;
since his father's death he had lived in Delhi,
receiving a handsome allowance from his step-mother.
It was only a few days after the marriage that this
mutiny broke out. Zuffer, with a body of troops,
rushed into Serdhauna, seized the town, and was
proclaimed Jaghire Dar. The Begum vainly endeavoured
to pacify her soldiers. She was arrested,
together with her husband, and thrown into prison;
and Le Vaissaux, too proud to sue for mercy, put an
end to his own life.
In the course of the following year, the Begum,
who had been ever since kept in durance vile, besought
the assistance of George Thomas, for, said she, the
hourly dread of assassination was driving her mad.
Thomas was not deaf to her entreaties; he persuaded
Bappoo, a Mahratta chief, to aid him with
his forces, and together they marched upon Serdhauna.
The Mahrattas were won over, partly by the
prayers of Shah Aulem, and partly by liberal
promises; and Zuffer having been expelled, the
Begum was restored to power.
Begum Sumroo was a good friend to the English,
with whom she was always exceedingly popular on
account of the great hospitality with which she entertained
those who visited her neighbourhood. However,
she fought against them, as an auxiliary of
Scindiah, in 1803. She took part in the battle of
Assaye; and at the defeat of the Mahrattas, she fled to
Northern Hindostan, and hastily made peace with
the Marquis Wellesley, on condition that her principality
should revert to the British Government of
India after her demise, while her personal property
remained at her own disposal.
When the British became masters of Delhi, the
Begum frequently visited their camp, dressed in
European costume, with a hat and veil, sometimes
in a palanquin, sometimes on horseback, sometimes
on an elephant. At this time she appeared to be
about fifty-five, was of middle height, with a beautiful
complexion. Her ancient friendship for the
Mahrattas, and an intercepted letter which she was
believed to have written to Jeswunt Rao Holkar,
caused her to be suspected by the British when they
were at war with that chief in 1805. However, she
succeeded in clearing herself of the accusation.
The exact year of her death is not known.
Although Begum Somroo left no children of her
own, she had adopted the daughter of Somroo by his
first wife, a Mahratta woman. This girl wedded
Mr. Dyce, a half-caste, son of Captain Dyce of the
East India Company's service. The Begum had
intended to make him her heir; but in her old age
she detected him in a conspiracy, and so she left
her property to his son, instead. This latter was
the notorious David Ochterlony Dyce-Sombre.
About the year 1838, this eccentric gentleman came
to England, whither he had been preceded by the
renown of his fabulous wealth. His arrival caused
considerable excitement in London; he was fêted
and invited everywhere as the lion of the day. In
1840, he married the Hon. Mary Ann Jervis,
daughter of Viscount St. Vincent; but the husband
and wife did not agree—a separation was speedily
followed by legal proceedings against Mr. Dyce-Sombre,
by which the wife's relations sought to prove
the Anglo-Indian to be a lunatic. For months and
months this great trial was a matter for public gossip;
and the unfortunate nabob was compelled to live on
the Continent for several years to escape the decision
of the Court of Chancery. He returned to London
in 1851, to petition against their decree; but was
seized with a painful illness, of which he died on the
1st July of that year.
When Lord Lake was in India, fighting the
Mahrattas, there was a Sergeant W——, of the
artillery, who served in nearly all the battles of his
illustrious chief. This sergeant owned a Hindoo
slave, belonging to the lowest dregs of the pariahs;
but through the earnest labours of a Baptist
missionary, she was converted to Christianity, and
the sergeant made her his wife. She accompanied
him in all his campaigns, and followed him into
battle. When he was tired, she would lend a hand
at the guns. In one action the sergeant was struck
down by a bullet which passed through his shako
and struck his forehead just above the temple
carrying in its course the brass hoop from the shako
and forcing it into his skull. He fell, to all
appearance, dead; but his wife, determined not to
leave his body to the tender mercies of the foe,
seized it up, and bore it from the field, amidst a rain
of bullets.
The principal leaders in the terrible Indian
Mutiny were Nana Sahib, Tantia Topee, and the
Ranee of Jhansi. They were equally ferocious:
they detested the British, and the motives which
induced them to rebel were almost precisely similar.
According to the laws and usages of Hindostan,
a native prince, in default of sons, could adopt a
strange boy and make him his heir; seldom was a
dissentient voice raised against the succession of
the adopted child till within the last thirty-five or
forty years, when the East India Company constituted
itself heir-apparent to all the thrones in the
country.
The city of Jhansi is situated in Bundelcund, to
the south of the river Jumna. Previous to 1857, it
was the strongest and most important place in the
entire of Central India. The people were nearly all
Brahmins, a religion held in common with their
rajahs. In the days when the Peishwa was still a
person of importance in Hindostan, the ruler of
Jhansi was merely a wealthy zemindar, or land-owner,
and he rendered such good service to the
British that Lord William Bentinck (Governor-General
from 1828 to 1835), raised him to the position
of Rajah. On the death of this man, he was
succeeded by his brother, Gungadhur Rao. The
latter, having no children, made a will some weeks
before his death, publicly adopting a little boy nearly
related to himself, and at this time six years old.
Lukshmi Baee, the Rajah's wife, was to be the guardian
of this boy and Regent of Jhansi till he had
attained his eighteenth year. Gungadhur gave due
notice of this to the British Governor-General; and
in presence of the British Resident and his assembled
subjects, took the child in his lap, as a
public declaration of adoption.
Gungadhur Rao died in 1854. Lord Dalhousie,
the Governor-General, refused to acknowledge his
right to adopt an heir, and the little province of
Jhansi was annexed to British India. The young
Rajah and the Ranee, his mother by adoption, were
pensioned off; the latter receiving six thousand a
year, paid monthly. Her troops were disbanded, and
replaced by a few regiments of Sepoys and Sowars.
The Ranee was powerless to resist; she could only
bide her time. She had not long to wait. Three
years later, India was in a blaze. The Bundelcund
Sepoys were amongst the first to mutiny. On the
14th of June, the native troops at Jhansi broke into
rebellion, murdered several of their officers in the
cantonments, and seized the "Star Fort." Some
few English escaped to Nagoda, but the rest,
numbering fifty-five men, women, and children,
barricaded themselves in the "Town Fort." But
after a brave resistance of four days, the mutineers
burst open the gates on the 8th; and the English,
having been promised life and liberty, laid down
their arms. Thereupon a massacre commenced,
which for barbarity, almost equalled that which took
place shortly after at Cawnpore. Nineteen ladies,
twenty-three children, twenty-four civil service
employés, two non-commissioned officers, and eight
officers were butchered in a manner familiar to all
who can remember the Indian Mutiny.
It was generally believed at the time that this
massacre took place by order of the Ranee, who
is said to have stood by while the heads of ladies
were chopped off, and the brains of babies were
dashed out upon the flags. Nay, some have
declared she laughed aloud when some deed of
atrocity worse than the rest came under her
notice.
Shortly after this massacre, the Ranee took the
field at the head of some hundreds of Sepoys,
and marched towards Gwalior, where Scindiah,
the descendant of our old enemy whom we routed
at Assaye, remained faithful to the British. But
little was known of her movements during the
rest of 1857; in August of that year, a female,
dressed in a green uniform, was captured at Delhi,
while leading on a party of Sepoys. This woman
was at first supposed to be the terrible Ranee,
and a rumour sped through the British Camp
that she was leading the Gwalior rebels; but it
was afterwards found that Lukshmi Baee still remained
in the territories of the Maharajah. The
prisoner was described as "an ugly old woman, short
and fat." She was a species of prophetess, held in
high estimation by the rebels around Delhi.
In January, 1858, Sir Hugh Rose (Lord
Strathnairn), commanding the second brigade of
the Central India Field Force, set out against the
rebels south of Delhi; his chief object being the
capture of Jhansi. Having been joined by Brigadier
Stuart, they invested the fortress on the 21st of
March following.
The city of Jhansi measured about four miles and a
half in circumference. It stood on a level plain,
surrounding the east, north, and part of the
south sides of an elevated rock on which the fort
stood. Altogether it was a fine specimen of modern
fortification; and since the first outbreak of the
Mutiny, its strength had been considerably added to
by the Ranee, who took care to arm the batteries
with heavy ordnance of long range. On the 25th a
tremendous cannonade was opened from the British
lines. Throughout the siege the intrepid Ranee
tried every means to defend the town; all through
the day she remained in the fort directing the fire of
the artillerymen, save when she visited the different
points of defence, watching and planning to
strengthen the weak parts of her entrenchments.
Tantia Topee marched to the relief of Jhansi with
twenty or twenty-five thousand men, and an obstinately
contested battle was fought on the 1st of April.
But Tantia Topee, after proving himself to be a
brave man and an able general, was totally routed
with the loss of all his ordnance.
Next day a general assault was made on the city;
under a murderous fire the British forced their way
through the streets. When they had more than
half conquered it, the news of the Ranee's flight put
an end to all further resistance on the part of the
rebels. It was then found that the brave old tigress,
utterly disheartened by the defeat of Tantia Topee,
had fled during the previous night, under cover of
the darkness. Followed by about three hundred
rebels, she joined Tantia Topee at Koonch. Sir
Hugh Rose, as soon as he had settled matters in
Jhansi, directed his march towards Calpee. He was
intercepted at Koonch by the Ranee and her ally;
when a spirited action took place on the 9th of May.
The mutineers were driven from their entrenched
camp, with great loss, and the town fell into the
hands of the victors. Tantia Topee and the Ranee
fled to Calpee, where they were besieged on the 16th
by Sir Hugh; Calpee fell on the 23rd, the Ranee
and Tantia having previously retired towards
Gwalior. The Maharajah, refusing to join the rebels,
was driven to take refuge in the British cantonments
at Agra.
On the approach of Sir Hugh Rose, Tantia Topee
fled, leaving the Ranee to defend the city. But she
was not a woman easily dispirited. She disposed
her forces (chiefly composed of the Gwalior Contingent)
most skilfully, so as to command all the
roads leading to Gwalior. She was scarcely ever
out of the saddle; dressed in a sowar's uniform, and
attended by a picked, well-armed escort, she rode
from post to post, superintending all the operations.
Sir Hugh Rose reached the Moorar cantonments
on the 16th of June, and carried them with but slight
loss. To intercept his reinforcements, the Ranee
marched to the banks of the little river Oomrar.
Brigadiers Smith and Orr, who were marching from
Antree to join in the attack on Gwalior, reached Kota-ki-Serai,
on the banks of this stream, on the morning
of the 17th. Between this village and Gwalior,
from which it is distant about three or four miles,
the road winds through a succession of hilly ranges.
Some rebel pickets were observed in front of and
below the first range; a squadron of the 8th Hussars
immediately crossed the stream to reconnoitre, when
they were fired upon from a masked battery. Two
troops of the same regiment were ordered to charge;
and riding at full speed through a narrow ravine, they
captured a battery armed with three guns. Thence
they pressed on to the rebel camp, where the enemy
was driven to bay. The Ranee of Jhansi and her
sister, both in the dress of sowars, fought desperately,
and lost their lives in a gallant charge made
to check the British troopers.
The Ranee's death was caused either by the
bullet of a British rifleman, or by the fragment of a
shell which pierced her breast. Her body was never
found; it was said to have been burned by her
followers immediately after the battle.
Upon her death the rebel hosts melted like snow
before a sunbeam. The British infantry speedily
carried the first range of heights; and the enemy,
after losing about four hundred men, and seeing
their camp in flames, were compelled to fly. The
British, after losing about fifteen men (ten of whom
died from sunstroke and fatigue), and spiking three
rebel guns, resumed their march; and the same
evening rejoined Sir Hugh Rose. The combined
forces now advanced on Gwalior, routed the sepoys
in the battle of Gurrowlee, June 19th, and recaptured
the city, June 20th, when Scindiah was
restored to his throne.
The death of the Ranee excited very little interest
in this country. The newspapers of the time, with
but one or two exceptions, barely chronicled the
event, without making any comments; but it was
universally felt by every British soldier serving in
India that, with the death of Lukshmi Baee, we had
lost the foe who was able to do us most injury. For
courage and military skill she was acknowledged to
be far superior to any of the other rebel chiefs. The
message flashed along the wires announcing that
the Ranee had fallen, added that "the deaths of
Moulvie and the Ranee were more gain to us than
half-a-dozen victories."
The exact age of the "Indian Boadicea" was
never accurately determined. While one journal
styles her "this girl, barely twenty years of age,"
another assumes her age to have been at least
thirty. An employé of the East India Company who
visited Jhansi in 1854, and accidentally caught a
glimpse of this oriental heroine, describes her as
"a woman of about the middle size—rather stout,
but not too stout. Her face" he says, "must have
been very handsome when she was younger, and
even now it had many charms—though, according to
my idea of beauty, it was too round. The expression,
also, was very good and very intellectual.
The eyes were particularly fine, and the nose very
delicately shaped. She was not very fair, though
she was far from black. What spoilt her was her
voice, which was something between a whine and a
croak."
All agreed as to the extreme licentiousness and
immorality of her habits; and the rooms in her
palace are said to have been hung with pictures
"such as pleased Tiberius at Capri."
It was formerly the custom with many of the
native princes to maintain female warriors to guard
their zenanas. The tyrant Ferokshere, who was
murdered in 1719, kept up an Amazon corps at
Delhi, composed of Abyssinians, Cashmerians, Persians—in
short, drawn from every nation whence
slaves could be easily procured. They were armed
with matchlocks, bows and arrows, spears and
targets, and other weapons, according to their
nationality. When the Emperor took refuge from
his assailants in the zenana, the female guards held
the entrance bravely for some time, and exchanged
shots with the rebels; but they received more
wounds than they gave, and were so easily driven
away.
In the harem of the Nizam, at Hyderabad, there
was, so lately as the time of the Mutiny, a regiment
of Amazons who wore scarlet tunics, green trousers,
and red cloth hats, trimmed with gold lace and
mounted with a green plume. Their arms were the
customary musket and bayonet. Whenever a distinguished
foreigner visited the Palace, the female
guard received him with military honours. "The
extreme youth, and delicate appearance of these
interesting warriors," says Prince Soltykoff, "at
once attracted attention." Though, despite these
feminine attractions, he says their aspect was so
decidedly military, he would never have known they
were females but for their long hair and the fulness
of their bosoms. Their hair was tied in a knot,
though in place of concealing it under their caps,
they let it fall over the collar of their tunics.
An interesting sketch of the female sepoys at
Lucknow is given in the "Private Life of an
Eastern King."
"Of the living curiosities of the Palace, there
were none the account of which will appear more
strange to European ears than the female sepoys.
I had seen these men-like women pacing up and down
before the various entrances to the female apartments
for many days before I was informed of their real
character. I regarded them simply as a diminutive
race of soldiers with well wadded coats. There was
nothing but that fulness of the chest to distinguish
many of them from other sepoys; and one is so accustomed
to see soldiers in England with coats stuffed
so as to make their wearers resemble pouter-pigeons,
that I took little heed of the circumstance.
"These women retained their long hair, which they
tied up in a knot on the top of the head, and there
it was concealed by the usual shako. They bore
the ordinary accoutrements of sepoys in India—the
musket and bayonet, cross-belts and cartridge-boxes,
jackets and white duck continuations, which
might be seen anywhere in Bengal. Intended
solely for duty in the Palace as guardians of the
harem, they were paraded only in the court-yards,
where I have seen them going through their exercise
just like other sepoys. They were drilled by
one of the native officers of the king's army, and
appeared quite familiar with marching and wheeling,
with presenting, loading, and firing muskets,
with the fixing and unfixing of bayonets; in fact,
with all the detail of the ordinary barrack-yard.
Whether they could have gone through the same
marches in the field with thousands of mustachioed
sepoys around them, I cannot tell—probably not.
They had their own corporals and sergeants; none
of them, I believe, attained a higher rank than that
of sergeant.
"Many of them were married women, obliged
to quit the ranks for a month or two at a time,
occasionally. They retained their places, however,
as long as possible.... Of these female sepoys
there were in all two companies of the usual
strength, or weakness, if the reader will have it
so. Once, during my residence at Lucknow, they
were employed by the king against his own mother."
This act of Nussir was rendered all the worse,
because many years before, when Ghazi-u-deen,
the late King of Oude, wished to disinherit his son
and put him to death, the Begum armed her
retainers, and fought for Nussir with the courage
of a lion. After many had fallen on each side, the
British resident interfered, and put an end to the
contest. Nussir, after he became king, wished to
act towards his son as Ghazi would have done
towards him; but the old Begum now fought as
stoutly for her grandson as she did previously for
her son. The King sent his female sepoys to turn
her out of her palace, but she armed her servants,
fought the sepoys, and put them to flight. Fifteen
or sixteen of the Begum's adherents were left dead
on the field. The resident again interfered, and
guaranteed the life and succession of the child.
But Nussir succeeded in cheating his mother
after all, by declaring the boy illegitimate. In vain
the old Begum, after the death of Nussir, surrounded
the British Residency with her troops; the Englishman
was not to be intimidated. Troops were
ordered up from the cantonments, and a few discharges
of grape quickly dispersed the Begum's
adherents. One of Nussir's uncles was then placed
on the throne, and the brave old Begum was compelled
to submit.
There is a similar guard of female warriors in
the Palace of the King of Siam, at Bangkok; and
the Paris papers of September, 1866, speak of a
regiment of female Zouaves, armed with rifles, which
was then being raised in the first-named city.
As lately as 1873, we read of Amazonian soldiers
in Bantam. Says a newspaper of that date, describing
the condition of the sexes in that kingdom:—"Although
tributary to Holland, it is an independent
state, politically without importance, yet happy, rich,
and since time immemorial governed and defended
by women. The sovereign is indeed a man, but all
the rest of the government belongs to the fair sex.
The king is entirely dependent upon his state council,
composed of three women. The highest authorities,
all state officers, court functionaries, military commanders,
and soldiers are, without exception, of the
female sex. The men are agriculturists and merchants.
The body-guard of the king is formed of
the female élite. These amazons ride in the masculine
style, wearing sharp steel points instead of spurs.
They carry a pointed lance, which they swing very
gracefully, and also a musket, which is discharged
at full gallop. The throne is inheritable by the
eldest son, and in case the king dies without issue a
hundred elected amazons assemble, in order to choose
a successor from among their own sons. The
chosen one is then proclaimed lawful king."
V.
Savage Africa.—Judith, Queen of Abyssinia—Workite and
Mastrat, Gallas Queens—Shinga, Queen of Congo—Mussasa,
Queen of Matamba—Tembandumba, Queen of the Jagas—Amazons
in Dahomey.
The great African continent has contributed
but little to the pages of history.
Centuries before America was discovered,
northern Africa was one of the centres
of commerce, its people were amongst the most
civilized in the known world; yet America has been
explored in almost every part, from north to south,
and its history is as well known and almost as
full of interest as that of Europe or Asia, while
Africa, until within the last three-quarters of a century,
remained, geographically and historically,
almost as much a mystery as it was in ancient
times. Rightly has it been styled the Dark Continent.
Ethiopia, renowned in distant eras for its stately
cities adorned with lofty temples and spacious
palaces, and inhabited by learned men, is a sad
picture of fallen greatness. Its haughty palaces
have crumbled to decay long since, and their sites
are occupied by the mud cabins of a savage race,
who, only for being Christians, differ very little from
their fellow-men who dwell on other parts of this
great continent. People took but small interest in
Abyssinia till the war with King Theodore, and
even then we learned very little more about that
strange land than our grandfathers told us.
Scarcely more than a bare outline of Abyssinian
history has been preserved; yet we find that, since
the days of the Queen of Sheba, women have more
than once taken an active part in the politics of
this kingdom. Bruce has given us the story of a
beautiful Jewish women named Judith, who, with
the aid of her co-religionists, usurped the throne
in the 10th or 11th century. She was the wife of
Gideon, the governor, or, as he might be called,
the feudal sovereign, of a small district called
Bugna. He was also a Jew, as were all his subjects.
Judith at last grew so powerful that she resolved
to overthrow the Christians. She accordingly
surprised the almost impregnable rock Damo, where
the royal princes were kept for safety, and slew
them to the number of four hundred. Del Naad,
the King, at this time a mere child, was saved by
some of the nobles, who carried him into the loyal
province of Shoa. Judith then mounted the throne,
and not only reigned over Abyssinia for upwards of
forty years, but transmitted the throne to five
successive descendants. After that, the line of
King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, as represented
by the descendants of Del Naad, was
restored.
Even in these degenerate days, women sometimes
come forward as leaders in Abyssinia. After
the fall of Magdala, Lord Napier was visited by the
two Gallas queens, Workite (gold), and Mastrat
(looking-glass), who had a race as to which should
first congratulate the British general on his victory.
These rival queens, who have been fighting one
another for years past, professed great delight at
the reception which they met with, and both gave
and received presents in token of friendship. The
Times Correspondent in Abyssinia gave a lively and
amusing description of them:—
"I am told on good authority," he wrote, "that
they go into battle, and handle spear, sword, and
gun right manfully; there is even a story, probably
mythical, that Mastrat with her own hand wounded
the mighty Theodore. But usually they go about
so muffled up, and looking so like a bundle of shawls
moved by mechanism, that, except in their method
of riding, their appearance is anything but amazonic.
Workite kept herself closely wrapped up, and
hidden during her stay in camp, but Mastrat boldly
threw aside her rich royal robe of crimson, speckled
with gold, and came out of her tent, and before
the soldiers—if her majesty will pardon the expression—like
a man, to have her photograph taken.
Her complexion was a very pale olive—fairer than
that of many Europeans—and her expression,
though the features were large, and scarcely, like
those of Theodore's widow-in-chief, of the thoroughbred
type, were essentially queen-like and commanding.
She looked quite capable of leading an army
anywhere."
The natives of Congo, in Lower Guinea, have ever
been notorious for their ferocity and love of shedding
human blood; and such very savages are they, that
what slight improvements have been made in their
beloved pastime—war,—are due entirely to those
Europeans who have visited the coast. The women
are as ferocious as the men; and as the Salic law
is either unknown, or neglected, there have from
time to time been female sovereigns renowned for
their military prowess.
One of these royal Amazons was Shinga, or Zingha,
Queen of Matamba, in Congo, who ascended the
throne on the death of her brother about 1640. She
determined to be Queen in her own dominions, and
set herself up as a stern opponent of Christianity.
She thereby offended the Portuguese priests (who
had been established in the country since 1487), and
they stirred up her nephew to rebellion. After losing
three battles, Shinga was obliged to seek safety in
flight.
After proceeding one hundred and fifty miles up
the country, Shinga established a new kingdom;
and by making war on the Jagas, or Giagas, the
Arabs of Western Africa, she became sufficiently
powerful once more to take the field against Portugal.
But she was again routed, and her two sisters
remained in the hands of the victors. At last, in
1646, she recovered her throne, and concluded an
honourable treaty with the Christians.
Her long struggle with Portugal had so accustomed
Shinga to a military life that she cared for nothing
but war. She was almost constantly engaged in a
campaign against the neighbouring kingdoms.
Before starting on an expedition, she used to sacrifice
the handsomest man she could find as a war offering
to some African deity who required to be appeased.
On such occasions she appeared in military costume,
her bow and arrows in her hand, a sword hanging
from a collar round her neck, an axe by her side.
After going through a warlike dance, singing a martial
song, accompanying it on two iron bells, she would
cut off the victim's head as a declaration of war, and
drink a deep draught of his blood.
The Jagas, at all times feared on account of their
ruthless ferocity and cruelty, rose to the height of
their glory under King Zimbo, who has been styled
the "Napoleon of Africa." Donji, one of Zimbo's
captains, was governor of Matamba; his wife,
Mussusa, was a warrior like himself, and they trained
their daughter, Tembandumba, to the same mode
of life. After the death of Zimbo, his vast empire,
like that of Alexander, was divided amongst his
captains; and Donji, more skilful than the rest,
conquered many of the surrounding states. After
his death, Mussasa, who possessed military talent
equal to her husband,—tarnished though it was by
gross cruelty—continued to fight and to conquer
the neighbouring chiefs.
Tembandumba received the education of a soldier.
Trained, while yet a child, to the use of arms, she took
naturally the trade of war. As a girl she accompanied
her mother on all her campaigns; fighting side by side
at the head of their troops, Mussasa and her
daughter were always foremost in battle and last
in a retreat. The valour and prudence of Tembandumba
soon became so well known that her
mother gave her the command of half the army.
But when she had gained a few victories, the
Amazon was not disposed to remain longer in a
subordinate position. Throwing aside the authority
of her mother, she assumed the title of Queen of
the Jagas; and drew up a code of laws so extravagantly
savage and bloodthirsty that only for
the high respect, or rather terror, in which the
young girl was held,—even her subjects would have
rebelled.
It was the ambition of Tembandumba to revive
the Amazonian empire which had once existed on
the African continent. In pursuance of this object,
she declared war on the whole race of man; all the
male children were to be slain by their mothers, and
made into ointment called "Magiga Samba," which
when smeared over the human body would render
the latter invulnerable. The adult males throughout
her dominions were to be converted into food for the
women; and to prevent the tender hearts of the
women causing them to evade these laws, she
commanded that every other food, animal or vegetable,
should be destroyed. Had her statutes
been obeyed to the letter, Western Africa would soon
have been a hideous wilderness, devoid of human
habitations, birds, beasts, trees, plants, or even grass.
Having promulgated these laws, together with
many others of minor importance, in a speech
delivered before a select committee of her female
subjects, she concluded by seizing her own child,
who was feeding at her breast, and hurling it into a
large mortar, where she beat it to a jelly. Throwing
this into a large pot, she compounded an oleaginous
preparation with leaves, roots and oils, which
she rubbed all over her body, telling her subjects
to follow the example. Such quantities of
"Magiga Samba" were manufactured that travellers
declare there are still some pots of it to be found
among the Jagas. But after the first burst of
enthusiasm was over, maternal love prevailed, and
Tembandumba, after vainly endeavouring, by the
appointment of inspectors, to enforce obedience, was
obliged to repeal the law, and permit children taken
in war to be substituted to make the precious
ointment.
For many years this female devil reigned triumphantly;
she kept the Jagas so constantly engrossed
by martial glory, they had no time to sigh for
liberty. Kingdom after kingdom fell before her
legions; wherever she turned her footsteps, a track
of desolation remained to mark her progress.
But Tembandumba, after all, was not above the
weaknesses common to her sex; all her passions
were exaggerated, and, like many another heroine,
she owed her final overthrow to the God of Love.
As a rule she caused her husbands to be treated as
Schahriar, in the Arabian Nights, used his wives;
but at last she fell really in love with Culemba, a
private in the army. Culemba was young, strong,
and decidedly good-looking—for a negro. He
possessed insinuating manners, and succeeded for a
time in gaining some influence over the Queen.
But in time she wearied of him, as she had grown
tired of her former lovers. Culemba, knowing by
experience that she had an unpleasant fancy for
dining off her lovers, was determined to be beforehand
with her. He was a cruel, ambitious man,—equally
crafty as Tembandumba. He invited the
Queen to a sumptuous banquet; such an invitation
being the highest compliment one Jaga could pay to
another. The entertainment was magnificent, the
wine delicious; but while drinking a bumper of
Lisbon wine from the skull of an old enemy, the
Queen of the Jagas fell down dead.
Culemba was—of course—inconsolable. With
difficulty could he be prevented from slaying himself
on the corpse. The funeral was conducted with all
the splendour customary at the interment of a native
African sovereign; the dead queen was buried in a
large vault excavated on the top of a high hill. The
corpse was placed in a commanding attitude on a
throne, surrounded by skins, stuffs, mats, ostrich
feathers, and all her favourite dishes and liquors.
Dahomey—or, as it is now fashionable to style it,
Dahomé—may with truth be called one of the
greatest curiosities of the Nineteenth Century. It
seems so strange that a large, closely populated
country, the monarch of which is anxious to cultivate
the friendship of Europe, should be sunk in such
gross barbarity. The chief features of its government
are the Slave-Trade, the "Customs," or
religious festivals, at which the notorious human
sacrifices are offered, and the Amazons; and the
last are by far the greatest curiosity. Very few
rulers, in ancient or modern times, have authorised
the keeping up a standing army of women; and
none of the native tribes along the coast seem at all
inclined to follow the example of Dahomey.
But the female sex in Dahomey is, they say,
vastly superior to the male; the women are tall—upwards
of six feet high, and powerfully built—the
men, on the contrary, are, as a general rule, round-limbed
and sickly-looking. Captain Burton suggests
that it was this physical superiority which originated
the custom of employing women-soldiers.
The Amazonian division of the army numbers
twelve thousand women, ready at an hour's notice
for active service. They are officered by females,
and have a female commander-in-chief, who is
entirely independent of the "Gau" or male commander-in-chief.
To denote her rank, this female
general wears a silver horn, hammer-shaped, projecting
from her forehead, similar to a unicorn.
The officers are distinguished by a white head-cloth,
and by the superior make and material of their
clothes; and when on the march, they are attended
by what Captain Burton styles an "esquiress" or
slave-girl, who carries the musket of her mistress.
The honorary captaincy of each corps is presented
by the King to one of his sons, after whom it is
sometimes named; though the companies are as
frequently styled by the name of the district to which
they specially belong. Sometimes the King presents
some distinguished European traveller whom he
wishes to compliment, with a honorary command.
The Amazons are not remarkable for any superfluity
of muscle, but as a rule they are lithe and active.
As they grow older, many become extremely stout.
"Some of them" remarks Captain Burton "are
prodigies of obesity." The commander-in-chief,
he says, was "vast in breadth." Beauty is scarce
in Dahomey, and what little there is, has not fallen
to the lot of the Amazons. Captain Burton, who
"expected to see Penthesileas, Thalestrises, Dianas,"
was sadly disappointed when he beheld "old, ugly,
and square-built frows, trudging 'grumpily' along,
with the face of 'cook' after being much 'nagged'
by the 'missus'." They do not, however, as was
once supposed, condemn themselves to single-blessedness;
on the contrary, many have husbands and
children.
They are very careful of their weapons—an
English "Tower-marked" firelock, a short falchion,
or dirk, and a large razor for cutting off heads.
The musket is guarded by numerous charms, and
when not in use is protected from the damp by a
black, monkey-skin case; the barrel is polished
bright, and sometimes adorned with a long tassel.
Their skill in the use of these weapons is such as to
render them exceedingly formidable adversaries.
Their uniforms are very showy. That of the
Royal Guard—which, numbering rather more than
a thousand women, is always stationed about the
King's person—consists of a sleeveless tunic, surtout,
or waistcoat of different colours, buttoning down the
front, a pink, blue, or yellow loin-wrapper, or kilt,
reaching to the ancles, a sash, generally white, tied
round the waist, and folding down in two long ends
on the left side, and a fillet of blue or white cotton
round the head. The arms are left bare. A black
leather belt, with cartridge box—or "agluadya"—forms
a girdle, with holds the surtout tight to the
figure. This belt is sometimes ornamented with
cowrie shells; on it are hung bandoleers, which contain,
in separate compartments, twelve, sixteen, or
even twenty wooden powder-boxes. Each cartridge
contains about four times the quantity of powder
used in English cartridges, and the bullet is not
placed in it as in Europe; a small leather ball-bag
hangs from the shoulder by a strap which passes
through the belt. When the Amazons are loading,
they pour the powder into the barrel without any
wadding, and then drop in a bullet, or a few slugs.
Shaving the head is a general, though not a
universal fashion. Those who do so, leave only a
small tuft of hair like a cockade; others, however,
who do not follow this custom, shave a narrow strip,
two inches in breadth, from the forehead to the
crown of the head.
When the Amazons are on the march, the privates
are obliged to carry an immense number of articles
absolutely necessary for a campaign under the
scorching sun of Africa. Packs, containing their
bed-mats, a change of clothes, and food for a fortnight—said
food consisting of toasted grains or bean
cakes spiced with pepper—small stools with three or
four legs, two cartridge-boxes, water-gourds, fetish-sacks,
powder-calabashes, bullet-wallets, fans,
wooden pipe-cases, leather tobacco-bags, hats made
of felt or straw, and palm-leaf umbrellas, are just
a few of the things carried by them on the march.
The King of Dahomey is very proud of his female
soldiers, whom he frequently passes in review. He
regards these Amazonian field-days with a pride
akin to that of Frederick the Great at one of the
Potzdam Reviews, or Napoleon at a review of his
Old Guard.
These grand reviews are very showy, effective
sights. Although the discipline is not very exact,
yet the evolutions performed are executed with a
vigour and heartiness which almost atone for the
lack of that neatness observed in more civilized
armies. The King seats himself under a canopy in
some public place, generally the market-place of the
town, and the various corps of Amazons march on
to the open ground in front; each regiment being
preceded by its band, playing the most discordant
music on fantastically shaped instruments made of
elephant's-trunks, bullock's-horns, and triangular iron
tubes (which, when struck, emit a sound similar to a
sheep-bell), and beating a large war-drum in a truly
deafening manner. This drum, ornamented with
twelve human skulls, is carried on the head of one
Amazon, while another walks after, beating it.
Each corps possesses a similar drum, adorned with a
like number of skulls. Every company has, likewise,
six or seven standards, the top of each being
surmounted by a human skull. In the more disciplined
regiments, there is always an advance-guard
of nine women, followed, at a short interval,
by fifty supports.
The ceremony of passing them in review is so
elaborate that one corps has occupied as much as
two or three hours before being disposed of. According
as each corps arrives within a short distance of
the Royal canopy, a halt is ordered, and the women
lie down, or squat down, to await their turn to
appear before his majesty. The captain then introduces
the officers by name, and all kneel down,
throwing up the light red dust in showers over
themselves. Their deeds of valour are recounted,
and when any warrior has especially distinguished
herself, the King graciously bestows his royal
praises. After all have been noticed, the officers
fall into their proper places, and, together with the
privates, burst into a complimentary song in honour
of their ruler. It is usual for various Amazons, on
the conclusion of this song, to step one after another
to the front, and declare their loyalty. Then the
entire corps kneels down, with the butt ends of their
muskets resting on the ground, and the barrel slanting
back over the shoulder. After covering themselves
once more with dust, they poise their muskets
horizontally in both hands, and, still on their knees,
pour forth a lusty cheer. Then springing to their
feet with another hearty cheer, they slope arms,
and set off at the double-quick march, each trying to
outstrip the rest.
This part of the review having at last concluded,
the Amazons march on to an open space where sham
entrenchments have been constructed. These mock
fortifications usually consist of two or three great piles
of green briar, armed with the most dangerous kind of
prickly thorns. This thorny briar is much used in
Africa, and formerly was employed in Asia, to entrench
villages or towns. The clumps are about seventy feet
wide and eight feet high, standing perhaps three hundred
yards in advance of several pens, or yards, the latter
surrounded by a strong wall about seven feet high,
defended by dense masses of thorns, thickly matted
with reeds. To defend this mock entrenchment, a
few dozen royal slaves are placed within the enclosure.
Each corps, as it marches on to the ground,
headed by the officer appointed to lead the attack—who
wears a sword of a different shape, from the
others—halts about two hundred yards from the
nearest pile, and shoulders arms. Directly the
signal is given, they charge over the thorns, regardless
of their bare feet, and in less than a minute the
mimic fortress is captured. At intervals of twenty
minutes, the other corps have captured the remaining
piles, and they all return in triumph, each leading
a slave by a rope. On reaching the royal
canopy, each Amazon presents a scalp supposed to
have been taken during the sham fight.
Sometimes the Amazons are rehearsed in volley-firing
and target-practice. They load and fire
quickly, singing all the time. Their target-practice
is moderately good. Several thousand goats are
tied to stakes in a large field surrounded by a
mud wall about ten feet high. Most of the goats
are killed before the day is over; which, when we
take into account the indifferent quality of their
powder, and the careless manner in which they
load, speaks very well for the Amazons as markswomen.
The King of Dahomey is almost always engaged in
some war, whether foreign or domestic; therefore a
few hundred Amazons are constantly on active
service. Like the Old Guard, the services of these
female warriors are never brought into use save in
cases of dire necessity, or when considerable opposition
is expected. As the Amazons always strive
not only to behead, but to scalp their enemies, they
are pretty sure of having one or more of these
ghastly trophies to show the King on their return
from a campaign. Scalps, however, do not accumulate
so fast as one might suppose; six or seven
in a year is considered rather a large number, for
the Amazons are frequently obliged, after slaying a
foe, to pass on without securing his topknot.
The Slave-trade provides very constant exercise
for the Amazons; because, whenever the King
requires slaves, it is necessary to go to war with
some neighbour—though of course, his Majesty
easily finds a casus belli. But the great thorn
of vexation in the royal side for the past thirty
years and more has been the republic of Abbeokuta.
The influence of this free state, in destroying the
slave-trade, very naturally brought down the hatred
of the King of Dahomey, who is the largest dealer in
human flesh on the African coast. More than once
he has tried to conquer this sturdy little city. On
the 3rd of March, 1851, he appeared before the
walls of Abbeokuta at the head of a great army—male
and female. A furious attack was made to
gain the ramparts, but the rapid, murderous fire of
the Egbas drove back the Dahomans with fearful
slaughter, and put them to rout. The Amazons led
the attack; many were slain—nearly all the slain
Dahomans were women—and one or two made
prisoners.
The King undertook a second expedition against
Abbeokuta in March, 1864. At the head of ten
thousand picked warriors, and three brass six-pounders,
he arrived before the walls on the 16th. The
Amazons formed the column of attack, and displayed
their accustomed bravery. Directly the
signal was given for the assault, they scaled the
wall like furies, and for a time threatened to carry
everything before them. One Amazon having her
right hand cut off, clung to the parapet and killed
her adversary with her left, before being hurled back
into the ditch.
The Egbas received the Amazons with a murderous
fire, which thinned their ranks terribly.
They were obliged to seek safety in flight, and their
example was speedily followed by the whole Dahoman
army. The Egbas, sallying forth, pursued the
retreating foe, massacring the stragglers without
mercy. In this congenial task they were joined by
the neighbouring tribes, who turned out in great
numbers and joined heartily in the carnage.
The King of Dahomey experienced a most
disastrous rout, with the loss of three thousand of
of his best soldiers, one thousand being slain, and
two thousand taken prisoners.
THE END.
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
10, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN-INN-FIELDS.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page ii, "Hänsell" changed to "Hänsel" (in Women—Minna Hänsel)
Page viii, "South" changed to "Savage" to match chapter text (Savage Africa)
Page 7, "betwen" changed to "between" (to a duel between)
Page 36, "ruinœ" changed to "ruinæ" (Impavidam serient
ruinæ)
Page 36, "Elisèe" changed to "Elisée" (when Elisée assisted)
Page 42, "left the" changed to "the left" (below the left eye)
Page 43, "Langerin" changed to "Langevin" (Renée Langerin—Madlle)
Page 43, "Felicité" changed to "Félicité" (Félicité and Théophile de)
Page 46, repeated word "to" deleted. Original read (introduced to to
the Abbé)
Page 68, "ben" changed to "been" (ball had been)
Page 71, "villany" changed to "villainy" (reward of his villainy)
Page 100, "1634" changed to "1834" (in Spain, in 1834)
Page 102, "amunition" changed to "ammunition" (their ammunition, she went)
Page 142, repeated word "of" deleted. Original read (worthy of a better)
Page 165, "atacked" changed to "attacked" (attacked the Mogul)
Page 169, "entertianed" changed to "entertained" (which she entertained)
