Stand
Firm for your country: * *
* * it were a noble life,
To be found dead embracing her.
Johnson.
There is strength
Deep bedded in our hearts, of which we reck
But little.
Mrs. Hemans.
We find the following incident in the first volume of American Anecdotes, “original and select.” The young heroine of the adventure afterwards married a rich planter named Threrwits, who lived on the Congaree. She has been dead more than half a century, but her name should be remembered while this republic is permitted to stand.
“At the time General Greene retreated before Lord Rawdon from Ninety-Six, when he had passed Broad river, he was very desirous to send an order to General Sumter, who was on the Wateree, to join him, that they might attack Rawdon, who had divided his force. But the General could find no man in that part of the state who was bold enough to undertake so dangerous a mission. The country to be passed through for many miles was full of blood thirsty tories, who, on every occasion that offered, imbrued their hands in the blood of the whigs. At length Emily Geiger presented herself to General Greene, and proposed to act as his messenger: and the General, both surprised and delighted, closed with her proposal. He accordingly wrote a letter and delivered it, and at the same time communicated the contents of it verbally, to be told to Sumter in case of accidents.
“Emily was young, but as to her person or adventures on the way, we have no further information, except that she was mounted on horseback, upon a side-saddle, and on the second day of her journey she was intercepted by Lord Rawdon’s scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene’s army, and not being able to tell an untruth without blushing, Emily was suspected and confined to a room; and as the officer in command had the modesty not to search her at the time, he sent for an old tory matron as more fitting for that purpose. Emily was not wanting in expedient, and as soon as the door was closed and the bustle a little sub-sided, she ate up the letter, piece by piece. After a while the matron arrived, and upon searching carefully, nothing was to be found of a suspicious nature about the prisoner, and she would disclose nothing. Suspicion being thus allayed, the officer commanding the scouts suffered Emily to depart whither she said she was bound; but she took a route somewhat circuitous to avoid further detention, and soon after struck into the road to Sumter’s camp, where she arrived in safety. Emily told her adventure, and delivered Green’s verbal message to Sumter, who, in consequence, soon after joined the __ain army at Orangeburgh.”
______
Excerpted from Noble Deeds of American Women
(Patriotic Series for Boys and Girls)
Edited by J. Clement
——
With an Introduction by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney
Illustrated
BOSTON: Lee and Shepard, Publishers
Entered by Act of Congress, in the year of 1851,
by E. H. Derby and Co., in the Clerk’s Office of the Northern District of New York
______
NOTE:
The blank space in the last line represents a missing letter in the text. It seems reasonable to conclude that the word in question is “main,” but without at least a piece of a letter to give more proof I’ve opted for the blank.