– The spell is thine that reaches
The heart.
Halleck.
Prudence protects and guides us.
Young.
Rachel Caldwell was the daughter of the Rev. Alexander Craighead and the wife of David Caldwell, D. D., whose history is somewhat identified with that of North Carolina. For several years he was at the head of a classical school at Guilford in that state, and in the vocation of teacher he had, at times, the efficient aid of his faithful and talented companion. She was a woman of exalted piety; and such a degree of success attended her “labor of love” in the school, that it became a common saying that “Dr. Caldwell makes the scholars, and Mrs. Caldwell makes the preachers.”
More than once during the Revolution, the house of Dr. Caldwell, who was a stanch friend of his country, was assailed by tories:* and on one occasion, while his wife was alone and the marauders were collecting plunder, they broke open a chest or drawer and took therefrom a table-cloth which was the gift of her mother. She seized it the moment the soldier had it fairly in his hand, and made an effort to wrest it from him. Finding she would be the loser in a trial of physical strength, she instinctively resorted to the power of rhetoric. With her grasp still firm on the precious article, she turned to the rest of the plunderers, who stood awaiting the issue of the contest, and in a beseeching tone and with words warm with eloquence, asked if some of their number had not wives for the love of whom they would assist her, and spare the one dear memorial of a mother’s affection! Her plea, though short, was powerful, and actually moved one man to tears. With rills of sympathy running down his cheeks, he assured her he had a wife-a wife that he loved – and that for her sake the table-cloth should be given up. This was accordingly done, and no further rudeness was offered.
In the fall of 1780, a “way-worn and weary” stranger, bearing dispatches from Washington to Greene, stopped at her house and asked for supper and lodgings. Before he had eaten, the house began to be surrounded by tories, who were in pursuit of him. Mrs. Caldwell led him out at a back-door unseen in the darkness, and ordered him to climb a large locust tree, and there remain till the house was plundered and the pursuers had departed. He did so. Mrs. Caldwell lost her property, but her calmness and prudence saved the express, and that was what most concerned the patriotic woman.
* The tories not only destroyed his property, but drove him into the woods, where he was often obliged to pass nights; and some of his escapes from captivity or death are said to have been almost miraculous.- He resumed his labors as teacher and pastor after the war; and continued to preach till his ninety-sixth year. He died in 1824, at the age of ninety-nine. His wife died the following year in the eighty-seventh of her age.
______
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
______