The Ladies In The Field

From the Richmond Dispatch, July 20, 1861

Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.
The ladies in the field — our crops attended to by them, &c.

James City County, July 17, 1861.

As many of our citizens have gone to meet "the enemy," and most of the laborers have been drafted to work on different fortifications, the ladies of this county doubled their diligence, and to-day many meet to form a sewing society and report the number of beds and articles for the benefit of the sick at Yorktown.

Yesterday two ladies could be seen, with their hoes in hand, weeding corn, as such work is very necessary at this time. One of them informed me that she weeded about 2,500 hills, and that her sister was "too much for her" at weeding corn! What will the husband say when he hears that his wife is weeding corn? What will Virginians say? and what will the entire South say?

What prospect is there for "subjugation?" Is a man to be frightened by Abe Lincoln, when the ladies act thus? Call for millions of men; call for millions of dollars, and when there is no man to girt on his armor for warfare, woman will meet the hirelings of Yankeedom, and cause them to kneel and call for mercy.

I have only written a few lines, that you may insert it in your paper, to give to our sisters in the South what Virginia ladies are doing. I am not a writer for newspapers.

James City.

P. S.--The above lady will continue to weed corn till the crop is well over. She wrote her husband word that she had eleven hands in the field. J. C.

Unidentified woman holding a cased photograph of an unidentified solder in Confederate uniform
From Library of Congress Collection