Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1882 — The Heroine of Matagorda. [ARTICLE]

The Heroine of Matagorda.

The tempest lasted thirty hours, aud thirty-four men out of 140 had fallen. The fort was not more than 100 yards square; and “here,” says Napier, “be it recorded an action of which it is difficult to say whether it was most feminine or heroic. ” The action referred to, as detailed in “The Eventful Life of a Soldier,” won the woman for long after the sobriquet of “The Heroine of Matagorda.” She was the wife of Sergeant Reston, of the Scots brigade. Under fire she tore up her linen to form bandages for the wound, d; and water being wanted, a drummer boy was ordered to draw some from a well, but the scared child did not seem much inclined to the task, and lingered at the door of a hut with the bucket in his hand. “Why don’t you go for the water?” asked the Surgeon angrily. “ The puir bairn is frightened,” said Mrs. Reston, “ aud no wonder; gie the bucket to me. ” And under all that dreadful storm she proceeded coolly to the well, procuring water for the wounded. General Napier says a shot cut the bucket rope in her hand, but she recovered it and fulfilled her mission. “Her attention to the wounded was beyond all praise, ” says Sergeant Donaldson, of the 94th ; she carried sand bags for the repair of the batteries, and handed ammunition, wine, and water to men at the guns. “ I think I see her yet,” he adds, “while the shot and shell were flying thick around her, bending her body to slieild her child from danger by the exposure of her own person.” She died at an early age, in Glasgow, without other token to her merit than that accorded by the humble book of her husband’s comrade. —British Battles.