It was in character and gift to the nation only, and not in incident, that the life of Madam Washington deserves chronicle; and others now demand notice in this chapter. Though the wife of Washington will be spoken of in an ensuing chapter, as being the first of the "first ladies of the land," mention must not be omitted of one whose very existence has been well-nigh forgotten--the sister of Washington. Of her, it is true, there is little to be gathered; but we are told that "she was a most majestic woman, and so strikingly like the brother that it was a matter of frolic to throw a cloak around her and place a military hat upon her head; and such was the perfect resemblance that had she appeared on her brother's steed, battalions would have presented arms and senates risen to do homage to the chief." Further she was not noted, and she lived her life in quiet, hardly coming within the radiance cast around by the deeds done by her illustrious brother. Only for his sake does she deserve notice here.
Hardly to that brother did the country owe greater debt than to the women whom it had nurtured. Patriotic as were the majority of American men, ready to suffer as well as to die in the cause of country, they were less patriotic, and their endurance was less splendid, than that shown by the women of our land. The patriotism evinced itself in many different ways; sometimes in mere sallies of wit, as with the famous Miss Franks, the daughter of a Jewish merchant. Rebecca Franks was celebrated for her wit and accomplishments. She was a loyalist at heart, and afterward married Sir Henry Johnson, an English general; but her keen jests at the expense of the British did not impress them with her devotion to their cause. When, at a ball in New York, Sir Henry Clinton, then holding on with rapidly relaxing grasp to English dominance in America, called to the musicians to play _Britons, strike home!_ Miss Franks remarked that what he should have said was "Britons, go home!" Other ironies are credited to her; but none, probably, having such keen point as the repartee of a South Carolina maiden, in whose presence Colonel Tarleton spoke sneeringly of Colonel Washington and wished he "could see this paragon!" "Had you looked behind you at the battle of the Cowpens, Colonel Tarleton," replied the young lady, "you would have had that pleasure!" Whereat the hard-fighting dragoon, who on that day had run harder than he had fought, was much discomfited.