THE PETTICOAT CAMPAIGN.

Grey River Argus, Volume VI, Issue 411, 1 September 1868, Page 3

THE PETTICOAT CAMPAIGN.

(From the Buenos Ayres Standard. ) Lieutenant-Colonel Margaret Ferreira aud Captain Anita Gill are the female officers in command at the pass of the river Tebicuari, where a very respectable force of girls and women is held under arms to dispute the passage of the river by the Allies. This is the tenor of the advices that last came down from Paraguay, and every well informed person in military matters knows that they are correct. Brigadier General Eliza Lynch, with the main body of the female army is encamped midway between the pass of the river and a small inland town. On the road to Villa Rica the right wing of her army, under the command of the mother of Captain Herrero, has deployed to the left so as to hang on the invaders should they effect a crossing of the river, and cut up Mrs Colonel Margaret Ferreira and her. heroic girls. Relays of girls and women keep constantly arriving at the headquarters of the f emenine Commander-m-Cluef. From what we gather from letters and statements it would seem that the male portion of the Paraguayan army is veiy reduced, and are occupied in defending the fortress at Humaita, the positions near Timbo, the encampment at Villa Rica, and the fortification at Lambare. The guerilla portion of the campaign — or what is termed here "the guerra de recuros" — is entrusted to the women of Paraguay ; and reliable data have been received that the troops to the north, near the Tranquera Loreto are exclusively composed of women. Melancholy, indeed, is it to think that in this, the nineteenth century, a country should be driven to such straits, a race of human beings so hounded down that the women must be torn from their homes to fill the exhausted ranks of a worn-out army. But let it not be supposed that there is any exaggeration in the foregoing news ; every newspaper in Buenos Ayres has already published the glaring and awful fact that Lupez had commenced recruiting women ! The only difference is that we give the news more in detail, having at our command superior information from the foreigners up the river As to the exact number of the women under arms in Paraguay at present it is impossible to say, owing to the varied and conflicting statements ; but for years past a great portion of the heavy work attending' on camp life has been performed by the unfortunate daughters of that once lovely country ! Even in the trenches around Humaita the weak arm of women has shovelled out the earth to make a grave for the Allied invaders ! female chasques have gone from point to point over the country with despatches ; the steamers and vessels in the port of Asuncion have been alternately discharged and laden by the trembling hands of women in the capital. l Everything of worth and value that these poor women possessed has been snatched from them to assist in the defence of their country! They have toiled in the field for the last three years ; they have sowed, raised, and harvested the crops ; they have made clothes for the soldiers from the fibres of plants ; they have maintained the hospitals, cared for the wounded and sick ; they have supplied the army— and now, with Satanic power, they are dragged to the front, and placed in the breach to fight the whole Allied army ! It may be obedience, it may be enthusiasm or it may be patriotism which drags the whole female population of Paraguay with muskets and sabres on the hill tops and in the valleys to fight the invading army but we would despair indeed, for the cause of humanity did we think, for one moment that the uuconquered Paraguayan, heroines lacked the unequivocal sympathies of the people of this country. If the new phase which this campaign

has taken, affords food for satire and has assumed the ridiculous, if the grinding despotism of Lopez in forcing the unfortunate Paraguayan women from their homes to defend a cause more personal than national, calls for the imprecations of a civilized world, bo also the heroism of this hounded down and unconquered people stands forth in grand sublimity and attracts an admiration which sheds a halo round their cause. History affords us many instances of very brave female warriors; but the world must be gone over again before we can find a single instance of a heathen or Christian army of womenmarched out in battle array to fight an army of men soldiers. We doubt even if the interminable and unrecorded wars of the niggers, in the unexplored fastnesses of Africa, such an inhuman system of warfare was ever known.