THE HEROINE OF MATAGORDA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 8 April 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HEROINE OF MATAGORDA.

Theitempest lasted for thirty hours, and 61 men out of 140 had fallo.n. The fort was not more !than a hundred yards square; and "hercj" says Napier, "be'recorded'an action of which it is diffioijU.jto, say .whether it were most feminine oi; heroic." The action referred to, as] detailed in '• The ; Eventful Life, of a Soldier," won the for long after in Scotland the sobriquet of Heroine.of Matagjorda," She, was the wife of Sergeant Restoo, ,of, the Scote Brigade, Under Are, she tore' : up her linen,' to form bandages for thb' Wounded; and water being wanted, a drum-' rner' hoy was ordered;. to draw some from a well, but the scared child did not seem much inclined to the task, and lingereilat the door

of a hut with the : bucket in his.h'and, " Why don't ;yon go| for the water?" asked the Bargeon,:angrily. "The puir bairn is frightened," said Mrs', Eeston," and no wonder; : give the bucket to me," And under all' that dreadful storm'.she proceeded. cOolly, to the well, procuring water for the wounded. Ueneral Napier sfates that a shot out the bucket-rope in'her'hand, butshe recovered it, and'fulfilled her. mission. Her attention to the, wounded was beyond all praise, says Sergeant Donaldson, of the 94th; Bbccanied sand-bags for the repair of the batteries, and handed ammunition, wine, and water to the men ,it the guns, " I think I see her yet," he adds, " while the shot and shell were flying thick around her, bending her body to' shield her child from danger by the exposure of her own person." She died at an old age in Glasgow, without other token to'her merit than that accorded by the humble book of her husband's comrade,— 1 " British Battles on Land and Sea."