Tragic Feats of a Heroine—A Female Pitched Battle—Sanguinary Results of Jealousy.
The Nashville Union of Saturday last tells the following extraordinary story:
One of the most sanguinary deeds growing out of jealousy, and one of the highest exhibitions of female courage we have seen any account of for many a day, occurred a few days since near the Last Tennessee line in the edge of North Carolina, bordering on Blount county. The account which we abbreviate from the several reports seems miraculous. The parties represented are creditable and respectable.
It appears that the wife of James Davenport became jealous of a young girl named Kate Jackson, represented as being quite handsome and lovable. Quarrels and contentions were fierce and frequent between the two ladies.
On the day of the fatal collision it appears that Miss Kate Jackson, in company with her married sister, Mrs. DeArmand, passed the residence of the Davenport family. As soon as the sisters were discovered on the road the Davenports, six in number, comprising the mother, three daughters, two of them grown, and two sons, the eldest about eighteen years old, rallied in force, and set out in vigorous pursuit of the defenseless sisters. The trail was continued until the Bisters had nearly reached the Tennessee line. Here the Davenport brothers, by a movement, strategetically flanked them, and presented a front armed with sticks and stones. This caused Kate and her sister first to halt, and then to attempt to retrace their steps. But upon attempting to retreat they were confronted by Mrs. Davenport and her three daughters similarly armed, who demanded Mrs. DeArmand to get out of the way, as they intended to kill Kate. Instead of obeying this militia order, Mrs. DeArmand made preparations to defend her sister. Young Davenport, the elder son, seeing this opposition to his order, at once let go a stone at her, which took effect on her head, breaking her skull, and prostrating her lifeless on the ground.
The heroic Kate was thus, at the onset of the engagement, left to defend herself. She rallied and maintained her line by indiscriminately hurling upon the attacking party such flinty missiles as came opportune to her. One of these shots took immediate effect upon the elder Davenport boy, slitting one side of his face open, and placing him hors de combat. Turning her attention then to the maternal head of the Davenport family, she directed a stone against her head, that inflicted a severe wound and laid her sprawling on the field. This accomplished, the brave girl slowly fell back to a position where she could supply herself with necessary ammunition.
This point obtained, and being still besieged, she again discharged a shot, and another of the Davenport boys wilted. Then the Davenport girls rallied and made a desperate charge upon her with clubs and stones, inflicting serious wounds, but not succeeding in getting her down. Just at this crisis Kate, hard pressed as she was, and having no time to stoop to gather rocks to defend herself, extricated from her pocket a small pen-knife, measuring about six inches in the blade, and commenced an indiscriminate and very wild and general cutting and slashing at the combined Davenport girls surrounding her. The result of this fearful frenzy on the part of Kate was seriously detrimental to the well-being of the Davenport females. Two of them received serious slashes from the weapon she wielded, one of them drooping on the field from loss of blood let flooding from the knife, and the other so seriously disabled as to be a fit subject for hospital practice.
This unexpected result contributed materially to the withdrawal of the remaining Davenport besieging party, who quietly removed their disabled from the field, leaving the heroic Kate master of the situation. The casualties sustained in this engagement only amount to the death of Mrs. DeArmand, with the probability that the elder Miss Davenport will also die, and the crippling for life of four others of the Davenport family. Kate Jackson was less injured than any one engaged in the fight, and was able to carry her dead sister home after the battle closed.
The Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 1870