From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 246:
A LOCAL CIVIL WAR INCIDENT–"HURRAH FOR MOTHER WITH THE RASPBERRY PIE"
On Monday, the 24th day of September, 1861, the 5th Vermont regiment broke camp at St. Albans and passed through Bellows Falls on its way to Brattleboro, and from thence to Washington, there to join the 2d and 3d regiments which were in camp at Chain Bridge. They were a fine body of men, stout, hard and gentlemanly. Bellows Falls had more than an ordinary interest in this regiment for it gave one of its best citizens and most prominent lawyers for one of its leading officers. Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Grant was its first major.
On arriving in Bellows Falls at about 6 in the evening, an incident occurred long remembered by many of the large crowd which had gathered to greet the soldiers. For many years it was referred to and discussed by several who were on the platform and witnessed it. The soldiers were given a lunch at the depot by local people, the train stopping for the purpose 20 minutes.
While the ladies were distributing the food, an elderly woman very plainly and unfashionably dressed, with a thin face and whitening hair, quietly elbowed her way through the crowd with a huge basket hung on her arm. The car windows and platforms were filled with soldiers, and one sang out, "What ye got in your basket, mother?" With an expression of satisfaction on her worn face, which a bystander described over 30 years ago to the writer, saying he "remembered it as if it was but yesterday," she, without speaking, handed him a raspberry pie. One taste was a signal for more calls, and she passed up and down the platform till the [247] immense basket was emptied and still the call came from the boys, "Hand up another pie, mother," and as the train moved on, hands and caps went up with "Hurrah for the mother with the raspberry pie," and "God bless you, mother."
She turned away with a smile and a tear, her face beaming with happiness no words can express, as though no benediction would ever be half so holy. The bystander who rehearsed the story 30 years later added, "I often wonder who she might be; was she a mother? Had she a boy gone out before, waiting in camp for McClellan to move on, or early sleeping near the Potomac? Or was she already made childless or a widow by the war? She was a stranger and in the humbler walks of life; her deed was not a great one, but her patriotism is immortal. She has doubtless long since gone on her long journey, from which there is no return, but 'the cup of cold water' has its reward." Certain it is that these memories of home, and such incidents in the Green Mountain State, added to the quiet courage, bravery and energy of our boys in blue and made the Old Vermont brigade the one notably recognized by the brave and lamented Gen. John Sedgwick in the Wilderrness, when he said, "Keep the column closed up and put the Vermonters ahead."