THE HOSPITAL CORPS AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY HOSPITAL, ANNAPOLIS.
hough the Naval Academy buildings at Annapolis had been used for hospital purposes, from almost the first months of the war, they did not acquire celebrity, or accommodate a very large number of patients until August, 1863, when Surgeon Vanderkieft took charge of it, and it received great numbers of the wounded men from Gettysburg. As the number of these was reduced by deaths, convalescence and discharge from the army, their places were more than supplied by the returning prisoners, paroled or discharged, from Libby, Belle Isle, Andersonville, Millen, Salisbury, Florence and Wilmington. These poor fellows under the horrible cruelties, systematically practiced by the rebel authorities, with the avowed intention of weakening the Union forces, had been starved, frozen, maimed and tortured until they had almost lost the semblance of humanity, and one of the noble women who cared for them so tenderly, states that she often found herself involuntarily placing her hand upon her cheek to ascertain whether their flesh was like hers, human and vitalized. The sunken hollow cheeks, the parchment skin drawn so tightly over the bones, the great, cavernous, lackluster eyes, the half idiotic stare, the dreamy condition, the loss of memory even of their own names, and the wonder with which they regarded the most ordinary events, so strange to them after their long and fearful experience, all made them seem more like beings from some other world, than inhabitants of this. Many of them never recovered fully their memory or reason; the iron had entered the soul. Others lingered long on the confines of two worlds, now rallying a little and then falling back, till finally the flickering life went out suddenly; a few of the hardiest and toughest survived, and recovered partial though seldom or never complete health. During a part of the first year of Dr. Vanderkieft's administration, Mrs. Adaline Tyler ("Sister Tyler") was Lady Superintendent of the hospital, and the sketch elsewhere given of her life shows how earnestly and ably she labored to promote the interest of its inmates. During most of this time Miss Maria M. C. Hall had charge of section five, consisting of the hospital tents which occupied a part of the academical campus. Miss Helen M. Noye, a young lady from Buffalo, a very faithful, enthusiastic and cheerful worker, was her assistant, and remained for nearly a year in the hospital.
When in the spring of 1864, Miss Hall was appointed Mrs. Tyler's successor as Lady Superintendent of the hospital, its numerous large wards required several assistant superintendents who should direct the preparation of the special diet, and the other delicacies so desirable for the sick, attend to the condition of the men, ascertain their circumstances and history, correspond with their friends, and endeavor so far as possible to cheer, comfort and encourage their patients.
When the number of patients was largest twenty of these assistants were required, and the illness of some, or their change to other fields, rendered the list a varying one, over thirty different ladies being connected with the hospital during the two years from July, 1863, to July, 1865.
A considerable number of these ladies had accompanied Mrs. Tyler to Annapolis, having previously been her assistants in the general hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania. Among these were nine from Maine, viz., Miss Louise Titcomb, Miss Susan Newhall, Miss Rebecca R. Usher, Miss Almira Quimby, Miss Emily W. Dana, Miss Adeline Walker, Miss Mary E. Dupee, Miss Mary Pierson, and Mrs. Eunice D. Merrill, all women of excellent abilities and culture, and admirably adapted to their work. One of this band of sisters, Miss Adeline Walker, died on the 28th of April, 1865, of malignant typhus, contracted in the discharge of her duties in the hospital.
Of her Miss Hall wrote in the Crutch, "She slept at sunset, sinking into the stillness of death as peacefully as a melted day into the darkness of the night. For two years and a half—longer than almost any other here—she had pursued her labors in this hospital, and with her ready sympathy with the suffering or wronged, had ministered to many needy ones the balm of comfort and healing. Her quick wit and keen repartee has served to brighten up many an hour otherwise dull and unhomelike in our little circle of workers, gathered in our quarters off duty.
"So long an inmate of this hospital its every part was familiar to her; its trees and flowers she loved; in all its beauties she rejoiced. We could almost fancy a hush in nature's music, as we walked behind her coffin, under the beautiful trees in the bright May sunshine.
"It was a touching thing to see the soldier-boys carrying the coffin of her who had been to them in hours of pain a minister of good and comfort. Her loss is keenly felt among them, and tears are on the face of more than one strong man as he speaks of her. One more veteran soldier has fallen in the ranks, one more faithful patriot-heart is stilled. No less to her than to the soldier in the field shall be awarded the heroic honor.
'For God metes to each his measure;
And the woman's patient prayer,
No less than ball or bayonet
Brings the victory unaware.'
"Patient prayer and work for the victory to our country was the life of our sister gone from us; and in the dawning of our brighter days, and the coming glory of our regenerated country, it is hard to lay her away in unconsciousness; hard to close her eyes against the bright sunshine of God's smile upon a ransomed people; hard to send her lifeless form away from us, alone to the grave in her far off home; hard to realize that one so familiar in our little band shall go no more in and out among us. But we say farewell to her not without hope. Her earnest spirit, ever eager in its questioning of what is truth, was not at rest with simply earthly things. Her reason was unsatisfied, and she longed for more than was revealed to her of the Divine. To the land of full realities she is gone. We trust that in his light she shall see light; that waking in his likeness, she shall be satisfied, and evermore at rest. We cannot mourn that she fell at her post. Her warfare is accomplished, and the oft-expressed thought of her heart is in her death fulfilled. She has said, 'It is noble to die at one's post, with the armor on; to fall where the work has been done.'"
One of her associates from her own State thus speaks of her: "Miss Walker left many friends and a comfortable home in Portland, in the second year of the war. Her devotion and interest in the work so congenial to her feelings, increased with every year's experience, until she found herself bound to it heart and hand. Her large comprehension, too, of all the circumstances connected with the soldier's experience in and outside of hospital, quickened her sympathies and adapted her to the part she was to share, as counsellor and friend. Many a soldier lives, who can pay her a worthy tribute of gratitude for her care and sympathy in his hour of need; and in the beyond, of the thousands who died in the cause of liberty, there are many who may call her 'blessed.'"
Massachusetts was also largely represented among the faithful workers of the Naval Academy Hospital, at Annapolis. Among these Miss Abbie J. Howe, of Brookfield; Miss Kate P. Thompson, of Worcester, whose excessive labors and the serious illness which followed, have probably rendered her an invalid for life; Miss Eudora Clark, of Boston, Miss Ruth L. Ellis, of Bridgewater, Miss Sarah Allen, of Wilbraham, Miss Agnes Gillis, of Lowell, and Miss Maria Josslyn, of Roxbury, were those who were most laborious and faithful. From New Jersey there came a faithful and zealous worker, Miss Charlotte Ford, of Morristown. From New York there were Miss Helen M. Noye, of Buffalo, already named, Mrs. Guest, also of Buffalo, Miss Emily Gove, of Peru, Miss Mary Cary, of Albany, Miss Ella Wolcott, of Elmira, and Miss M. A. B. Young, of Morristown, New York. This lady, one of the most devoted and faithful of the hospital nurses, was also a martyr to her fidelity and patriotism, dying of typhus fever contracted in her attendance upon her patients, on the 12th of January, 1865.
Miss Young left a pleasant home in St. Lawrence County, New York, soon after the commencement of the war, with her brother, Captain James Young, of the Sixtieth New York Volunteers, and was an active minister of good to the sick and wounded of that regiment. She took great pride in the regiment, wearing its badge and having full faith in its valor. When the Sixtieth went into active service, she entered a hospital at Baltimore, but her regiment was never forgotten. She heard from it almost daily through her soldier-brother, between whom and herself existed the most tender devotion and earnest sympathy. From Baltimore she was transferred to Annapolis early in Mrs. Tyler's administration. In 1864, she suffered from the small-pox, and ever after her recovery she cared for all who were affected with that disease in the hospital.
Her thorough identity with the soldier's life and entire sacrifice to the cause, was perhaps most fully and touchingly evidenced by her oft repeated expression of a desire to be buried among the soldiers. When in usual health, visiting the graves of those to whom she had ministered in the hospital, she said, "If I die in hospital, let me buried here among my boys." This request was sacredly regarded, and she was borne to her last resting-place by soldiers to whom she had ministered in her own days of health.
Another of the martyrs in this service of philanthropy, was Miss Rose M. Billing, of Washington, District of Columbia, a young lady of most winning manners, and spoken of by Miss Hall as one of the most devoted and conscientious workers, she ever knew—an earnest Christian, caring always for the spiritual as well as the physical wants of her men. She was of delicate, fragile constitution, and a deeply sympathizing nature. From the commencement of the war, she had been earnestly desirous of participating in the personal labors of the hospital, and finally persuaded her mother, (who, knowing her frail health, was reluctant to have her enter upon such duties), to give her consent. She commenced her first service with Miss Hall, in the Indiana Hospital, in the Patent Office building, in the autumn of 1861, and subsequently served in the Falls Church Hospital, and at Fredericksburg. Early in 1863 she came to Annapolis, and no one of the nurses was more faithful and devoted in labors for the soldiers. Twice she had been obliged to leave her chosen work for a short time in consequence of illness, but she had hastened back to it with the utmost alacrity, as soon as she could again undertake her work. She had been eminently successful, in bringing up some cases of the fever, deemed by the surgeons, hopeless, and though she herself felt that she was exceeding her strength, or as she expressed it, "wearing out," she could not and would not leave her soldier boys while they were so ill; and when the disease fastened upon her, she had not sufficient vital energy left to throw it off. She failed rapidly and died on the 14th of January, 1865, after two weeks' illness. Her mother, after her death, received numerous letters from soldiers for whom she had cared, lamenting her loss and declaring that but for her faithful attentions, they should not have been in the land of the living. Among those who have given their life to the cause of their country in the hospitals, no purer or saintlier soul has exchanged the sorrows, the troubles and the pains of earth for the bliss of heaven, than Rose M. Billing.
OTHER LABORS OF SOME OF THE MEMBERS OF THE ANNAPOLIS HOSPITAL CORPS.
ome of the ladies named in the preceding sketch had passed through other experiences of hospital life, before becoming connected with the Naval Academy Hospital at Annapolis. Among these, remarkable for their fidelity to the cause they had undertaken to serve, were several of the ladies from Maine, the Maine-stay of the Annapolis Hospital, as Dr. Vanderkieft playfully called them. We propose to devote a little space to sketches of some of these faithful workers.
Miss Louise Titcomb, was from Portland, Maine, a young lady of high culture and refinement, and from the beginning of the War, had taken a deep interest in working for the soldiers, in connection with the other patriotic ladies of that city. When in the early autumn of 1862, Mrs. Adaline Tyler, as we have already said in our sketch of her, took charge as Lady Superintendent of the Hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania, which had previously been in the care of a Committee of ladies of the village, she sought for volunteer assistants in her work, who would give themselves wholly to it.
Miss Titcomb, Miss Susan Newhall, and Miss Rebecca R. Usher, all from Portland, were among the first to enter upon this work. They remained there eight months, until the remaining patients had become convalescent, and the war had made such progress Southward that the post was too far from the field to be maintained as a general hospital.
The duties of these ladies at Chester, were the dispensing of the extra and low diet to the patients; the charge of their clothing; watching with, and attending personally to the wants of those patients whose condition was most critical; writing for and reading to such of the sick or wounded as needed or desired these services, and attending to innumerable details for their cheer and comfort. Dr. Le Comte, the Surgeon-in-charge, and the assistant Surgeons of the wards, were very kind, considerate and courteous to these ladies, and showed by their conduct how highly they appreciated their services.
In August, 1863, when Mrs. Tyler was transferred to the Naval Academy Hospital, at Annapolis, these ladies went thither with her, where they were joined soon after by Miss Adeline Walker, Miss Almira F. Quimby, and Miss Mary Pierson, all of Portland, and Miss Mary E. Dupee, Miss Emily W. Dana, and Mrs. Eunice D. Merrill, all from Maine. Their duties here were more varied and fatiguing than at Chester. One of them describes them thus: "The Hospital was often crowded with patients enduring the worst forms of disease and suffering; and added to our former duties were new and untried ones incident to the terrible and helpless condition of these returned prisoners. Evening Schools were instituted for the benefit of the convalescents, in which we shared as teachers; at the Weekly Lyceum, through the winter, the ladies in turn edited and read a paper, containing interesting contributions from inmates of the Hospital; they devised and took part in various entertainments for the benefit of the convalescents; held singing and prayer-meetings frequently in the wards; watched over the dying, were present at all the funerals, and aided largely in forwarding the effects, and where it was possible the bodies of the deceased to their friends." Five of these faithful nurses were attacked by the typhus fever, contracted by their attention to the patients, exhausted as they were by overwork, from the great number of the very sick and helpless men brought to the hospital in the winter of 1864-5; and the illness of these threw a double duty upon those who were fortunate enough to escape the epidemic. To the honor of these ladies, it should be said that not one of them shrank from doing her full proportion of the work, and nearly all who survived, remained to the close of the war. For twenty months, Miss Titcomb was absent from duty but two days, and others had a record nearly as satisfactory. Nearly all would have done so but for illness.
Miss Rebecca Usher, of whom we have spoken as one of Miss Titcomb's associates, in the winter of 1864-5, accepted the invitation of the Maine Camp and Hospital Association, to go to City Point, and minister to the sick and wounded, especially of the Maine regiments there. She was accompanied by Miss Mary A. Dupee, who was one of the assistants at Annapolis, from Maine.
The Maine Camp and Hospital Association, was an organization founded by benevolent ladies of Portland, and subsequently having its auxiliaries in all parts of the state, having for its object the supplying of needful aid and comfort, and personal attention, primarily to the soldiers of Maine, and secondarily to those from other states. Mrs. James E. Fernald, Mrs. J. S. Eaton, Mrs. Elbridge Bacon, Mrs. William Preble, Miss Harriet Fox, and others were the managers of the association. Of these Mrs. J. S. Eaton, the widow of a Baptist clergyman, formerly a pastor in Portland, went very early to the front, with Mrs. Isabella Fogg, the active agent of the association, of whom we have more to say elsewhere, and the two labored most earnestly for the welfare of the soldiers. Mrs. Fogg finally went to the Western armies, and Mrs. Eaton invited Miss Usher and Miss Dupee, with some of the other Maine ladies to join her at City Point, in the winter of 1864-5. Mrs. Ruth S. Mayhew had been a faithful assistant at City Point from the first, and after Mrs. Fogg went to the West, had acted as agent of the association there. Miss Usher joined Mrs. Eaton and Mrs. Mayhew, in December, 1864, but Miss Dupee did not leave Annapolis till April, 1865. The work at City Point was essentially different from that at Annapolis, and less saddening in its character. The sick soldiers from Maine were visited in the hospital and supplied with delicacies, and those who though in health were in need of extra clothing, etc., were supplied as they presented themselves. The Maine Camp and Hospital Association were always ready to respond to a call for supplies from their agents, and there was never any lack for any length of time. In May, 1865, Mrs. Eaton and her assistants established an agency at Alexandria, and they carried their supplies to the regiments encamped around that city, and visited the comparatively few sick remaining in the hospitals. The last of June their work seemed to be completed and they returned home.
Miss Mary A. Dupee was devoted to the cause from the beginning of the war. She offered her services when the first regiment left Portland, and though they were not then needed, she held herself in constant readiness to go where they were, working meantime for the soldiers as opportunity presented. When Mrs. Tyler was transferred to Annapolis, she desired Miss Susan Newhall, a most faithful and indefatigable worker for the soldiers, who had been with her at Chester, to bring with her another who was like-minded. The invitation was given to Miss Dupee, who gladly accepted it. At Annapolis she had charge of thirteen wards and had a serving-room, where the food was sent ready cooked, for her to distribute according to the directions of the surgeons to "her boys." Before breakfast she went out to see that that meal was properly served, and to ascertain the condition of the sickest patients. Then forenoon and afternoon, she visited each one in turn, ministering to their comfort as far as possible. The work, though wearing, and at times accompanied with some danger of contagion, she found pleasant, notwithstanding its connection with so many sad scenes. The consciousness of doing good more than compensated for any toil or sacrifice, and in the review of her work, Miss Dupee expresses the belief that she derived as much benefit from this philanthropic toil as she bestowed. As we have already said, she was for three months at City Point and elsewhere ministering to the soldiers of her native State.
Miss Abbie J. Howe, of Brookfield, Massachusetts, was another of the Annapolis Hospital Corps deserving of especial mention for her untiring devotion to the temporal and spiritual welfare of the sick and wounded who were under her charge. We regret our inability to obtain so full an account of her work and its incidents as we desired, but we cannot suffer her to pass unnoticed. Miss Howe had from the beginning of the war been earnestly desirous to enter upon the work of personal service to the soldiers in the hospitals, but considerations of duty, the opposition of her friends, etc., had detained her at home until the way was unexpectedly opened for her in September, 1863. She came directly to Annapolis, and during her whole stay there had charge of the same wards which she first entered, although a change was made in the class of patients under her care in the spring of 1864. At first these wards were filled with private soldiers, but in April, 1864, they were occupied by the wounded and sick officers of the Officers' Hospital at that time established in the Naval Academy under charge of Surgeon Vanderkieft.
Miss Howe brought to her work not only extraordinary skill and tact in the performance of her duties, but a deep personal interest in her patients, a care and thoughtfulness for what might be best adapted to each individual case, as if each had been her own brother, and beyond this, an intense desire to promote their spiritual good. An earnest and devoted Christian, whose highest motive of action was the desire to do something for the honor and glory of the Master she loved, she entered upon her duties in such a spirit as we may imagine actuated the saints and martyrs of the early Christian centuries.
We cannot forbear introducing here a brief description of her work from one who knew her well:—"She came to Annapolis with a spirit ready and eager to do all things and suffer all things for the privilege of being allowed to work for the good of the soldiers. Nothing was too trivial for her to be engaged in for their sakes,—nothing was too great to undertake for the least advantage to one of her smallest and humblest patients. This was true of her regard to their bodily comfort and health—but still more true of her concern for their spiritual good. I remember very well that when she had been at work only a day or two she spoke to me with real joy of one of her sick patients, telling me of a hope she had that he was a Christian and prepared for death. * * * She loved the soldiers for the cause for which they suffered—but she loved them most, because she was actuated in all things by her love for her Saviour, and for them He had died. * * * I used to feel that her presence and influence, even if she had not been strong enough to work at all, would have been invaluable—the soldiers so instinctively recognized her true interest in them,—her regard for the right and her abhorrence of anything like deceit or untruthfulness, that they could not help trying to be good for her sake."
Miss Howe took a special interest in the soldier-nurses—the men detailed for extra duty in the wards. She had a very high opinion of their tenderness and faithfulness in their most trying and wearying work, and of their devotion to their suffering comrades. This estimate was undoubtedly true of most of those in her wards, and perhaps of a majority of those in the Naval Academy Hospital; but it would have been difficult for them to have been other than faithful and tender under the influence of her example and the loyalty they could not help feeling to a woman "so nobly good and true." Like all the others engaged in these labors among the returned prisoners, Miss Howe speaks of her work as one which brought its own abundant reward, in the inexpressible joy she experienced in being able to do something to relieve and comfort those poor suffering ones, wounded, bleeding, and tortured for their country's sake, and at times to have the privilege of telling the story of the cross to eager dying men, who listened in their agony longing to know a Saviour's love.
MRS. A. H. AND MISS S. H. GIBBONS.
rs. Gibbons is very well known in the City of New York where she resides, as an active philanthropist, devoting a large portion of her time and strength to the various charitable and reformatory enterprises in which she is engaged. This tendency to labors undertaken for the good of others, is, in part, a portion of her inheritance. The daughter of that good man, some years ago deceased, whose memory is so heartily cherished, by all to whom the record of a thousand brave and kindly deeds is known, so warmly by a multitude of friends, and by the oppressed and suffering—Isaac T. Hopper—we are justified in saying that his mantle has fallen upon this his favorite child.
The daughter of the noble and steadfast old Friend, could hardly fail to be known as a friend of the slave. Like her father she was ready to labor, and sacrifice and suffer in his cause, and had already made this apparent, had borne persecution, the crucial test of principle, before the war which gave to the world the prominent idea of freedom for all, and thus wiped the darkest stain from our starry banner, was inaugurated.
The record of the army work of Mrs. Gibbons, does not commence until the autumn of 1861. Previous to that time, her labors for the soldier had been performed at home, where there was much to be done in organizing a class of effort hitherto unknown to the women of our country. But she had always felt a strong desire to aid the soldiers by personal sacrifices.
It was quite possible for her to leave home, which so many mothers of families, whatever their wishes, were unable to do. Accordingly, accompanied by her eldest daughter, Miss Sarah H. Gibbons, now Mrs. Emerson, she proceeded to Washington, about the time indicated.
There, for some weeks, mother and daughter regularly visited the hospitals, of which there were already many in the Capitol City, ministering to the inmates, and distributing the stores with which they were liberally provided by the kindness of friends, from their own private resources, and from those of "The Woman's Central Association of Relief," already in active and beneficent operation in New York.
Their work was, however, principally done in the Patent Office Hospital, where they took a regular charge of a certain number of patients, and rendered excellent service, where service was, at that time, greatly needed.
While thus engaged they were one day invited by a friend from New York to take a drive in the outskirts of the city. Washington was at that time like a great camp, and was environed by fortifications, with the camps of different divisions, brigades, regiments, to each of which were attached the larger and smaller hospitals, where the sick and suffering languished, afar from the comforts and affectionate cares of home, and not yet inured to the privations and discomforts of army life. It can without doubt be said that they were patient, and when we remember that the most of them were volunteers, fresh from home, and new to war, that perhaps was all that could reasonably be expected of them.
The drive of Mrs. Gibbons, and her friends extended further than was at first intended, and they found themselves at Fall's Church, fifteen miles from the city. Here was a small force of New York troops, and their hospital containing about forty men, most of them very sick with typhoid fever.
Mrs. Gibbons and her daughter entered the hospital. All around were the emaciated forms, and pale, suffering faces of the men—their very looks an appeal for kindness which it was hardly possible for these ladies to resist.
One of them, a young man from Penn Yan, New York, fixed his sad imploring gaze upon the face of Mrs. Gibbons. Pale as if the seal of death had already been set upon his features, dreadfully emaciated, and too feeble for the least movement, except those of the large, dark, restless eyes, which seemed by the very intensity of their expression to draw her toward him. She approached and compassionately asked if there was anything she could do for him. The reply seemed to throw upon her a responsibility too heavy to be borne.
"Come and take care of me, and I shall get well. If you do not come, I shall die."
It was very hard to say she could not come, and with the constantly recurring thought of his words, every moment made it harder. It was, however, impossible at that time.
After distributing some little offerings they had brought, the party was forced to leave, carrying with them a memory of such suffering and misery as they had not before encountered. Fall's Church was situated in a nest of secessionists, who would have been open rebels except for the presence of the troops. No woman had ever shown her face within the walls of its hospital. The routine of duty had probably been obeyed, but there had been little sympathy and only the blundering care of men, entirely ignorant of the needs of the sick. The men were dying rapidly, and the number in the hospital fast diminishing, not by convalescence, but by death.
After she had gone away, the scene constantly recurred to Mrs. Gibbons, and she felt that a field of duty opened before her, which she had no right to reject. In a few days an opportunity for another visit occurred, which was gladly embraced. The young volunteer was yet living, but too feeble to speak. Again his eyes mutely implored help, and seemed to say that only that could beat back the advances of death. This time both ladies had come with the intention of remaining.
The surgeon was ready to welcome them, but told them there was no place for them to live. But that difficulty was overcome, as difficulties almost always are by a determined will. The proprietor of a neighboring "saloon," or eating-house, was persuaded to give the ladies a loft floored with unplaned boards, and boasting for its sole furniture, a bedstead and a barrel to serve as table and toilet. Here for the sum of five dollars per week, each, they were allowed to sleep, and they took their meals below.
There were at the date of their arrival thirty-nine sick men in the hospital, and six lay unburied in the dead-house. Two or three others died, and when they left, five or six weeks afterward, all had recovered, sufficiently at least to bear removal, save three whom they left convalescing. The young volunteer who had fastened his hope of life on their coming, had been able to be removed to his home, at Penn Yan, and they afterwards learned that he had entirely recovered his health.
Under their reign, cleanliness, order, quiet, and comfortable food, had taken the place of the discomfort that previously existed. The sick were encouraged by sympathy, and stimulated by it, and though they had persisted in their effort through great hardship, and even danger, for they were very near the enemy's lines, they felt themselves fully rewarded for all their toils and sacrifices.
During the month of January, their patients having nearly all recovered, Mrs. and Miss Gibbons, cheerfully obeyed a request to proceed to Winchester, and take their places in the Seminary Hospital there. This hospital was at that time devoted to the worst cases of wounded.
There were a large number of these in this place, most of them severely wounded, as has been said, and many of them dangerously so. The closest and most assiduous care was demanded, and the ladies found themselves at once in a position to tax all their strength and efforts. They were in this hospital over four months, and afterwards at Strasburg, where they were involved in the famous retreat from that place, when the enemy took possession, and held the hospital nurses, even, as prisoners, till the main body of their army was safely on the road that led to Dixie.
Many instances of that retreat are of historical interest, but space forbids their repetition here. It is enough to state that these ladies heroically bore the discomfort of their position, and their own losses in stores and clothing, regretting only that it was out of their power to secure the comforts of the wounded, who were hurried from their quarters, jolted in ambulances in torture, or compelled to drag their feeble limbs along the encumbered road.
After the retreat, and the subsequent abandonment of the Valley by the enemy, Mrs. Gibbons and her daughter returned for a short time to their home in New York.
Their rest, however, was not long, for on the 19th of July, they arrived at Point Lookout, Maryland, where Hammond United States General Hospital was about to be opened.
On the 20th, the day following, the first installment of patients arrived, two hundred and eighteen suffering and famished men from the rebel prison of Belle Isle.
A fearful scene was presented on the arrival of these men. The transport on which they came was full of miserable-looking wretches, lying about the decks, many of them too feeble to walk, and unable to move without help. Not one of the two hundred and eighty, possessed more than one garment. Before leaving Belle Isle, they had been permitted to bathe. The filthy, vermin-infected garments, which had been their sole covering for many months, were in most cases thrown into the water, and the men had clothed themselves as best they could, in the scanty supply given them. Many were wrapped in sheets. A pair of trowsers was a luxury to which few attained.
They were mostly so feeble as to be carried on stretchers to the hospital. Mrs. Gibbons' first duty was to go on board the transport with food, wine and stimulants, to enable them to endure the removal; and when once removed, and placed in their clean beds, or wards, there was sufficient employment in reducing all to order, and nursing them back to health. Many were hopelessly broken down by their past sufferings, but most eventually recovered their strength.
Mrs. and Miss Gibbons remained at Point Lookout fifteen months. After a short time Mrs. Gibbons finding her usefulness greatly impaired by being obliged to act under the authority of Miss Dix, who was officially at the head of all nurses, applied for, and received from Surgeon-General Hammond an independent appointment in this hospital, which gave her sole charge of it, apart from the medical supervision. In this appointment the Surgeon-General was sustained by the War Department. In her application Mrs. Gibbons was influenced by no antagonism to Miss Dix, but simply by her desire for the utmost usefulness.
The military post of Point Lookout was at that time occupied by two Maryland Regiments, of whom Colonel Rogers had the command. If not in sympathy with rebellion, they undoubtedly were with slavery. Large numbers of contrabands had flocked thither, hoping to be protected in their longings for freedom. In this, however, they were disappointed. As soon as the Maryland masters demanded the return of their absconding property, the Maryland soldiers were not only willing to accede to the demand, but to aid in enforcing it.
Mrs. Gibbons found herself in a continual unpleasant conflict with the authorities. Sympathy, feeling, sense of justice, the principles of a life, were all on the side of the enslaved, and their attempt to escape. She worked for them, helped them to evade the demands of their former masters, and often sent them on their way toward the goal of their hopes and efforts, the mysterious North.
She endured persecution, received annoyances, anonymous threats, and had much to bear, which was borne cheerfully for the sake of these oppressed ones. General Lockwood, then commander of the post, was always the friend of herself and her protegés, a man of great kindness of heart, and a lover of justice.
As has been said, they remained at Point Lookout fifteen months. The summer following her introduction to the place, Mrs. Gibbons visited home, and after remaining but a short time returned to her duties. She had left all at home tranquil and serene, and did not dream of the hidden fires which were even then smouldering, and ready to burst into flame.
She had not long returned before rumors of the riots in New York, the riots of July, 1863, reached Point Lookout.
"If private houses are attacked, ours will be one of the first," said Miss Gibbons, on the reception of these tidings, and though her mother would not listen to the suggestion, she very well knew it was far from impossible.
That night they retired full of apprehension, and had not fallen asleep when some one knocked at their door with the intimation that bad news had arrived for them. They asked if any one was dead, and on being assured that there was not, listened with comparative composure when they learned that their house in New York had been sacked by the mob, and most of its contents destroyed.
The remainder of the night was spent in packing, and in the morning they started for home.
It was a sad scene that presented itself on their arrival. There was not an unbroken pane of glass in any of the windows. The panels of the doors were many of them beaten in as with an axe. The furniture was mostly destroyed, bureaus, desks, closets, receptacles of all kinds had been broken open, and their contents stolen or rendered worthless; the carpets, soaked with a trampled conglomerate of mud and water, oil and filth, the debris left by the feet of the maddened, howling crowd, were entirely ruined; beds and bedding, mirrors, and smaller articles had been carried away, the grand piano had had a fire kindled on the key-board, as had the sofas and chairs upon their velvet seats, fires that were, none knew how, extinguished.
Over all were scattered torn books and valuable papers, the correspondence with the great minds of the country for years, trampled into the grease and filth, half burned and defaced. The relics of the precious only son, who had died a few years before—the beautiful memorial room, filled with pictures he had loved, beautiful vases, where flowers always bloomed; and a thousand tokens of the loved and lost, had shared the universal ruin. So had the writings and the clothing of the lamented father, Isaac T. Hopper—of all these priceless mementoes, there remained only the marble, life-size, bust of the son, which Mr. Gibbons had providentially removed to a place of safety, and a few minor objects. And all this ruin, and irreparable loss, had been visited upon this charitable and patriotic family, by a furious, demoniac mob, because they loved Freedom, Justice, and their country.
After this disaster the family were united beneath a hired roof for some time, while their own house was repaired, and the fragments of its scattered plenishing, and abundant treasures, were gathered together and reclaimed.
Mrs. Gibbons returned for a brief space to Point Lookout, where her purpose was to instal the Misses Woolsey, and then leave them in charge of the hospital.
Circumstances, however, prevented her from leaving the Point for a much longer period than she had intended to stay, and when she did leave, she was accompanied by the Misses Woolsey, and the whole party returned to New York together.
We have no record of the further army work of Mrs. and Miss Gibbons until the opening of the grand campaign of the Army of the Potomac, the following May.
Immediately after the battle of the Wilderness, Mrs. Gibbons received a telegram desiring her to come to the aid of the wounded. She resolved at once to go, and urged her daughter to accompany her, as she had always done before. Miss Gibbons had, in the meantime, married, and in the course of a few weeks become a widow. She felt reluctant to return to the work she had so loved, but her mother's wish prevailed. The next day they started, and in a very short space of time found themselves amidst the horrible confusion and suffering which prevailed at Belle Plain.
Their stay there was but brief, and in a short time they were themselves established at Fredericksburg. There Mrs. Gibbons was requested to take charge of a hospital, or rather a large unfurnished building, which was to be used as one. In great haste straw was found to fill the empty bed-sacks, which were placed upon the floor, and the means to feed the suffering mass who were expected. The men, in all the forms of suffering, were placed upon these beds, and cared for as well as they could be, as fast as they arrived, and Mrs. Emerson prepared food for them, standing unsheltered in rain or sultry heat.
For weeks they toiled thus. One day when the town was beautiful and fragrant with the early roses, some regiments of Northern soldiers landed and marched through the town, on their way to the front. The patriotic women gathered there, cheered them as they marched on, and gathered roses which they offered in a fragrant shower, with which the men decorated caps and button-holes. They passed on; but two days later the long train of ambulances crept down the hill, bringing back these heroes to their pitying countrywomen, the roses withering on their breasts, and dyed with their sacred patriot blood.
Through all the horrors of this sad campaign, Mrs. Gibbons and Mrs. Emerson remained, doing whatever their hands could find to do. When Fredericksburg was evacuated, they accompanied the soldiers, riding in the open box-cars, and on the way administering to them as they could.
They were for a time at White House, where thousands of wounded required and received their aid, and afterwards at City Point, where they remained for several weeks in charge of the hospital of the Second Division, being from first to last, among the most useful of the many noble women who were engaged in this work.
After their return home, Mrs. Gibbons accepted an appointment at the hospital in Beverly, New Jersey, where she had charge under Dr. Wagner, the excellent surgeon she had known, and to whom she had become much attached, at Point Lookout. As usual, Mrs. Emerson accompanied her to this place, and lent her efforts to the great work to which both had devoted themselves.
There were about nineteen hundred patients in this hospital, and the duties were arduous. They boarded with the family of Dr. Wagner, adjacent to the hospital, and after the labors of the day were mostly finished, they went there to dine, at seven o'clock. Often, despite pleasant conversation, and attractive viands, the sense of fatigue, before unfelt, would attack Mrs. Gibbons, and at the table she would fall asleep. But the morning would find her with strength restored, and ready for the toil of the coming day.
The winter of 1865 will long be remembered in New York for the ravages of small-pox in that city. The victims were not confined to any class, or locality, and there were perhaps as many in the homes of wealth, as in the squalid dwelling-places of the poor.
Mrs. Gibbons was suddenly summoned home to nurse her youngest daughter, in an attack of varioloid. This was accomplished, and the young lady recovered. But this closed the army labors of the mother. She did not return, though Mrs. Emerson remained till the close of the hospital the following spring, when the end of the war rendered their further services in this work unnecessary, and they once more found themselves settled in the quiet of home.
MRS. E. J. RUSSELL.
e have spoken in previous sketches of the faithfulness and devotion of many of the government nurses, appointed by Miss Dix. No salary, certainly not the meagre pittance doled out by the government could compensate for such services, and the only satisfactory reason which can be offered for their willingness to render them, is that their hearts were inspired by a patriotism equally ardent with that which actuated their wealthier sisters, and that this pitiful salary, hardly that accorded to a green Irish girl just arrived in this country from the bogs of Erin, was accepted rather as affording them the opportunity to engage more readily in their work, than from any other cause. In many instances it was expended in procuring necessary food or luxuries for their soldier-patients, and in others, served to prevent dependence upon friends, who had the disposition but perhaps hardly the ability to furnish these heroic and self-denying nurses with the clothing or pocket-money they needed in their work.
It is of one of these nurses, a lady of mature age, a widow, that we have now to speak. Mrs. E. J. Russell, of Plattekill, Ulster County, New York, was at the commencement of the war engaged in teaching in New York city. In common with the other ladies of the Reformed Dutch Church, in Ninth Street, of which she was a member, she worked for the soldiers at every spare moment, but the cause seemed to her to need her personal services in the hospital, and in ministrations to the wounded or sick, and when the call came for nurses, she waited upon Miss Dix, was accepted, and sent first to the Regimental Hospital of the Twentieth New York Militia, National Guard, then stationed at Annapolis Junction. On arriving there she found that the regiment consisted of men from her own county, her former neighbors and acquaintances. The regiment was soon after ordered to Baltimore, and being in the three months' service, was mustered out soon after, and Mrs. Russell was assigned by Miss Dix to Columbia College Hospital, Washington. Here she remained in the quiet discharge of her duties, until June, 1864, not without many trials and discomforts, for the position of the hired nurse in these hospitals about Washington, was often rendered very uncomfortable by the discourtesy of the young assistant surgeons. Her devotion to her duties had been so intense that her health was seriously impaired, and she resigned, but after a short period of rest, her strength was sufficiently recruited for her to resume her labors, and she reported for duty at West Building Hospital, Baltimore, where she remained until after Lee's surrender. She was in the service altogether four years, lacking eighteen days. During this time nine hundred and eighty-five men were under her care, for varying periods from a few days to thirteen months; of these ninety died, and she closed the eyes of seventy-six of them. Her service in Baltimore was in part among our returned prisoners, from Belle Isle, Libby and other prisons, and in part among the wounded rebel prisoners.
Many of the incidents which Mrs. Russell relates of the wounded who passed under her care are very touching. Many of her earlier patients were in the delirium of typhoid fever, and her ears and heart were often pained in hearing their piteous calls for their loved ones to come to them,—to forgive them—or to help them. Often had she occasion to offer the consolations of religion to those who were evidently nearing the river of death, and sometimes she was made happy in finding that those who were suffering terribly from racking pain, or the agony of wounds, were comforted and cheered by her efforts to bring them to think of the Saviour. One of these, suffering from an intense fever, as she seated herself by the side of his cot, and asked him in her quiet gentle way, if he loved Jesus as his Saviour, clasped her hand in his and folding it to his heart, asked so earnestly, "Do you love Jesus too? Oh, yes, I love him. I do not fear to die, for then I shall join my dear mother who taught me to love him." He then repeated with great distinctness a stanza of the hymn, "Jesus can make a dying bed," etc., and inquired if she could sing. She could not, but she read several hymns to him. His joy and peace made him apparently oblivious of his suffering from the fever, and he endeavored as well as his failing strength would permit, to tell her of his hopes of immortality, and to commend to her prayers his only and orphaned sister.
Another, a poor fellow from Maine, dying of diphtheria, asked her to pray for him and to read to him from the Bible. She commended him tenderly to the Good Shepherd, and soon had the happiness of seeing, even amid his sufferings, that his face was radiant with joy. He selected a chapter of the Bible which he wished her to read, and then sent messages by her to his mother and friends, uttering the words with great difficulty, but passing away evidently in perfect peace.
Since the war, Mrs. Russell has resumed her profession as a teacher at Newburgh, New York.
MRS. MARY W. LEE.
t is somewhat remarkable that a considerable number of the most faithful and active workers in the hospitals and in other labors for the soldier during the late war, should have been of foreign birth. Their patriotism and benevolence was fully equal to that of our women born under the banner of the stars, and their joy at the final triumph of our arms was as fervent and hearty. Our readers will recall among these noble women, Miss Wormeley, Miss Clara Davis, Miss Jessie Home, Mrs. General Ricketts, Mrs. General Turchin, Bridget Divers, and others.
Among the natives of a foreign land, but thoroughly American in every fibre of her being, Mrs. Mary W. Lee stands among the foremost of the earnest persistent toilers of the great army of philanthropists. She was born in the north of Ireland, of Scotch parentage, but came with her parents to the United States when she was five years of age, and has ever since made Philadelphia her home. Here she married Mr. Lee, a gold refiner, and a man of great moral worth. An interesting family had grown up around them, all, like their parents thoroughly patriotic. One son enlisted early in the war, first, we believe, in the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, and afterward in the Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers, and served throughout the war, and though often in peril, escaped any severe wounds. A daughter, Miss Amanda Lee, imbued with her mother's spirit, accompanied her in most of her labors, and emulated her example of active usefulness.
Mrs. Lee was one of the noble band of women whose hearts were moved with the desire to do something for our soldiers, when they were first hastening to the war in April, 1861, and in the organization of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon at Philadelphia, an institution which fed, during the war, four hundred thousand of our soldiers as they passed to and from the battlefields, and brought comfort and solace to many thousands of the sick and wounded, she was one of the most active and faithful members of its committee. The regiments often arrived at midnight; but whatever the hour, whether night or day, at the firing of the signal gun, which announced that troops were on their way to Philadelphia, Mrs. Lee and her co-workers hastened to the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, near the Navy Yard, and prepared an ample repast for the soldiers, caring at the same time for any sick or wounded among them. No previous fatigue or weariness, no inclemency of the weather, or darkness of the night was regarded by these heroic women as a valid excuse from these self-imposed duties or rather this glorious privilege, for so they deemed it, of ministering to the comfort of the defenders of the Union. And through the whole four and a-third years during which troops passed through Philadelphia, no regiment or company ever passed unfed. The supplies as well as the patience and perseverance of the women held out to the end, and scores of thousands who but for their voluntary labors and beneficence must have suffered severely from hunger, had occasion to bless God for the philanthropy and practical benevolence of the women of Philadelphia.
But this field of labor, broad as it was, did not fully satisfy the patriotic ardor of Mrs. Lee. She had heard of the sufferings and privations endured by our soldiers at the front, and in hospitals remote from the cities; and she longed to go and minister to their wants. Fortunately, she could be spared for a time at least from her home. Though of middle age, she possessed a vigorous constitution, capable of enduring all necessary hardships, and was in full health and strength. She was well known as a skilful cook, an admirable nurse, and an excellent manager of household affairs. The sickness of some members of her family delayed her for a time, but when this obstacle was removed, she felt that she could not longer be detained from her chosen work. It was July, 1862, the period when the Army of the Potomac exhausted by its wearisome march and fearful battles of the seven days, lay almost helpless at Harrison's Landing. The sick poisoned by the malaria of the Chickahominy Swamps, and the wounded, shattered and maimed wrecks of humanity from the great battles, were being sent off by thousands to the hospitals of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and New England, and yet other thousands lay in the wretched field hospitals around the Landing, with but scant care, and in utter wretchedness and misery. The S. R. Spaulding, one of the steamers assigned to the United States Sanitary Commission for its Hospital Transport Service, had brought to Philadelphia a heavy cargo of the sick and wounded, and was about to return for another, when Mrs. Lee, supplied with stores by the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, and her personal friends, embarked upon it for Harrison's Landing, where she was to be associated with Mrs. John Harris in caring for the soldiers. The Spaulding arrived in due time in the James River, and lay off in the stream while the Ruffin house was burning. On landing, Mrs. Lee found Mrs. Harris, and the Rev. Isaac O. Sloan, one of the Agents of the Christian Commission ready to welcome her to the toilsome duties that were before her. Wretched indeed was the condition of the poor sick men, lying in mildewed, leaky tents without floors, and the pasty tenacious mud ankle deep around them, the raging thirst and burning fever of the marshes consuming them, with only the warm and impure river water to drink, and little even of this; with but a small supply of medicines, and no food or delicacies suitable for the sick, the bean soup, unctuous with rancid pork fat, forming the principal article of low diet; uncheered by kind words or tender sympathy, it is hardly matter of surprise that hundreds of as gallant men as ever entered the army died here daily.
The supplies of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and those sent to Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, from the Ladies' Aid Society, and the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, administered by such skilful nurses as Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Fales, Mrs. Husband, and Miss Hall, soon changed the aspect of affairs, and though the malarial fever still raged, there was a better chance of recovery from it, and the sick men were as rapidly as possible transferred to a better climate, and a healthier atmosphere. In the latter part of August, the Army of the Potomac having left the James River for Acquia Creek and Alexandria, Mrs. Lee returned home for a brief visit.
On the 5th of September, she started for Washington, to enter again upon her chosen work. Finding that the Army were just about moving into Maryland, she spent a few days in the Hospital of the Epiphany at Washington, nursing the sick and wounded there; but learning that the Army of the Potomac were in hot pursuit of the Rebel Army, and that a severe battle was impending, she could not rest; she determined to be near the troops, so that when the battle came, she might be able to render prompt assistance to the wounded. It was almost impossible to obtain transportation, the demand for the movement of sustenance and ammunition for the army filling every wagon, and still proving insufficient for their wants; but by the kind permission of Captain Gleason of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, she was permitted to follow with her stores in a forage wagon, and arrived at the rear of the army the night before the battle of Antietam. The battle commenced with the dawn on the 17th of September, and during its progress, she was stationed on the Sharpsburg road, where she had her supplies and two large tubs of water, one to bathe and bind up the wounds of those who had fallen in the fight, and the other to refresh them when suffering from the terrible thirst which gun-shot wounds always produce. As the hours drew on, the contents of one assumed a deeper and yet deeper crimson hue and the seemingly ample supply of the other grew less and less. Her supply of soft bread had given out, and she had bought of an enterprising sutler who had pushed his way to a place of danger in the hope of gain, at ten and twenty cents a loaf, till her money was nearly exhausted; but to the honor of this sutler, it should be said, that the noble example of Mrs. Lee, in seeking to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded so moved his feelings, that he exclaimed, "Great God! I can't stand this any longer; Take this bread, and give it to that woman," (Mrs. Lee), and forgetting for the time the greed of gain which had brought him thither, he lent a helping hand most zealously to the care of the wounded. During the day, General McClellan's head-quarters were at Boonsboro', and his aids were constantly passing back and forth over the Sharpsburg road, near which Mrs. Lee had her station.
The battle closed with the night-fall, and Mrs. Lee immediately went into the Sedgwick Division Hospital, where were five hundred severely wounded men, and among the number, Major-General Sedgwick. Here she commenced preparing food for the wounded, but was greatly annoyed by a gang of villainous camp followers, who hung around her fires and stole everything from them if she was engaged for a moment. At last she entered the hospital, and inquired if there was any officer there who had the authority to order her a guard. General Sedgwick immediately responded to her request, by authorizing her to call upon the first soldier she could find for the purpose, and she had no further annoyance.
She remained for several days at this hospital, doing all she could with the means at her command, to make the condition of the wounded comfortable, but on the arrival of Mrs. Arabella Barlow, whose husband, then Colonel, afterward Major-General Barlow, was very severely wounded, she gave up the charge of this hospital to her, and went to the Hoffman Farm's Hospital, where there were over a thousand of the worst cases. Here she was the only lady for several weeks, until the hospital was removed to Smoketown, where she was joined by Miss M. M. C. Hall, Mrs. Husband, Mrs. Harris, and Miss Tyson, of Baltimore. She remained at Smoketown General Hospital, nearly three months. The worst cases, those which could not bear removal to Washington, Baltimore, or Philadelphia, were collected in this hospital, and there was much suffering and many deaths in it.
Mrs. Lee returned home on the 14th of December, 1862, and on the 29th of the same month, she again set out for the front, arriving safely at Falmouth on the 31st, where the wounded of Fredericksburg were gathered by thousands. After four weeks of earnest labor here, she again returned home, but early in March, she was again at the front, in the Hospital of the Second Corps, which had been removed from Falmouth to Potomac Creek. She continued in this Hospital until the battle of Chancellorsville, when she went up to the Lacy House, at Falmouth, to assist Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Beck. She accompanied Mrs. Harris, and several of the gentlemen of the Christian Commission in an Ambulance to take nourishment to the wounded of General Sedgwick's command, and witnessed the taking of Marye's Heights, the balls from the batteries passing over the heads of her company. Her anxiety in regard to this conflict was heightened by the fact that her son was in one of the regiments which made the charge upon the Heights, and great was her gratitude in finding that he was not among the wounded.
After the wounded were sent to Washington she returned to Potomac Creek, where she remained until Lee's second invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, when she moved with the army as far as Fairfax Court-House, enduring many hardships. From Fairfax Court-House she went to Alexandria to await the result of the movement, and after some delay returned home. The battle of Gettysburg called her again into the field. Arriving several days after the battle, she went directly to the Second Corps Hospital, and labored there until it was broken up. For her services in this hospital she received from the officers and men a gold medal—a trefoil, beautifully engraved, and with an appropriate inscription. She went next to Camp Letterman General Hospital, where she remained for some weeks, her stay at Gettysburg being in all about two months. Her health was impaired by her excessive labors at Gettysburg and previously in Virginia, and she remained at home for a longer time than usual, giving her attention, however, meanwhile to the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, but early in February, 1864, she established herself in a new hospital of the Second Division, Second Corps, at Brandy Station, Virginia. Here, soon after, her daughter joined her, and the old routine of the hospital at Potomac Creek was soon established. Mrs. Lee has the faculty of making the most of her conveniences and supplies. Her daughter writing home from this hospital thus describes the furniture of her "Special Diet Kitchen:"—"Mother has a small stove; until this morning it has smoked very much, but it is now doing very well. The top is about half a yard square. On this she is now boiling potatoes, stewing some chicken-broth, heating a kettle of water, and has a large bread-pudding inside. She has made milk-punch, lemonade, beef-tea, stewed cranberries, and I cannot think what else since breakfast." With all this intense activity the spiritual interests of her patients were not forgotten. Mrs. Lee is a woman of deep and unaffected piety, and her tact in speaking a word in season, and in bringing the men under religious influences was remarkable. This hospital soon became remarkable for its order, neatness and cheerfulness.
The order of General Grant on the 15th of April, 1864, for the removal of all civilians from the army, released Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Husband, who had been associated with her, from their duties at Brandy Station. But in less than a month both were recalled to the temporary base of the army at Belle Plain and Fredericksburg, to minister to the thousands of wounded from the destructive battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. At Fredericksburg, where the whole town was one vast hospital, the surgeon in charge entrusted her with the care of the special diet of the Second Corps' hospitals. Unsupplied with kitchen furniture, and the surgeon being entirely at a loss how to procure any, her woman's wit enabled her to improvise the means of performing her duties. She remembered that Mrs. Harris had left at the Lacy House in Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, the year before, an old stove which might be there yet. Procuring an ambulance, she crossed the river, and found the old stove, much the worse for wear, and some kettles and other utensils, all of which were carefully transported to the other side, and after diligent scouring, the whole were soon in such a condition that boiling, baking, stewing and frying could proceed simultaneously, and during her stay in Fredericksburg, the old stove was kept constantly hot, and her skilful hands were employed from morning till night and often from night till morning again in the preparation of food and delicacies for the sick. Nothing but her iron constitution enabled her to endure this incessant labor.
From Fredericksburg she went over land to White House and there, aided by Miss Cornelia Hancock, her ministrations to the wounded were renewed. Thence soon after they removed to City Point. Here for months she labored amid such suffering and distress that the angels must have looked down in pity upon the accumulated human woe which met their sympathizing eyes. Brave, noble-hearted men fell by hundreds and thousands, and died not knowing whether their sacrifices would be sufficient to save their country. At length wearied with her intense and protracted labors, Mrs. Lee found herself compelled to visit home and rest for a time. But her heart was in the work, and again she returned to it, and was in charge of a hospital near Petersburg at the time of Lee's surrender. She remained in the hospitals of Petersburg and Richmond, until the middle of May, and then returned to her quiet home, participating to the very last in the closing work of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, where she had commenced her labors for the soldiers. Other ladies may have engaged in more extended enterprises, may have had charge of larger hospitals, or undertaken more comprehensive and far-reaching plans for usefulness to the soldier—but in untiring devotion to his interests, in faithfully performed, though often irksome labor, carried forward patiently and perseveringly for more than four years, Mrs. Lee has a record not surpassed in the history of the deeds of American women.
MISS CORNELIA M. TOMPKINS.
iss Cornelia M. Tompkins, of Niagara Falls, was one of the truly heroic spirits evoked by the war. Related to a distinguished family of the same name, educated, accustomed to the refinements and social enjoyments of a Christian home she left all to become a hospital nurse, and to aid in saving the lives of the heroes and defenders of her native land. Recommended by her friend, the late Margaret Breckinridge, of whom a biographical notice is given in this volume, she came to St. Louis in the summer of 1863, was commissioned as a nurse by Mr. Yeatman, and assigned to duty at the Benton Barracks Hospital, under the superintendence of Miss Emily E. Parsons, and the general direction of Surgeon Ira Russell. In this service she was one of the faithful band of nurses, who, with Miss Parsons, brought the system of nursing to such perfection at that hospital.
In the fall of that year she was transferred to the hospital service at Memphis, by Mr. Yeatman, to meet the great demand for nurses there, where she became favorably known as a most judicious and skilful nurse.
In the spring of 1864 she returned to St. Louis, and was again assigned to duty at Benton Barracks, where she remained till mid-summer, when having been from home a year, she obtained a furlough, and went home for a short period of rest, and to visit her family.
On her return to St. Louis she was assigned to duty at the large hospital at Jefferson Barracks, and continued there till the end of the war, doing faithful and excellent service, and receiving the cordial approbation of the surgeons in charge, and the Western Sanitary Commission, as well as the gratitude of the sick and wounded soldiers, to whom she was a devoted friend and a ministering angel in their sorrows and distress.
In her return to the quiet and enjoyment of her own home, within the sound of the great cataract, she has carried with her the consciousness of having rendered a most useful service to the patriotic and heroic defenders of her country, in their time of suffering and need, the approval of a good conscience and the smile of heaven upon her noble and heroic soul.
MRS. ANNA C. McMEENS.
rs. Anna C. McMeens, of Sandusky, Ohio, was born in Maryland, but removed to the northern part of Ohio, in company with her parents when quite young. She is therefore a western woman in her habits, associations and feelings, while her patriotism and philanthropy are not bounded by sectional lines. Her husband, Dr. McMeens, was appointed surgeon to an Ohio regiment, which was one of the first raised when Mr. Lincoln called for troops, after the firing upon Sumter. In the line of his duty he proceeded to Camp Dennison, where he had for some time principal charge of the medical department. Mrs. McMeens resolved to accompany her husband, and share in the hardships of the campaign, for the purpose of doing good where she could find it to do. She was therefore one of the first,—if not the first woman in Ohio, to give her exclusive, undivided time in a military hospital, in administering to the necessities of the soldiers. When the regiment left Camp Dennison, she accompanied it, until our forces occupied Nashville. Dr. McMeens then had a hospital placed under his charge, and his faithful wife assisted as nurse for several months, contributing greatly to the efficiency of the nursing department, and to the administration of consolation and comfort in many ways to our sick soldier boys, who were necessarily deprived of the comforts of home. Subsequently at the battle of Perryville, Mrs. McMeens' husband lost his life from excessive exertions while in attention to the sick and wounded. Being deprived of her natural protector, she returned to her home in Sandusky, which was made desolate by an additional sacrifice to the demon of secession. While at home, not content to sit idle in her mourning for her husband, she was busily occupied in aiding the Sanitary Commission in obtaining supplies, of which she so well knew the value by her familiarity with the wants of the soldiers in field, camp and hospitals. She however very soon felt it her duty to participate more actively in immediate attentions upon the sick and wounded soldiers. A fine field offered itself in the hospitals at Washington, to which place she went; and remained nearly one year in attention, and rendering assistance daily among the various hospitals of the Nation's capital. It would be feeble praise to say that her duties were performed in the most energetic and judicious manner. Few women have made greater sacrifices in the war than the subject of our sketch; none have been made from a purer sense of duty, or a fuller knowledge of the magnitude of the cause in which we have been engaged.
At present the necessity for attention to soldiers has happily ceased, and we find her busily engaged in missionary work among the sailors, which she has an excellent opportunity of performing while at her beautiful summer home on the island of Gibraltar, Lake Erie.
MRS. JERUSHA R. SMALL.
his young lady was one of the martyrs of the war. She resided in Cascade, Dubuque County, Iowa, and just previous to the commencement of the war had buried her only child, a sweet little girl of four years. When volunteers were called for from Iowa, her husband, Mr. J. E. Small, felt it his duty to take up arms for his country, and as his wife had no home ties she determined to go with him and make herself useful in caring for the sick and wounded of his regiment, or of other regiments in the same division. She proved a most excellent nurse, and for months labored with untiring energy in the regimental hospitals, and to hundreds of the wounded from Belmont, Donelson, and Shiloh, as well as to the numerous sick soldiers of General Grant's army she was an angel of mercy. Her constant care and devotion had considerably impaired her health before the battle of Shiloh.
At this battle her husband was badly wounded and taken prisoner, but was retaken by the Union troops. In the course of the battle, the tent which she occupied and where she was ministering to the wounded came within range of the enemy's shells, and she with her wounded husband and a large number of other wounded soldiers, were obliged to fly for their lives, leaving all their goods behind them. Previous to her flight, however, she had torn up all her spare clothing and dresses to make bandages and compresses and pillows for the wounded soldiers. She found her way with her wounded patients to one of the hospitals extemporized by the Cincinnati ladies. Her husband and many of his comrades of the Twelfth Iowa Regiment were among this company of wounded men. She craved admission for them and remained to nurse her husband and the others for several weeks, but when her husband became convalescent, she was compelled to take to her bed; her fatigue and exposure, acting upon a somewhat frail and delicate constitution had brought on galloping consumption. She soon learned from her physician that there was no hope of her recovery, and then the desire to return home and die in her mother's arms seemed to take entire possession of her soul. Permission was obtained for her to go, and for her husband to accompany her, and when she was removed from the boat to the cars, Mrs. Dr. Mendenhall of the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission accompanied her to the cars, and having provided for her comfortable journey, gave her a parting kiss. Mrs. Small was deeply affected by this kindness of a stranger, and thanking her for her attention to herself and husband, expressed the hope that they should meet in a better world. A lady, who evidently had little sympathy with the war or with those who sought to alleviate the sufferings of the soldiers, stepped up and said to Mrs. Small; "You did very wrong to go and expose yourself as you have done when you were so young and frail." "No!" replied the dying woman, "I feel that I have done right, I think I have been the means of saving some lives, and that of my dear husband among the rest; and these I consider of far more value than mine, for now they can go and help our country in its hour of need."
Mrs. Small lived to reach home, but died a few days after her arrival. She requested that her dead body might be wrapped in the national flag, for next to her husband and her God, she loved the country which it represented, best. She was buried with military honors, a considerable number of the soldiers of the Twelfth Iowa who were home on furlough, taking part in the sad procession.
MRS. S. A. MARTHA CANFIELD.
his lady was the wife of Colonel Herman Canfield, of the Seventy-first Ohio Regiment. She accompanied her husband to the field, and devoted herself to the care and succor of the sick and wounded soldiers, until the battle of Shiloh, where her husband was mortally wounded, and survived but a few hours. She returned home with his body and remained for a short time, but feeling that it was in her power to do something for the cause to which her husband had given his life, she returned to the Army of the Mississippi and became attached to the Sixteenth Army Corps, and spent most of her time in the hospitals of Memphis and its vicinity. But though she accomplished great good for the soldiers, she took a deep interest also in the orphans of the freedmen in that region, and by her extensive acquaintance and influence with the military authorities, she succeeded in establishing and putting upon a satisfactory basis, the Colored Orphan Asylum in Memphis. She devoted her whole time until the close of the war to these two objects; the welfare of the soldiers in the hospitals and the perfecting of the Orphan Asylum, and not only gave her time but very largely also of her property to the furthering of these objects. The army officers of that large and efficient army corps bear ample testimony to her great usefulness and devotion.
MRS. E. THOMAS, AND MISS MORRIS.
hese two ladies, sisters, volunteered as unpaid nurses for the War, from Cincinnati. They commenced their duties at the first opening of the Hospitals, and remained faithful to their calling, until the hospitals were closed, after the termination of the war. In cold or heat, under all circumstances of privation, and often when all the other nurses were stricken down with illness, they never faltered in their work, and, although not wealthy, gave freely of their own means to secure any needed comfort for the soldiers. Mrs. Mendenhall, of Cincinnati, who knew their abundant labors, speaks of them as unsurpassed in the extent and continuousness of their sacrifices.
MRS. SHEPARD WELLS.
his lady, the wife of Rev. Shepard Wells, was, with her husband, driven from East Tennessee by the rebellion, because of their loyalty to the Union. They found their way to St. Louis at an early period of the War, where he entered into the work of the Christian Commission for the Union soldiers, and she became a member of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis, and gave herself wholly to sanitary labors for the sick and wounded in the Hospitals of that city, acting also as one of the Secretaries of the Society, and as its agent in many of its works of benevolence, superintending at one time the Special Diet Kitchen, established by the Society at Benton Barracks, and doing an amount of work which few women could endure, animated and sustained by a genuine love of doing good, by noble and Christian purposes, and by true patriotism and philanthropy.
The incidents of the persecutions endured by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in East Tennessee, and of her life and labors among the sick and wounded of the Union army, would add very much to the interest of this brief notice, but the particulars are not sufficiently familiar to the writer to be narrated by him, and he can only record the impressions he received of her remarkable faithfulness and efficiency, and her high Christian motives, in the labors she performed in connection with the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis,—that noble Society of heroic women who, during the whole war, performed an amount of sanitary, hospital and philanthropic work for the soldiers, the refugees and the freedmen, second only to the Western Sanitary Commission itself, of which it was a most faithful ally and co-worker.
United with an earnest Christian faith, Mrs. Wells possessed a kind and generous sympathy with suffering, and a patriotic ardor for the welfare of the Union soldiers, so that she was never more in her element than when laboring for the poor refugees, for the families of those brave men who left their all to fight for their country, for the sick and wounded in the hospitals, and for the freedmen and their families. The labors she performed extended to all these objects of sympathy and charity, and, from the beginning to the end of her service, she never seemed weary in well-doing; and there can be no doubt that when her work on earth is finished, and she passes onward to the heavenly life, she will hear the approving voice of her Saviour, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
MRS. E. C. WITHERELL.
n the month of December, 1861, on a visit made by the writer to the Fourth Street Hospital, in St. Louis, he was particularly impressed with the great devotion of one of the female nurses to her sick patients. At the conclusion of a religious service held there, as he passed through the wards to call on those who had been too ill to attend worship, he found her seated by the bed-side of a sick soldier, suffering from pneumonia, on whose pale, thin face the marks of approaching dissolution were plainly visible. She held in her hand a copy of the New Testament, from which she had been reading to him, in a cheerful and hopeful manner, and a little book of prayers, hymns and songs from which she had been singing, "There is rest for the weary," and "The Shining Shore." The soldier's bed was neatly made; his special diet had been given; his head rested easily on his pillow; and his countenance beamed with a sweet and pleasant smile. It was evident the patient enjoyed the kind attentions, the conversation, the reading and singing of his faithful nurse. The lady who sat by his bed-side was of middle age, having a countenance expressive of goodness, benevolence, purity of motive, intelligence and affection. It was plain that she regarded her patient with a tender care, and that her influence calmed and soothed his spirit. Her name was Mrs. E. C. Witherell, and the sick soldier was a mere boy, who had shouldered his musket to fight for the cause of the Union, and had contracted his fatal disease in the marches and the exposure of the army in Missouri, and was now about to die away from friends and home. The interest felt by Mrs. Witherell in this soldier boy, was motherly, full of affection and sympathy, and creditable to her noble and generous heart. As I drew near and introduced myself as a chaplain, she welcomed me, introduced me to the patient, and we sat down and conversed together; the young man was in a state of peaceful resignation; was willing to die for his country; and only regretted that he could not see his mother and sisters again; but he said that Mrs. Witherell had been as a mother to him, and if he could have hold of her hand he should not be afraid to die. He even hoped that with her kind care and nursing he might get well. Mrs. Witherell and myself then sang the "Shining Shore;" a brief prayer of hope and trust was offered; the other patients in the room seemed equally well cared for, and interested in all that was said and done; and I passed on to another ward, and never saw either the nurse or patient again. But I learned that the soldier died; and that Mrs. Witherell continued in the service, until she also died, a martyr to her heroic devotion to the cause of the sick and wounded soldiers, for whom she laid down her life, that they might live to fight the battles of their country.
The only facts that I have been able to learn about this noble lady, were that at one time she resided in Louisville, and was greatly esteemed by her pastor, Rev. John H. Heywood, of the Unitarian Church; that she chose this work of the hospitals from the highest motives of religious patriotism and love of humanity; that after serving several months in the Fourth Street Hospital, at St. Louis, she was assigned to the hospital steamer, "Empress," in the spring of 1862, as matron, or head nurse; that she continued on this boat during the next few months, while so many sick and wounded were brought from Pittsburg Landing, after the battle of Shiloh, and from other battle-fields along the rivers, to the hospitals at Mound City and St. Louis; that she was always constant, faithful and never weary of doing good; and that at last, from her being so much in the infected atmosphere of the sick and wounded, she became the victim of a fever, and died on the 10th of July, 1862.
On the occurrence of the sad event, the Western Sanitary Commission, who had known and appreciated her services, and from whom she held her commission, passed a series of resolutions, as a tribute to her worth, and her blessed memory, in which she was described as one who was "gentle and unobtrusive, with a heart warm with sympathy, and unshrinking in the discharge of duty, energetic, untiring, ready to answer every call, and unwilling to spare herself where she could alleviate suffering, or minister to the comfort of others," as "not a whit behind the bravest hero on the battle-field;" and as worthy to be held "in everlasting remembrance."
MISS PHEBE ALLEN.
his noble woman, who laid down her life in the cause of her country, was a teacher in Washington, Iowa, and left her school to enter the service as a hospital nurse. In the summer of 1863 she was commissioned by Mr. Yeatman, at St. Louis, and assigned to duty in the large hospital at Benton Barracks, where she belonged to the corps of women nurses, under the superintendence of Miss Emily E. Parsons, and under the general direction of Surgeon Ira Russell.
In the fulfilment of the duties of a hospital nurse she was very conscientious, faithful and devoted; won the respect and confidence of all who knew her, and is most pleasantly remembered by her associates and superior officers.
In the autumn of 1863 she went home on a furlough, was recalled by a letter from Miss Parsons; returned to duty, and continued in the service till the summer of 1864, when she was taken ill of malarious fever and died at Benton Barracks in the very scene of her patriotic and Christian labors, leaving a precious memory of her faithfulness and truly noble spirit to her friends and the world.
MRS. EDWIN GREBLE.
mong the ardently loyal women of Philadelphia, by whom such great and untiring labors for the soldiers were performed, few did better service in a quiet and unostentatious manner than Mrs. Greble. Indeed so very quietly did she work that she almost fulfilled the Scripture injunction of secrecy as to good deeds.
The maiden name of Mrs. Greble was Susan Virginia Major. She was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, being descended on the mother's side from a family of Quakers who were devoted to their country in the days of the Revolution with a zeal so active and outspoken as to cause them to lose their membership in the Society of Friends. Fighting Quakers there have been in both great American wars, men whose principles of peace, though not easily shaken, were less firm than their patriotism, and their traits have in many instances been emulated in the female members of their families. This seems to have been the case with Mrs. Greble.
Her eldest son, John, she devoted to the service of his country. He entered the Military Academy at West Point in 1850, at the age of sixteen, graduating honorably, and continuing in the service until June, 1861, when he fell at the disastrous battle of Great Bethel, one of the earliest martyrs of liberty in the rebellion. Another son, and the only one remaining after the death of the lamented Lieutenant Greble, when but eighteen years of age, enlisted, served faithfully, and nearly lost his life by typhoid fever. A son-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and a brave soldier, was for many months a prisoner of war, and experienced the horrors of three different Southern prisons. Thus, by inheritance, patriotic, and by personal suffering and loss keenly aroused to sympathy with her country's brave defenders, Mrs. Greble from the first devoted herself earnestly and untiringly to every work of kindness and aid which suggested itself. Blessed with abundant means, she used them in the most liberal manner in procuring comforts for the sick and wounded in hospitals.
There was ample scope for such labors among the numerous hospitals of Philadelphia. Now it was blankets she sent to the hospital where they were most needed. Again a piece of sheeting already hemmed and washed. Almost daily in the season of fruit she drove to the hospitals with bushel baskets filled with the choicest the market afforded, to tempt the fever-parched lips, and refresh the languishing sufferers. Weekly she made garments for the soldiers. Leisure moments she employed in knitting scores of stockings. On holidays her contributions of poultry, fruit, and pies, went far toward making up the feasts offered by the like-minded, to the convalescents in the various institutions, or to soldiers on their way to or from the seat of war.
It was in this mode that Mrs. Greble served her country, amply and freely, but so quietly as to attract little notice. She withheld nothing that was in her power to bestow, giving even of her most precious treasures, her children, and continuing her labors unabated to the close of the war.
MRS. ISABELLA FOGG.
aine has given to the cause of the Union many noble heroes, brave spirits who have perilled life and health to put down the rebellion, and not a few equally brave and noble-hearted women, who in the ministrations of mercy have laid on the altar of patriotism their personal services, their ease and comfort, their health and some of them even life itself to bring healing and comfort to the defenders of their country. Among these, few, none perhaps save those who have laid down their lives in the service, are more worthy of honor than Mrs. Fogg.
The call for seventy-five thousand men to drive back the invaders and save the National Capital, met with no more hearty or patriotic responses than those that came from the extreme northeastern border of our Union, "away towards the sun-rising." Calais, in the extreme eastern part of Maine, raised its quota and more, upon the instant, and sent them forward promptly. The hearts of its women, too were stirred, and each was anxious to do something for the soldier. Mrs. Fogg felt that she was called to leave her home and minister in some way, she hardly knew how, to the comfort of those who were to fight the nation's battles. At that time, however, home duties were so pressing that, most reluctantly, she was compelled to give up for the time the purpose. Three months later came the seeming disaster, the real blessing in disguise, of Bull Run, and again was her heart moved, this time to more definite action, and a more determined purpose. Her son, a mere boy, had left school and enlisted to help fill the ranks from his native State, and she was ready now to go also. Applying to the patriotic governor of Maine and to the surgeon-general of the State for permission to serve the State, without compensation, as its agent for distributing supplies to the sick and wounded soldiers of Maine, she was encouraged by them and immediately commenced the work of collecting hospital stores for her mission. In September, 1861, she in company with Mrs. Ruth S. Mayhew, went out with one of the State regiments, and caring for its sick, accompanied it to Annapolis. The regiment was ordered, late in the autumn, to join General T. W. Sherman's expedition to Port Royal, and Mrs. Fogg was desirous of accompanying it, but finding this impracticable, she turned her attention to the hospital at Annapolis, in which the spotted typhus fever had broken out and was raging with fearful malignity. The disease was exceedingly contagious, and there was great difficulty in finding nurses who were willing to risk the contagion. With her high sense of duty, Mrs. Fogg felt that here was the place for her, and in company with Mrs. Mayhew, another noble daughter of Maine, she volunteered for service in this hospital. For more than three months did these heroic women remain at their post, on duty every day and often through the night for week after week, regardless of the infectious character of the disease, and only anxious to benefit the poor fever-stricken sufferers. The epidemic having subsided, Mrs. Fogg placed herself under the direction of the Sanitary Commission, and took part in the spring of 1862, in that Hospital Transport Service which we have elsewhere so fully described. The month of June was passed by her at the front, at Savage's Station, with occasional visits to the brigade hospitals, and to the regimental hospitals of the most advanced posts. She remained at her post at Savage's Station, until the last moment, ministering to the wounded until the last load had been dispatched, and then retreating with the army, over land to Harrison's Landing. Here, under the orders of Dr. Letterman, the medical director, she took special charge of the diet of the amputation cases; and subsequently distributed the much needed supplies furnished by the Sanitary Commission to the soldiers in their lines.
When the camps at Harrison's Landing were broken up, and the army transferred to the Potomac, she accompanied a ship load of the wounded in the S. R. Spaulding, to Philadelphia, saw them safely removed to the general hospital, and then returned to Maine, for a brief period of rest, having been absent from home about a year. Her rest consisted mainly in appeals for further and larger supplies of hospital and sanitary stores for the wounded men of Maine, who in the battles of Pope's campaign, and Antietam had been wounded by hundreds. She was successful, and early in October returned to Washington and the hospitals of northern Maryland, where she proved an angel of mercy to the suffering. When McClellan's army crossed the Potomac, she followed, and early in December, 1862, was again at the front, where she was on the 13th, a sad spectator of the fatal disaster of Fredericksburg. The Maine Camp Hospital Association had been formed the preceding summer, and Mrs. J. S. Eaton, one of its managers, had accompanied Mrs. Fogg to the front. During the sad weeks that followed the battle of Fredericksburg, these devoted ladies labored with untiring assiduity in the hospitals, and dispensed their supplies of food and clothing, not only to the Maine boys, but to others who were in need.
When the battles of Chancellorsville were fought in the first days of May, 1863, Mrs. Fogg and Mrs. Eaton spent almost a week of incessant labor, much of the time day and night, in the temporary hospitals near United States Ford, their labors being shared for one or two days by Mrs. Husband, in dressing wounds, and attending to the poor fellows who had suffered amputation, and furnishing cordials and food to the wounded who were retreating from the field, pursued by the enemy. One of these Hospitals in which they had been thus laboring till they were completely exhausted, was shelled by the enemy while they were in it, and while it was filled with the wounded. The attack was of short duration, for the battery which had shelled them was soon silenced, but one of the wounded soldiers was killed by a shell.
In works like these, in the care of the wounded who were sent in by flag of truce, and the distribution to the needy of the stores received from Maine, the days passed quickly, till the invasion of Pennsylvania by General Lee, which culminated in the battle of Gettysburg. Mrs. Fogg pushed forward and reached the battle-field the day after the final battle, but she could not obtain transportation for her stores at that time, and was obliged to collect what she could from the farmers in the vicinity, and use what was put into her hands for distribution by others, until hers could be brought up. She labored with her usual assiduity and patience among this great mass of wounded and dying men, for nearly two weeks, and then, abundant helpers having arrived, she returned to the front, and was with the Army as a voluntary Special Relief agent, through all its changes of position on and about the Rapidan, at the affair of Mine Run, the retreat and pursuit to Bristow Station, and the other movements prior to General Grant's assumption of the chief command. In the winter of 1864, she made a short visit home, and the Legislature voted an appropriation of a considerable sum of money to be placed at her disposal, to be expended at her discretion for the comfort and succor of Maine soldiers.
At the opening of the great Campaign of May, 1864, she hastened to Belle Plain and Fredericksburg, and there, in company with scores of other faithful and earnest workers, toiled night and day to relieve so far as possible the indescribable suffering which filled that desolated city. After two or three weeks, she went forward to Port Royal, to White House, and finally to City Point, where, in connection with Mrs. Eaton of the Maine Camp Hospital Association, she succeeded in bringing one of the Hospitals up to the highest point of efficiency. This accomplished, she returned to Maine, and was engaged in stimulating the women of her State to more effective labors, when she received the intelligence that her son who had been in the Army of the Shenandoah, had been mortally wounded at the battle of Cedar-Run.
With all a mother's anxieties aroused, she abandoned her work in Maine, and hastened to Martinsburg, Virginia, to ascertain what was really her son's fate. Here she met a friend, one of the delegates of the Christian Commission, and learned from him, that her son had indeed been badly wounded, and had been obliged to undergo the amputation of one leg, but had borne the operation well, and after a few days had been transferred to a Baltimore Hospital. To that city she hastened, and greatly to her joy, found him doing well. Anxiety and over exertion soon prostrated her own health, and she was laid upon a sick bed for a month or more.
In November, her health being measurably restored, she returned to Washington, and asked to be assigned to duty by the Christian Commission. She was directed to report to Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, who was the Commission's Agent for the establishment of Special Diet Kitchens in the Hospitals. Mrs. Wittenmeyer assigned her a position in charge of the Special Diet Kitchen, on one of the large hospital-boats plying between Louisville and Nashville. While on duty on board this boat in January, 1865, she fell through one of the hatchways, and received injuries which will probably disable her for life, and her condition was for many months so critical as not to permit her removal to her native State. It would seem that here was cause for repining, had she been of a querulous disposition. Herself an invalid for life, among strangers, her only son permanently crippled from wounds received in battle, with none but stranger hands to minister to her necessities, who had done so much to soothe the anguish and mitigate the sorrows of others, there was but little to outward appearance, to compensate her for her four years of arduous toil for others, and her present condition of helplessness. Yet we are told, that amid all these depressing circumstances, this heroic woman was full of joy, that she had been permitted to labor so long, and accomplish so much for her country and its defenders, and that peace had at last dawned upon the nation. Even pain could bring no cloud over her brow, no gloom to her heart. To such a heroine, the nation owes higher honors than it has ever bestowed upon the victors of the battle-field.
MRS. E. E. GEORGE.
ld age is generally reckoned as sluggish, infirm, and not easily roused to deeds of active patriotism and earnest endeavor. The aged think and deliberate, but are slow to act. Yet in this glorious work of American Women during the late war, aged women were found ready to volunteer for posts of arduous labor, from which even those in the full vigor of adult womanhood shrank. We shall have occasion to notice this often in the work of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloons, the Soldiers' Homes, etc., where the heavy burdens of toil were borne oftenest by those who had passed the limits of three score years and ten.
Another and a noble example of heroism even to death in a lady advanced in years, is found in the case of Mrs. E. E. George. The Military Agency of Indiana, located at the capital of the State, became, under the influence and promptings of the patriotic and able Governor Morton, a power for good both in the State and in the National armies. Being in constant communication with every part of the field, it was readily and promptly informed of suffering, or want of supplies by the troops of the State at any point, and at once provided for the emergency. The supply of women-nurses for camp, field, or general hospital service, was also made a part of the work of this agency, and the efficient State Agent, Mr. Hannaman, sent into the service two hundred and fifty ladies, who were distributed in the hospitals and at the front, all over the region in insurrection.
One of these, Mrs. E. E. George, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, first applied to Mr. Hannaman for a commission in January, 1863. She brought with her strong recommendations, but her age was considered by the agent a serious objection. She admitted this, but her health was excellent, and she possessed more vigor than many ladies much younger. She was, besides, an accomplished and skilful nurse.
She was sent by Mr. Hannaman to Memphis where the wounded from the unsuccessful attack on Chickasaw Bluffs,—and the successful but bloody assault on Arkansas Post,—were gathered, and her thorough qualifications for her position, her dignity of manner and her high intelligence, soon gave her great influence. During the whole Vicksburg campaign, and into the autumn of 1863, she remained in the Memphis hospitals, working incessantly. After a short visit home, in September, she went to Corinth where Sherman's Fifteenth Corps were stationed, and remained there until their departure for Chattanooga. She then visited Pulaski and assisted in opening a hospital there, Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Bickerdyke co-operating with her, and several times she visited Indiana and procured supplies for her hospital. When Sherman commenced his forward movement toward Atlanta, in May, 1864, Mrs. George and her friends, Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Bickerdyke, accompanied the army, and during the succession of severe battles of that campaign, she was always ready to minister to the wounded soldiers in the field. When Atlanta was invested in the latter part of July, 1864, she took charge of the Fifteenth Army Corps Hospital as Matron, and in the battles which terminated in the surrender of Atlanta, on the 1st of September, she was under fire. After the fall of Atlanta she returned home to rest and prepare for another campaign. She could not accompany Sherman's army to Savannah, but went to Nashville, where during and after Hood's siege of that city she found abundant employment.
Learning that Sherman's army was at Savannah, she set out for that city, via New York, intending to join the Fifteenth Corps, to which she had become strongly attached; but through some mistake, she was not provided with a pass, and visiting Washington to obtain one, Miss Dix persuaded her to change her plans and go to Wilmington, North Carolina, which had just passed into Union hands, and where great numbers of Union prisoners were accumulating. She had but just reached the city when eleven thousand prisoners, just released from Salisbury, and in the worst condition of starvation, disease and wretchedness were brought in. Mrs. George, though supplied with but scant provision of hospital stores or conveniences, gave herself most heartily to the work of providing for those poor sufferers, and soon found an active coadjutor in Mrs. Harriet F. Hawley, the wife of the gallant general in command of the post. Heroically and incessantly these two ladies worked; Mrs. George gave herself no rest day or night. The sight of such intense suffering led her to such over exertion that her strength, impaired by her previous labors, gave way, and she sank under an attack of typhus, then prevailing among the prisoners. A skilful physician gave her the most careful attention, but it was of no avail. She died, another of those glorious martyrs, who more truly than the dying heroes of the battle-field have given their lives for their country. To such patient faithful souls there awaits in the "Better Land" that cordial recognition foreshadowed by the poet:
"While valor's haughty champions wait,
Till all their scars be shown,
Love walks unchallenged through the gate
To sit beside the Throne."
MRS. CHARLOTTE E. McKAY.
his lady, a resident of Massachusetts, had early in the war been bereaved of her husband and only child, not by the vicissitudes of the battle-field but by sickness at home, and her heart worn with grief, sought relief, where it was most likely to find it, in ministering to the sufferings of others.
She accepted an appointment under Miss Dix as a hospital nurse, and commenced her hospital life in Frederick City, Maryland, in March, 1862, where she was entrusted with the care of a large number of wounded from the first battle of Winchester. Her life here passed without much of special interest, till September, 1862, when the little Maryland city was filled for two or three days with Stonewall Jackson's Corps on their way to South Mountain and Antietam. The rebels took possession of the hospital, and filled it for the time with their sick and wounded men. Resistance was useless, and Mrs. McKay treated the rebel officers and men courteously, and did what she could for the sick; her civility and kindness were recognized, and she was treated with respect by all. After the battle of Antietam, Frederick City and its hospitals were filled with the wounded, and Mrs. McKay's heart and hands were full—but as soon as the wounded became convalescent, she went to Washington and was assigned to duty for a time in the hospitals of the Capital. In January, she went to Falmouth and found employment as a nurse in the Third Corps Hospital. Here by her skill and tact she soon effected a revolution, greatly to the comfort of the poor fellows in the hospital. From being the worst it became the best of the corps hospitals at the front. General Birney and his excellent wife, seconded and encouraged all her efforts for its improvement.
The battles which though scattered over a wide extent of territory, and fought at different times and by different portions of the contending forces, have yet been known under the generic name of Chancellorsville, were full of horrors for Mrs. McKay. She witnessed the bloody but successful assault on Marye's Heights, and while ministering to the wounded who covered all the ground in front of the fortified position, received the saddening intelligence that her brother, who was with Hooker at Chancellorsville, had been instantly killed in the protracted fighting there. Other of her friends too had fallen, but crushing the agony of her own loss back into her heart, she went on ministering to the wounded. Six weeks later she was in Washington, awaiting the battle between Lee's forces and Hooker's, afterwards commanded by General Meade. When the intelligence of the three days' conflict at Gettysburg came, she went to Baltimore, and thence by such conveyance as she could find, to Gettysburg, reaching the hospital of her division, five miles from Gettysburg, on the 7th of July. Here she remained for nearly two months, laboring zealously for the welfare of a thousand or fifteen hundred wounded men. In the autumn she again sought the hospital of the Third Division, Third Corps, at the front, which for the time was at Warrenton, Virginia. After the battle of Mine Run, she had ample employment in the care of the wounded; and later in the season she had charge of one of the hospitals at Brandy Station. Like the other ladies who were connected with hospitals at this place, she was compelled to retire by the order of April 15th; but like them she returned to her work early in May, at Belle Plain, Fredericksburg, White House, and City Point, where she labored with great assiduity and success. The changes in the army organization in June, 1864, removed most of her friends in the old third corps, and Mrs. McKay, on the invitation of the surgeon in charge of the cavalry corps hospital, took charge of the special diet of that hospital, where she remained for nearly a year, finally leaving the service in March, 1865, and remaining in Virginia in the care and instruction of the freedmen till late in the spring of 1866. The officers and men who had been under her care in the Cavalry Corps Hospital, presented her on Christmas day, 1864, with an elegant gold badge and chain, with a suitable inscription, as a testimonial of their gratitude for her services. She had previously received from the officers of the Seventeenth Maine Volunteers, whom she had cared for after the battle of Chancellorsville, a magnificent Kearny Cross, with its motto and an inscription indicating by whom it was presented.
MRS. FANNY L. RICKETTS.
rs. Ricketts is the daughter of English parents, though born at Elizabeth, New Jersey. She is the wife of Major-General Ricketts, United States Volunteers, who at the time of their marriage was a Captain in the First Artillery, in the United States Army, and with whom she went immediately after their union, to his post on the Rio Grande. After a residence of more than three years on the frontier, the First Artillery was ordered in the spring of 1861, to Fortress Monroe, and her husband commenced a school of practice in artillery, for the benefit of the volunteer artillerymen, who, under his instruction, became expert in handling the guns.
In the first battle of Bull Run, Captain Ricketts commanded a battery of light artillery, and was severely, and it was supposed, mortally wounded and taken prisoner. The heroic wife at once applied for passes to go to him, and share his captivity, and if need be bring away his dead body. General Scott granted her such passes as he could give; but with the Rebels she found more difficulty, her parole being demanded, but on appeal to General J. E. Johnston, she was supplied with a pass and guide. She found her husband very low, and suffering from inattention, but his case was not quite hopeless. It required all her courage to endure the hardships, privations and cruelties to which the Union women were, even then, subject, but she schooled herself to endurance, and while caring for her husband during the long weeks when his life hung upon a slender thread, she became also a minister of mercy to the numerous Union prisoners, who had not a wife's tender care. When removed to Richmond, Captain Ricketts was still in great peril, and under the discomforts of his situation, grew rapidly worse. For many weeks he was unconscious, and his death seemed inevitable. At length four months after receiving his wound, he began very slowly to improve, when intelligence came that he was to be taken as one of the hostages for the thirteen privateersmen imprisoned in New York. Mrs. Ricketts went at once to Mrs. Cooper, the wife of the Confederate Adjutant-General, and used such arguments, as led the Confederate authorities to rescind the order, so far as he was concerned. He was exchanged in the latter part of December, 1861, and having partially recovered from his wounds, was commissioned Brigadier-General, in March, 1862, and assigned to the command of a brigade in McDowell's Corps, at Fredericksburg. He passed unscathed through Pope's Campaign, but at Antietam was again wounded, though not so severely as before, and after two or three months' confinement, was in the winter of 1862-3, in Washington, as President of a Military Commission.
General Ricketts took part in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and escaped personal injury, but his wife in gratitude for his preservation, ministered to the wounded, and for months continued her labors of love among them.
In Grant's Campaign in 1864, General Ricketts distinguished himself for bravery in several battles, commanding a division; and at the battle of Monocacy, though he could not defeat the overwhelming force of the Rebels, successfully delayed their advance upon Baltimore. He then joined the Army of the Shenandoah, and in the battle of Middletown, October 19th, was again seriously, and it was thought mortally wounded. Again for four months did this devoted wife watch most patiently and tenderly over his couch of pain, and again was her tender nursing blessed to his recovery. In the closing scenes in the Army of the Potomac which culminated in Lee's surrender, General Ricketts was once more in the field, and though suffering from his wounds, he did not leave his command till by the capitulation of the Rebel chief, the war was virtually concluded. The heroic wife remained at the Union headquarters, watchful lest he for whom she had perilled life and health so often, should again be smitten down, but she was mercifully spared this added sorrow, and her husband was permitted to retire from the active ranks of the army, covered with scars honorably won.
MRS. JOHN S. PHELPS.
t the commencement of the War, Mrs. Phelps was residing in her pleasant home at Springfield, Missouri, her husband and herself, were both originally from New England, but years of residence in the Southwest, had caused them to feel a strong attachment for the region and its institutions. They were both, however, intensely loyal. Mr. Phelps was a member of Congress, elected as a Union man, and when it became evident that the South would resort to war, he offered his services to the General Government, raised a regiment and went into the field under the heroic Lyon. After the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mrs. Phelps succeeded in rescuing the body of General Lyon, and had it buried where it was within her control, and as soon as possible forwarded it to his friends in Connecticut. Her home was plundered subsequently by the Rebels, and nearly ruined. At the battle of Pea Ridge, Mrs. Phelps accompanied her husband to the field, and while the battle was yet raging, she assisted in the care of the wounded, tore up her own garments for bandages, dressed their wounds, cooked food, and made soup and broth for them, with her own hands, remaining with them as long as there was anything she could do, and giving not only words but deeds of substantial kindness and sympathy.
Col. Phelps was subsequently made Military Governor of Arkansas, and in the many bloody battles in that State, she was ready to help in every way in her power; and in her visits to the East, she plead the cause of the suffering loyalists of Missouri and Arkansas, among her friends with great earnestness and success.
MRS. JANE R. MUNSELL.
aryland, though strongly claimed by the Rebels as their territory almost throughout the War, had yet, many loyal men and women in its country villages as well as in its larger cities. The legend of Barbara Freitchie's defiance of Stonewall Jackson and his hosts, has been immortalized in Whittier's charming verse, and the equally brave defiance of the Rebels by Mrs. Effie Titlow, of Middletown, Maryland, who wound the flag about her, and stood in the balcony of her own house, looking calmly at the invading troops, who were filled with wrath at her fearlessness deserves a like immortality. Mrs. Titlow proved after the subsequent battle of Gettysburg, that she possessed the disposition to labor for the wounded faithfully and indefatigably, as well as the gallantry to defy their enemies.
Mrs. Jane R. Munsell, of Sandy Spring, Maryland, was another of these Maryland heroines, but her patriotism manifested itself in her incessant toils for the sick and wounded after Antietam and Gettysburg. For their sake, she gave up all; her home and its enjoyments, her little property, yea, and her own life also, for it was her excessive labor for the wounded soldiers which exhausted her strength and terminated her life. A correspondent of one of the daily papers of New York city, who knew her well, says of her: "A truer, kinder, or more lovely or loving woman never lived than she. Her name is a household word with the troops, and her goodnesses have passed into proverbs in the camps and sick-rooms and hospitals. She died a victim to her own kind-heartedness, for she went far beyond her strength in her blessed ministrations."