LITTLE SADIE BUSHMAN, who was not quite ten years old at the time of the battle of Gettysburg, proved herself a little heroine. Mr. and Mrs. Bushman, learning that the battle would rage in all probability on or near their premises, sent this child with her brother to her grandmother’s, two miles away, while the parents gathered up the other children and undertook to follow.
Sadie took hold of her brother’s hand, and they hurried on as fast as their feet could carry them. But it was not long before their pathway led them into the thick of the fight along Seminary Ridge. The roar of the artillery was continuous, but they could not retreat. There came a blinding flash and a deafening roar. A shell whizzed past them. A gray-haired officer seized the children, and hurried them down the ridge toward their destination.
But scarcely less danger awaited them there, as their grandmother’s house and yard was converted into a hospital. The first work of the child when she reached this place was to hold a cup of water to a soldier’s lips while one of his legs was sawed off.
She was separated from her parents two weeks before they knew she was alive, but all that time she was ministering to the wounded soldiers. She carried soup and broth, and fed those who could not help themselves. She worked under the orders of the surgeons, and was furnished with supplies by the Christian Commission as long as the hospitals were kept open in Gettysburg. She is now a married woman—Sadie Bushman Junkerman—and lives near Oakland, Cal.; but the scenes of the Gettysburg battle years ago are vividly remembered by her.
A BUT’FUL GUV’MENT MULE.
AFTER the fall of Richmond it was found that the people were in a very destitute condition, many of them being almost in a state of starvation.
Every agency was at once used to furnish them with food.
The government issued rations as they came in, and the Sanitary and Christian Commissions distributed large supplies.
Among those who assisted in distributing the supplies of the Christian Commission was the Rev. John O. Foster, now living in Chicago, Ill.