Professor Edward Roth, the well-known Philadelphia educator, is authority for this episode of the Franco-German war. He quotes General Ambert, who fought as a private in the war, as follows:
“Oh, yes; one of them I shall never forget. Poor Sister St. Claire! I see her this moment, her big black veil trimmed with blue, as she makes her way through the blood-smeared straw of our crowded barn. The roaring of the cannon was awful, but she did not seem to mind it; she did not seem to mind even the terrible fire that was now raging through the last houses of the village, the flames near enough to cast an unearthly glimmer on the suffering faces of the wounded men. But, oh! how her sharp ear caught the slightest complaint! How she flew towards the faintest whisper!
“Everywhere at once—with each one of us at the same time! What iron strength God must have put into that little body! Your eye had hardly caught glimpse of it when you felt already at your lips the cool refreshing drink that you had not the courage to ask for. You had hardly opened your dimmed eyes, heavy with pain and fever, when you were aware of a face bending over you, keen, indeed, and bright, though slightly poxmarked; but so resolute, calm, smiling and kindly that you instantly forgot your sufferings, forgot the Prussians with their bombs bursting around you, forgot even the conflagration that was drawing nearer and nearer and threatened soon to swallow up the barn in which our ambulances had taken shelter. Good Sister St. Claire, you are now with your God, the voluntary victim of your heart and your faith, but I have often wished since that you were once more among us, listening to the thanks and prayers of such of us as are still alive and never to forget you. But you did not hear even the tenth part of the blessings of those that died with your name on their lips as they sank to their eternal sleep tranquilly, resignedly, hopefully, thanks to your holy ministrations!
“It was the evening of August 16, 1870, the day of our bloodiest battle—Gravelotte. For hours and hours the wounded had been carried persistently and in great numbers to the rear. In a large barn near Rezonville those of us had been laid whose intense sufferings would not permit them to be removed further. Thrown hurriedly down wherever room could be found, the first arms you saw extending towards you, were those of that little dark-faced woman, her lips smiling, but her eyes glistening with tears. A few yards only from the field of battle, from the very thick of the fight; a few yards only from the muddy, blood-slipping ground where you had just sunk, fully expecting to be soon trampled to death like so many others, what heavenly comfort it was to meet such burning charity! How it at once relieved your physical sufferings, soothed off your mortification and drove away your deadening despair!
“Poor Sister St. Claire! All that evening and all that long night to get water for the fifty agonized voices calling for it every moment you had to cross a yard hissing with bullets, but every five minutes out you went with your two buckets and back you soon came as serene and undisturbed as if God Himself had made you invulnerable. And so the long night wore away.
“But next morning our army, after a fifteen hours’ valiant struggle and after resting all night on the battlefield, had to fall back towards Metz, and the barn had to be immediately vacated. There was no time for using the regular ambulances, for the Prussians, though they could not take any of our positions the previous evening, being heavily reinforced were now steadily advancing. The wounded, picked up hastily and carried out without ceremony, were piled on trucks, tumbrils and every available vehicle.
“Oh, the cries! the pains! the sufferings! Still, dear Sister St. Claire, though for forty-eight hours you hadn’t had a second for your own rest, you contrived to pass continually from one end of that wretched column to the other, with a little water for this one, a good word for that, a smile or friendly nod for a third, your little arms lifting out of danger a head that leaned over too far, or shifting into a more comfortable position the poor fellow whose leg had been cut off during the night and who would probably be dead in an hour or two. Then you found a seat for yourself on the last wagon.
“Alas! you were not there half an hour when the bullet struck you—struck you as you were striving to keep a poor, wounded, helpless man from rolling out. A squadron of Uhlans suddenly cut us off from the army and made us all prisoners.
“Poor Sister! It was by the hands of our enemies that the grave was dug where you are now lying in the midst of those on whom you expended the treasures of your saintly soul. Of us that survive you there is probably not one in a thousand that will ever know the name of that little Sister of the Trinity—in religion Sister St. Claire—that bright vision of charity flashing continually before us during the long ride of agony in the barn near Rezonville.
“Your holy limbs are now resting in an unknown corner of Lorraine—no longer your dear France—but your blessed memory will live forever in the grateful hearts of those you have died for!”