“If we reckon our soldiers by their religion, the majority would be Catholic and we should find that we had given our children in far greater number than any one denomination. On the second day of Gettysburg a Catholic priest, ascending an eminence, lifted his hand to give absolution, and far as the eye could reach rank upon rank of soldiers bent their heads like cornfields swept by the summer breeze. Hancock, the “superb,” impressed by the solemnity of the scene, bared his brow. If the poet thought that a tear should fall for Stonewall Jackson because he spared Barbara Frietchie’s Union flag, will not a Catholic murmur a prayer for the great general who gave heed to the priest calling upon his people to be contrite for their sins in the hour which for many would be the last?
“The seven successive stormings of the heights of Fredericksburg by the Irish Brigade has long passed into history as surpassing Alma and the Sedan. Keenan’s cavalry charge at Chancellorsville saved the Union army at the cost of 300 lives. The charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava was described by a French officer as magnificent, but unmilitary—‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.’ But Keenan’s charge was both glorious and strategic. His troop rushed like a whirlwind upon 20,000 Confederates. His men were shot down or sabered in the saddle. The steeds, maddened by wounds and uncontrolled by their dead riders, plunged into the thick of the Confederate ranks, and so disconcerted and appalled them that the main army of the Union had time to save itself from otherwise inevitable destruction. Perhaps the most critical point of the war was the success or the failure of Sheridan’s devastation of the Shenandoah Valley, which was the great base of supplies for the South. Sheridan’s historic ride, which saved the day at Winchester, was the exploit of a Catholic. The Republic subsequently conferred upon this son of the Church one of the highest and most responsible positions in her keeping, the generalship of her armies.
“One of the first, if not the first band of trained nurses that offered their services to the Government was the religious society of the Sisters of Charity. Their title is their history. Their services in hospitals and on the field did more than tomes of controversy to make the Catholic Church better known, and consequently loved, by the American people. The convalescing soldier by word and by letter spread the information throughout the land that the ministrations of the Catholic Sisterhood reminded him of a mother’s love and a sister’s tenderness.
“The heroic devotion to duty of the Catholic chaplains, who made no distinction of religion when a soldier was to be helped, endeared the Catholic religion to many who met a Catholic priest for the first time in camp or hospital. Our own noble-hearted Archbishop rendered such service to the wounded soldiers in St. Louis that the Government offered him a chaplaincy. Care of the body was often supplemented with the higher care of the soul. In that parting hour, when mortality leans upon the breast of religion, the example of devoted priest and religious gently led many a soul into the hope and the consolation of divine faith.
“God grant that our country shall never again reel under the shock of war! Yet out of the nettle of danger has come the flower of safety. Calumny, suspicion, distrust of our patriotism were struck dumb. Never again shall we be taunted with secret antipathy to free institutions. The banner of the stars was rebaptized in our blood. To the soldier of the war the Church owes a debt of gratitude. He proved often by his death that the religion which he professed, far from condemning his patriotism, commended it as a virtue, and the faith that sustained him in battle supported him when his heart poured out the blood of supreme sacrifice upon the altar of his country. And though no memorial marks his resting place the Church in every mass pleads for the repose of his soul.
“The soldier stands as the highest value which we place upon our country and her institutions. He says to all: ‘My country is worth dying for.’ In our thoughtless way we take liberty, security of life and property, the blessings of religion and safeguards of law and all the beauty and amenity of our civilization as a matter of course. Without the soldier all these goods would perish. It is war that preserves and protects peace. The soldier is the guardian of our homes. Honor him; make peaceful and happy his declining years. Thank God with David for preparing our hands for the sword, before whose blinding ray, in the hand of the hero, domestic treason and foreign conspiracy slink into their dens. Bless God for making us a nation of soldiers, as well as of citizens. The war proved that the American soldier, North and South, is without a peer in bravery, in discipline, in self-control. Whilst our Republic gives birth to such heroic sons we may laugh armed Europe to scorn.
“Soldiers, there is another battle, another field, a greater Captain than even the archangel who led the embattled seraphim to war. You divine my meaning. Be soldiers of the cross! Fight the good fight of faith. Be sober, pure, charitable. The laurel that binds the warrior’s brow on earth soon fades. The flowers of Decoration Day droop with the setting sun. But the Divine Captain of our salvation will place upon your brow, if you are faithful to the end, a crown that fadeth not away, a wreath which you will receive amid the shout of the heavenly armies.”
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XV.
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
The purpose of the writer of this history, as already stated, has been to furnish for the first time a full and detailed story of the labors of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the Civil War, but in doing that he has not had the slightest intention of detracting from the splendid service rendered by other bodies and other persons. One of the most notable organizations that contributed its part in the humane work incident to the war was the Sanitary Commission. It had its rise in a spontaneous movement of the women in New England. It is said that 7000 branch Aid Societies were connected with the Commission at one time. Charles J. Stille, of Philadelphia, has written a history of the Commission, from which most of the facts embodied in this sketch have been obtained. Committees were sent to Washington, the part of the Government, the Secretary of War, on the 9th of June, 1861, issued an order appointing Henry and after much negotiation, involving tedious delay on W. Bellows, D. D., Professor A. D. Boche, LL. D., Professor Jeffries Wyman, M. D., W. H. Van Buren, M. D., Wolcott Gibbs, M. D., R. C. Wood, surgeon U. S. A.; G. W. Cullom, U. S. A.; Alexander E. Shiras, U. S. A., in connection with such others as they might chose to associate with them, “a commission of inquiry and advice in respect of the sanitary interests of the United States forces.” They were to serve without remuneration from the Government and were to be provided with a room for their use in the city of Washington.