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XX.
A ROMANCE OF THE WAR.
This record of their life and conduct could not be brought to a more appropriate close than by the recital of a touching romance of the war, growing directly out of the work of the Sisters during that crucial period. The episode upon which the story hinges gains added interest from the fact that it constituted one of the actual occurrences of the closing day of the war.
A few years before the first shot was fired upon Sumter a household that was a perfect picture of domestic felicity existed in one of the large cities of Kentucky. It consisted of four persons—father, mother, son and daughter. The parents were in comfortable circumstances, and in their life and conduct were all that the heads of a Christian family should be. The son and daughter vied with one another in performing those little acts of devotion and duty that go so far toward making up the sum total of harmony and happiness that should ever reign about the family hearthstone.
At the time our narrative begins the son was approaching his twentieth year. He was a tall, handsome manly fellow, and by a course of preparatory work was now about to begin the final years of study at the West Point Military Academy. The daughter, a girl of unusual intelligence and beauty, was two years the junior of her brother. Hers was a devout nature, and choice and study led her to adopt the habit of a Sister of Charity as the means for carrying out a desire to be both useful and good during her transitory stay upon this earth.
Just at this period death, by one of these inexplicable strokes which can never be made quite clear to the human intellect, carried off both parents. The devoted children of such a loving father and mother were naturally prostrated at such an affliction. But they rallied nobly, and grief only served to bring out the better qualities of their nature. After all that was mortal of their dearest ones had been consigned to the earth they calmly sat down and rationally discussed their future plans.
The result was just what might have been expected. Both resolved to carry out their original design. The parting was a sad one—the man going to complete his knowledge of a soldier’s life—the woman to her convent home to receive the final vows and to learn the last lessons concerning the philosophy of charity in its sweetest and grandest sense.
Many years passed and the brother and sister, in their widely separated and totally different spheres of life, were as dead to one another as if they had never lived under the same roof. The Civil War with all of its horrors began. What had been the theoretical discussions of cabinets and the political orations of legislators now developed into the fierce and awful reality of war. It was no longer a question of what might or could have been, the actual grim-visaged monster with all of the hideous ills that follow was engaged in the work of death and destruction.
Men volunteered their services. After them came the nurses. One of these was Sister S——, from one of the Northern houses of the Sisters of Charity. In order to expedite her mission of mercy it was necessary that she should enter the service of the Federal Government. The record of her daily life from that time forth was the record of every member of the Catholic Sisterhood that served during the war. Days of uninterrupted work; nights of ceaseless watching.
Soon after the siege of Vicksburg word was telegraphed to Baltimore that a corps of Sisters of Charity was needed at once to care for the scores of sick and wounded then suffering in Louisiana. Only five Sisters were available. They were sent at once, with Sister S—— in command. They found travel seriously impeded from the start. This fact caused the good Samaritans much anguish of mind, for the summons they received said that many of the men would die unless they had the immediate attendance of experienced nurses. When the Sisters reached Chattanooga they found that a special train had been provided for the purpose of rushing them with all possible speed to the City of New Orleans. On this train there were also a number of Union officers carrying important sealed orders from the authorities at Washington to the men in charge of the Union forces in what was known as the “Department of the Gulf.” Sisters and officers were filled with conflicting emotions, but all had one object in common—the desire to reach New Orleans at the earliest possible moment. With the Sisters it was a race for life—for lives that might be saved by their exertions. With the men it was a race for honor—for promotion, perhaps for official commendation from the General of the Army or the President of the United States.