“Subsequently I heard Dr. Lynch, late Bishop of Charleston, narrate a very like experience.
“The only other occasion that I remember visiting a Sisters’ hospital was before the siege of Vicksburg, at Jacksonville, Miss. The hospital was located in a large hotel, downtown. As I entered the door I found the hallway occupied for its length by two rows of sick soldiers stretched on the floor, each wrapped in his old worn blanket with his small bundle for a pillow. A tall, gaunt, poor fellow had just come in and was spreading his blanket, preparing to lie down. A Sister approached and asked him for his ticket. He made no answer, but having finished his preparations lay down and then proceeded to search for the paper. When found, after a long search, he handed it to the Sister, who, glancing at it, said:
“‘My good man, this is not for us. It is for the hospital in the Capital.’
“‘That mought be,’ he answered, ‘and I reckon it is. But that don’t matter anyhow. This is my hospital, and I’ll stay here, wherever the ticket’s for. Think I’m gwine t’anywhar but the Sisters’?’
“And so he was tolerated and adopted by the Sisters, for though inconvenient to the nuns it was consoling and encouraging to them when they found their services so appreciated by their patients.
From Jacksonville I went to Port Gibson, and then to Vicksburg. There were not any Sisters at either place. After the fall of Vicksburg I went to Mobile, where I visited the Sisters’ hospital, but was not on duty there or elsewhere up to my departure for Europe by the Steamer R. E. Lee, via Wilmington, N. C., and Halifax.”
Many of the episodes of the war with which the Sisters were associated would in their intensity and uniqueness furnish the basis for stories and dramas more wonderful than anything yet written by the novelists or constructed by the playwrights. Here was frequently illustrated the poet’s contention that truth is stranger than fiction. One instance containing all of the elements that go to make up a romance comes to mind. The two principal figures in it were a sweet Sister of Charity, burning with love for her fellow creatures, and willing to lay down life itself in the cause of suffering humanity, and a brave soldier, filled with patriotism for his country, brought to the point of death by a malignant fever; nursed back to life and finally, twenty-five years after the war, giving an exhibition of gratitude as rare as it is beautiful.
Thomas Trahey was born in Detroit, Mich., in 1844, and was the only son of devoted parents. When the war began he was about 17 years of age. Flushed with the vigor and energy of youth he desired to enlist at once. He did not succeed in carrying out his wish, however, until August, 1862, when he enlisted in Company H, Sixteenth Michigan Volunteer Infantry. When he was mustered out at the close of the war it was as sergeant of his command. He was commended many times by his superiors for gallantry in action. In the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, he was struck by the fragment of a shell and severely wounded in the left breast. He was left on the battlefield all night, but finally received attention at the hands of Dr. R. F. Weir, who was in charge of the hospital at Frederick City.
Trahey recovered from this and went to the front again with his regiment. After the battle of Gettysburg he was taken with typhoid fever, which soon assumed a malignant form. Dr. Gray, of Philadelphia, who was in charge of Barracks H, in the United States General Hospital, at Frederick City, made a careful diagnosis of the case and said that Trahey, who was weakened from the effects of his previous wounds and suffering, could not possibly recover.
It was at this juncture that Sister Louise appeared upon the scene. She inquired if careful nursing would not save the man’s life. The physician said that it was one chance in a thousand, but that if anything could prolong the soldier’s existence it was the patient and persistent care and watchfulness of a Sister of Charity.