Father Gache accompanied them and continued his mission of zeal and charity. The Sisters were then ten in number, and, as usual, found plenty to do to place the sick in a comfortable situation. They had just accomplished this when the city was evacuated, and on the 13th of April they left Richmond for the Mother House at Emmittsburg.
BATTLE OF ANTIETAM.
A terrible engagement took place near the Antietam River, in Maryland, not far from the Potomac, on the 17th of September, 1862. Not only were thousands on both sides killed, but as many more were left wounded on the battlefield, with the farmhouses and barns their only prospective shelter. As the fighting had been from twelve to fifteen miles in space, the towns of Boonsboro and Sharpsburg were selected for hospital purposes. The general in charge of the Maryland division requested the people to aid the fallen prisoners, as the Government provided for the Northern soldiers and would have cared for all if it had enough for that purpose.
The Superior of the Sisters of Charity, with the people of Emmittsburg, collected a quantity of clothing, provisions, remedies, delicacies and money for these poor men. The overseer of the community drove in a carriage to the place, with Father Smith, C. M., and two of the Sisters. Boonsboro is about thirty miles from Emmittsburg, and the wagon containing the supplies reached the town by twilight. Two officers of the Northern army saw the cornettes by the aid of the lighted lamps, and, pointing to the carriage, one said to the other:
“Ah, there come the Sisters of Charity; now the poor men will be equally cared for.”
The Sisters were kindly received at the house of a worthy physician, whose only daughter had previously been their pupil. There were in the town four hospitals. The morning after their arrival they set out for the battlefield, having Miss Janette, their kind hostess, as a pilot. They passed houses and barns occupied as hospitals, fences strewn with bloody clothing, and further on came to the wounded of both armies. The poor men were only separated from the ground by some straw for beds, with here and there a blanket stretched above them by sticks driven into the earth at their head and feet to protect them from the burning sun. The Sisters distributed their little stores among the men, although their wretched condition seemed to destroy all relish for food or drinks.
Bullets could be gathered from the small spaces that separated the men. They were consoled as much as possible, but the Sisters scarcely knew where to begin or what to do. If they stopped at one place, a messenger would come to hastily call them elsewhere. In a wagon shed lay a group of men, one of whom was mortally wounded.
An officer called the Sisters to him, telling them how the mortally wounded man had become a hero as a flag-bearer in the bloody struggle just ended. The poor fellow seemed to gain new strength while the Sisters were near him.
They were about to move away when the officer recalled them, saying: “I fear the man is dying rapidly; come to him. He has been so valiant that I wish to let his wife know that the Sisters of Charity were with him in his last moments.”