CHAPTER XVIII.
MORE ABOUT NAZARETH.
Bardstown occupied successively by the Union and the Confederate troops. Six Sisters start for Lexington under a flag of truce. A courteous letter from Brigadier-General Wood. Ex-Secretary of State Guthrie applies to President Lincoln for protection to the Nazareth Convent. A brief sketch of a famous school and some of its distinguished graduates.
Bardstown, three miles distant from Nazareth Academy, in Nelson County, Ky., was occupied successively by the Union and the Confederate armies. Some hostile engagements had taken place in the vicinity of the town and in the neighboring counties, and as a result the place was kept in a state of feverish anxiety. The victories and the defeats were attended with the usual result, killed and wounded men and sickness and suffering on all sides. Here again the peaceful aid of the Sisters came at an opportune time. Fully aware of the great need there was for experienced nurses, the Mother in charge of Nazareth sent a devoted band of Sisters to the Baptist Female College in Bardstown, which had been temporarily fitted up for hospital uses. On their arrival they found that they had to care for a large number of disabled Confederate soldiers. They quickly began their humane work and carried it to a successful completion. The Confederates were on the march, and their wounds had to be bound up quickly or not at all. When they had withdrawn from the town, taking with them their convalescents, the Union forces came in. Their sick and wounded were also nursed by another band of the same Sisters at St. Joseph’s College, which was conducted by the Jesuit fathers, but which, of course, at that time was not in educational use. Thus in the midst of civil strife, with the bullets flying thick and fast, did the Sisters work under one flag—a flag that was respected by Northerner and Southerner alike—the flag of humanity.
Some of the episodes connected with the work of the Sisters was of an exciting and dramatic nature. Late one night in September, 1862, twelve Confederate soldiers in their gloomy gray uniforms marched into Nazareth, after a wearisome journey from Lexington, Ky. They were received, as all visitors are, with kindness and hospitality. They came to ask the Sisters to nurse their sick and wounded comrades. The request was granted at once.
“How many Sisters can you spare for the work?”
“Six now and more later, if necessary,” was the prompt reply.
“When will they be ready to return with us?”
“This very night, and at once,” was the incisive reply.
Such promptness was as surprising as it was pleasing to the couriers. That very night six Sisters, without anything beyond the familiar garb which they wore, their usual rosaries and a few books of devotion, started on their mission, ready, if need be, to offer up their lives in what they believed to be the service of God. They proceeded on their long journey under the protection of a flag of truce. Resting in a farmhouse one night and in Frankfort, the capital of the State, the next, they finally reached Lexington in safety. In a few hours they were installed in one of the large halls in that city, which had been fitted up for hospital purposes, and without any preliminaries they began at once to minister to the sufferers who were collected there. Later in the same year another band of Sisters of Nazareth nursed the Union soldiers in one of the colleges in another quarter of the city. As far as can be ascertained this was Transylvania University.