Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience

by L. P. Brockett; Mary C. Vaughan

Two were already dead. Two or three were in bed, the rest lay in their misery upon stretchers, helpless objects of the tongue abuse of the profane wretches who, "dressed in a little brief authority," walked up and down, thus pouring out their wrath. All the wounded had been drugged, and were either partially or entirely insensible to their miseries. Some eight or ten hours had elapsed since the wounds were received, but no attention had been paid to them, further than to staunch the blood by thrusting into them large pieces of cotton cloth. Even their clothes had not been removed. One of them (Coburn) had been shot in the hip, another (Sergeant Ames) was wounded in the back of the neck, just at the base of the brain, apparently by a heavy glass bottle, for pieces of the glass yet remained in the wound, and lay in bed, still in his soldier's overcoat, the rough collar of which irritated the ghastly wound. These two were the most dangerously hurt.

Mrs. Tyler with some difficulty obtained these men, and procuring, by the aid of her driver, a furniture van, had them laid upon it and conveyed to her house, the Deaconesses' Home. Here a surgeon was called, their wounds dressed, and she extended to them the care and kindness of a mother, until they were so nearly well as to be able to proceed to their own homes. She during this time refused protection from the police, and declared that she felt no fears for her own safety while thus strictly in the line of the duties to which her life was pledged.

This was by no means the last work of this kind performed by Sister Tyler. Other wounded men were received and cared for by her—one a German, member of a Pennsylvania Regiment, (who was accidentally shot by one of his own comrades) whom she nursed to health in her own house.

For her efforts in behalf of the Massachusetts men she received the personal acknowledgments of the Governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State, and afterwards resolutions of thanks were passed by the Legislature, or General Court, which, beautifully engrossed upon parchment, and sealed with the seal of the Commonwealth, were presented to her.

In all that she did, Mrs. Tyler had the full approval of her Bishop, as well as of her own conscience, while soon after at the suggestion of Bishop Whittingham, the Surgeon-General offered, and indeed urged upon her, the superintendency of the Camden Street Hospital, in the city of Baltimore. Her experience in the management of the large institution she had so long superintended, her familiarity with all forms of suffering, as well as her natural tact and genius, and her high character, eminently fitted her for this position.

Her duties were of course fulfilled in the most admirable manner, and save that she sometimes came in contact with the members of some of the volunteer associations of ladies who, in their commendable anxiety to minister to the suffering soldiers, occasionally allowed their zeal to get the better of their discretion, gave satisfaction to all concerned. She did not live in the Hospital, but spent the greater part of the time there during the year of her connection with it. Circumstances at last decided her to leave. Her charge she turned over to Miss Williams, of Boston, whom she had herself brought thither, and then went northward to visit her friends.

She had not long been in the city of New York before she was urgently desired by the Surgeon-General to take charge of a large hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania, just established and greatly needing the ministering aid of women. She accepted the appointment, and proceeding to Boston selected from among her friends, and those who had previously offered their services, a corps of excellent nurses, who accompanied her to Chester.

In this hospital there was often from five hundred to one thousand sick and wounded men, and Mrs. Tyler had use enough for the ample stores of comforts which, by the kindness of her friends in the east, were continually arriving. Indeed there was never a time when she was not amply supplied with these, and with money for the use of her patients.

She remained at Chester a year, and was then transferred to Annapolis, where she was placed in charge of the Naval School Hospital, remaining there until the latter part of May, 1864.

This was a part of her service which perhaps drew more heavily than any other upon the sympathies and heart of Mrs. Tyler. Here, during the period of her superintendency, the poor wrecks of humanity from the prison pens of Andersonville and Belle Isle were brought, an assemblage of such utter misery, such dreadful suffering, that words fail in the description of it. Here indeed was a "work of charity and mercy," such as had never before been presented to this devoted woman; such, indeed, as the world had never seen.