Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

Mrs. Mary Bickerdyke, mentioned in Mrs. Porter's letter, was a widow in Cleveland, Ohio, at the opening of the war, and immediately gave herself to the work. Leaving her two little boys at home, she went to the front and made herself useful in the hospitals at Savannah, Chattanooga, and other points. She was a woman of great energy and courage, and it is said that, in carrying on her work for the sick and wounded soldiers, she used to violate military rules without the least hesitation, in order to obtain what she wanted. On one occasion, when she found that an assistant surgeon had been off on a drunken spree and had not made out the special diet list for his ward, leaving the men without any breakfast, she not only denounced him to his face but caused him to be discharged from the service. Going to General Sherman to obtain reinstatement, the surgeon was asked: "Who caused your discharge?" "Why," said he, "I suppose it was Mrs. Bickerdyke." "If that is the case," said General Sherman, "I can do nothing for you. She ranks me." Finding great difficulty in obtaining milk, butter, and eggs for her hospital in Memphis, she resolved to establish a dairy of her own. She therefore went to Illinois, and in one of its farming regions obtained stock, by begging, until she had two hundred cows and one thousand hens, which she took to Memphis, where the commanding general gave her an island in the Mississippi, on which she established her dairy. Her clothing was riddled with holes from sparks at the open fires where she cooked for the field hospitals, and some ladies in Chicago sent her a box of clothing for herself, which included two elegant nightdresses trimmed with ruffles and lace. Using only some of the plainest garments, she traded others with secessionist women of the vicinity for delicacies for the hospital. The two nightdresses she reserved to sell in some place where she thought they would bring a higher price; but on the way to Kentucky she found two wounded soldiers in a miserable shanty for whom nothing had been done, and, after attending to their wounds and finding that they had no shirts, she gave them the nightdresses, ruffles, lace, and all.

Miss Margaret Elizabeth Breckenridge was a native of Philadelphia, but was closely related to the well-known Breckenridge family of Kentucky. She entered upon hospital service at the West in the spring of 1862, and served constantly as long as her health and strength permitted. In June, 1864, while she was prostrated by illness, the news came that her brother-in-law, Col. Peter A. Porter, had been killed in the battle of Cold Harbor, and this proved a greater shock than she could bear. She had been especially helpful in cheering up the soldiers in the hospitals and writing letters for them. One very young soldier who lay wounded said to her: "Where do you come from? How could such a lady as you are come down here to take care of us poor, sick, dirty boys?" "I consider it an honor to wait on you," she said, "and wash off the mud you waded through for me." Another man said: "Please write down your name and let me look at it, and take it home, to show my wife who wrote my letters and combed my hair and fed me. I don't believe you're like other people."

Mrs. Stephen Barker, who was a sister of the attorney-general of Massachusetts, and whose husband was chaplain of a regiment from that State, gave nearly the whole four years of the war to hospital duty, mostly in and around Washington, where at one time she had charge of ten hospitals, which she carefully inspected herself with perfect regularity. In her report she says: "I remember no scenes in camp more picturesque than some of our visits have presented. The great open army wagon stands under some shade-tree, with the officer who has volunteered to help, or the regular field agent, standing in the midst of boxes, bales, and bundles. Wheels, sides, and every projecting point are crowded with eager soldiers, to see what the 'Sanitary' has brought for them. By the side of the great wagon stands the light wagon of the lady, with its curtains all rolled up, while she arranges before and around her the supplies she is to distribute. Another eager crowd surrounds her, patient, kind, and respectful as the first, except that a shade more of softness in their look and tone attest the ever-living power of woman over the rough elements of manhood. In these hours of personal communication with the soldier she finds the true meaning of her work. This is her golden opportunity, when by look and tone and movement she may call up, as if by magic, the pure influences of home, which may have been long banished by the hard necessities of war. Quietly and rapidly the supplies are handed out for companies A, B, C, etc., first from one wagon, then the other, and as soon as a regiment is completed the men hurry back to their tents to receive their share, and write letters on the newly received paper, or apply the long-needed comb or mend the gaping seams in their now 'historic garments.' When at last the supplies are exhausted, and sunset reminds us that we are yet many miles from home, we gather up the remnants, bid good-by to the friendly faces, which already seem like old acquaintances, promising to come again to visit new regiments to-morrow, and hurry home to prepare for the next day's work. Every day, from the first to the twentieth day of June, our little band of missionaries has repeated a day's work such as I have now described."

Miss Amy M. Bradley, a native and resident of Maine, who had been for some years a teacher, volunteered as a nurse at the very beginning of the war and went out with the Fifth Maine regiment, many of the soldiers in which had been her pupils. She became noted for the efficiency and good condition of the hospitals over which she presided, and in December, 1862, was sent to what the soldiers called Camp Misery, on the opposite side of the Potomac from Washington, as a special relief agent of the Sanitary Commission. This camp, as its name indicated, was in a deplorable condition; but she immediately instituted reforms which rapidly improved it. She not only obtained supplies for the invalids and others who were there, but brought about a system of transfer by which more than two thousand of them were sent where they could be taken care of more comfortably, and she was especially efficient in setting right the accounts of men who were suffering from informality in their papers. In eight months she procured the reinstatement of one hundred and fifty soldiers who had been unjustly dropped from the rolls as deserters, and secured their arrears of pay for them.

Miss Arabella Griffith was a native of New Jersey, and at the beginning of the war was engaged to Francis C. Barlow, a promising young lawyer. On April 19, 1861, Mr. Barlow enlisted as a private; on the 20th they were married, and on the 21st he went with his regiment to Washington. A week later Mrs. Barlow followed him, and still later she joined in the hospital work of the Sanitary Commission. The day after the battle of Antietam she found her husband badly wounded, and when, in the spring, he went to the field again, she accompanied him. At Gettysburg he was again wounded and was left within the enemy's lines, but she by great effort managed to get him within the Union lines, where she took care not only of him, but many others of the wounded men in that great battle. In the spring of 1864 she was again in the field, hard at work in the hospitals that were nearest the front. A friend who knew her at this time writes: "We call her 'The Raider.' At Fredericksburg she had in some way gained possession of a wretched-looking pony and a small cart, with which she was continually on the move, driving about town or country in search of such provisions or other articles as were needed for the sick and wounded. The surgeon in charge had on one occasion assigned to us the task of preparing a building, which had been taken for a hospital, for a large number of wounded who were expected immediately. It was empty, containing not the slightest furniture, save a large number of bed-sacks, without material to fill them. On requisition a quantity of straw was obtained, but not nearly enough, and we were standing in a mute despair when Mrs. Barlow came in. 'I'll find some more straw,' was her cheerful reply, and in another moment she was urging her tired beast toward another part of the town where she remembered having seen a bale of straw earlier in the day. Half an hour afterward it had been confiscated, loaded upon the little wagon, and brought to the hospital." Her health became so impaired in the field that, in July, 1864, she died. Her husband, meanwhile, had risen to the rank of brigadier-general, and was known as one of the most gallant men in the army. Surgeon W. H. Reed, writing of her, said: "In the open field she toiled with Mr. Marshall and Miss Gilson, under the scorching sun, with no shelter from the pouring rains, with no thought but for those who were suffering and dying all around her. On the battlefield of Petersburg, hardly out of range of the enemy and at night witnessing the blazing lines of fire from right to left, among the wounded, with her sympathies and powers both of mind and body strained to the last degree, neither conscious that she was working beyond her strength nor realizing the extreme exhaustion of her system, she fainted at her work, and found, only when it was too late, that the raging fever was wasting her life away. Yet to the last her sparkling wit, her brilliant intellect, her unfailing good humor, lighted up our moments of rest and recreation."

Mrs. Nellie M. Taylor (May Dewey) was a native of Watertown, New York, but settled with her husband in New Orleans. There, on the breaking out of the war, she was subjected to all kinds of persecution because she was a Unionist. On one occasion a mob assembled around her house, where she was watching at the bedside of her dying husband, and the leader said: "Madam, we give you five minutes to decide whether you are for the South or for the North. If at the end of that time you declare yourself for the South, your house shall remain; if for the North, it must come down." "Sir," she answered, "I will say to you and your crowd that I am, always have been, and ever shall be, for the Union. Tear my house down if you choose!" The mob seemed to be a little ashamed of themselves at this answer, and finally dispersed without destroying the house. Seven times before the capture of the city by the National forces her home was searched by self-constituted committees of citizens, who every time found the National flag displayed at the head of her bed; and on one occasion she was actually fired at from a window. Mrs. Taylor gave a large part of her time during the war to hard work in the hospitals, and in addition she spent many of her earnings for the benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers.

In the spring of 1862, Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin, visited General Grant's army with medicines and other supplies for the wounded from his State, and just after the battle of Shiloh he was accidentally drowned there. His widow, Cordelia P. Harvey, devoted herself to the work in which he had lost his life, and served faithfully in the hospitals of that department. One of her most valuable achievements consisted in persuading the government to establish general hospitals in the Northern States, where suffering soldiers might be sent and have a better chance of recovery than if kept in the hospitals further south.

Mrs. Sarah R. Johnston was a native of North Carolina, and at the beginning of the war was teaching at Salisbury, in that State. When the first prisoners were brought to the town for confinement in the stockade there, the secessionist women turned out in carriages to escort them through the town, and greeted them with contemptuous epithets as they filed past. The sight of this determined Mrs. Johnston to devote herself to the work of ameliorating their condition. This subjected her to all sorts of insults from her townspeople and broke up her school; but she persevered, nevertheless, and earned the gratitude of many of the unfortunate men who there suffered from the studied cruelty of the Confederate government. She made up her carpets and spare blankets into moccasins, which she gave to the prisoners as they arrived; and when they stood in front of her house waiting their turn to be mustered into the prison, she supplied them, as far as she could, with bread and water, for in many instances they had been on the railroad forty-eight hours with nothing to eat or drink. The prisoners were not permitted to leave their ranks to assist her in obtaining the water, all of which had to be drawn from a well with an old-fashioned windlass. On one occasion a Confederate sergeant in charge told her that if she attempted to do anything for the Yankees or come outside her gate, he would pin her to the earth with his bayonet. Paying no attention to this, she took a basket of bread in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, and walked past him on her usual errand. The sergeant followed her and touched her upon the shoulder with the point of his bayonet, whereupon she turned and asked him why he did not pin her to the earth, as he had promised to. Some of the Confederate soldiers called out: "Sergeant, you can't make anything out of that woman; you had better leave her alone." And then he desisted.