Mrs. Mary Morris Husband, of Philadelphia, was a granddaughter of Robert Morris of Revolutionary fame. When her son, who had enlisted in the Army of the Potomac, was seriously ill on the Peninsula, she went there to take care of him, and what she saw determined her to give her services to the country as a nurse. She was on one of the hospital transports at Harrison's Landing when the Confederates bombarded it, but kept right on with her work as if she were not under fire. She was at Antietam immediately after the battle, and remained there two months in charge of the wounded, sleeping in a tent in all kinds of weather and attending the hospital with perfect regularity. She contrived an ensign for her tent by cutting out the figure of a bottle in red flannel and sewing it upon a piece of calico, this bottle flag indicating the place where medicines were to be obtained.
In the severe winter of 1862-63 she often left her tent several times in the night and visited the cots of those who were apparently near death, to make sure that the nurses did not neglect them; and when diphtheria appeared in the hospital and many of the nurses left from fear of it, she remained at her post just as if there were no such thing as a contagious disease. It is said that in several instances where she believed a soldier had been unjustly condemned by court-martial, she obtained a pardon or commutation of his sentence by laying the case directly before President Lincoln.
Miss Katherine P. Wormeley, known of late as a translator of Balzac's works, is a native of England. Her father, born in Virginia, was an officer in the British Navy. Her mother was a native of Boston. At the beginning of the war Miss Wormeley was living at Newport, R. I., and almost at once she enlisted in the work of aid for the soldiers. When the hospital transport service was organized, in the summer of 1862, she was one of the first volunteers for that branch of the service. Later she had charge of a large hospital in Rhode Island, which held two thousand five hundred patients.
Among others who volunteered for the hospital transport service were Mrs. Joseph Howland, whose husband was colonel of the Sixteenth New York regiment, and her sister, Mrs. Robert S. Howland, whose husband was a clergyman working in the hospitals. The latter Mrs. Howland, who died in 1864, was the author of a short poem, entitled "In the Hospital," which has become famous.
| "I lay me down to sleep, with little thought or care Whether my waking find me here—or there! A bowing, burdened head, that only asks to rest, Unquestioning, upon a loving breast. My good right hand forgets its cunning now; To march the weary march I know not how. I am not eager, bold, nor strong—all that is past; I am ready not to do at last, at last. My half-day's work is done, and this is all my part— I give a patient God my patient heart; And grasp His banner still, though all the blue be dim: These stripes, as well as stars, lead after Him." |
These two ladies had two unmarried sisters, Jane C. and Georgiana M. Woolsey, who also were in the service. Miss Georgiana Woolsey wrote some entertaining letters from the seat of war, in one of which she tells of some women in Gettysburg who, like Jennie Wade, kept at their work of making bread for the soldiers while the battle was going on. One of them had refused to leave the house or go into the cellar until a third shell passed through the room, when, having got the last loaf into the oven, she ran down the stairs. "Why did you not go before?" she was asked. "Oh, you see," she answered, "if I had, the rebels would 'a' come in and daubed the dough all over the place." These ladies were cousins of Miss Sarah C. Woolsey, who is now, under her pen-name of Susan Coolidge, well known as a writer for the young. She also served for some time in the hospitals.
Anna Maria Ross, of Philadelphia, was known as a most energetic worker in the hospitals, chiefly in what was called the Cooper Shop Hospital of Philadelphia, of which she was principal until, from overwork and anxiety, she died in December, 1863.
Miss Mary J. Safford, a native of Vermont, was living in Cairo, Ill., when the war began, and at once enlisted in the work of aid for the soldiers. Immediately after the battle of Shiloh she went to the front with a large supply of hospital stores, and labored there day and night for three weeks, when she came North with a transport loaded with wounded men. She is said to have been the first woman in the West to engage in this work. The hardships that she endured caused a disease of the spine, and at the end of a year and a half she broke down, and had to be sent to Europe for treatment.
Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, of Iowa, was appointed sanitary agent for that State, and is said to have been the originator of the diet kitchens attached to the hospitals. The object of these was to have the food for the wounded and sick prepared in a skilful manner and administered according to surgeons' orders, and they were a very efficient branch of the hospital service.