CLOSE OF THE WAR
Fall of Sebastopol--The Nightingale Hospital Fund--A Carriage
Accident--Last Months in the Crimea--“The Nightingale
Cross”--Presents from Queen Victoria and the Sultan--Sails for
Home.
How many now are left of those whose serried ranks
Were first to land on Eupatoria’s hostile shore;
Who rushed victoriously up the Alma’s banks,
And won the primal honours of that mighty war?
Theirs were the fadeless laurels!--yet not theirs alone,
Who bore the stern privations of that Eastern camp:--
Scutari’s coronet of glory is thine own,
O Florence Nightingale, dear
Lady with the Lamp.
MAJOR A. ST. JOHN SEALLY.
The autumn of 1855 brought the final act in the great drama of the
Crimean War. On the morning of September 8th the allied armies before
Sebastopol were ready for the final assault. The day dawned gloriously,
and by five o’clock the guards were on the march for the besieged city,
and troops from all quarters pressed silently in the same direction.
The supreme moment had come; the long tension of the siege was broken,
and each man braced him to the fight and looked for death or glory.
The elements seemed to voice the situation. A brilliant sky gave the
promise of victory, then suddenly changed to storm-clouds which burst
in a furious tempest as the batteries opened fire upon the doomed city.
The earth groaned and shook with the noise of cannon and the air was
filled with the rattle of musketry. An hour elapsed, and then came the
first shouts of victory. The French allies had captured the Malakhoff
and the British had taken the Redan, the fort which three months before
had repulsed the attacking force with fearful carnage and brought Lord
Raglan to a despairing death. The fight raged fiercely until nightfall
and ere another day dawned the Russians had retreated, leaving
Sebastopol in flames.
On the morning of September 9th the tidings spread far and wide that
the mighty stronghold had fallen and the power of the enemy was broken.
The news was received in London with a universal outburst of rejoicing.
The Tower guns proclaimed the victory, every arsenal fired its salute,
and the joy-bells rang from cathedral minster to the humblest village
church as the tidings spread through the land. The long night of War
was over, and white-robed Peace stood on the threshold.
With the plaudits that rang through the land in honour of the
victorious armies, the name of Florence Nightingale was mingled on
every hand. The nation was eager to give our heroine a right royal
welcome home, but she sought no great ovation, no public demonstration,
and her home-coming was not to be yet. The war had ended, but the
victims still remained in hospital ward and lonely hut, and as long as
the wounded needed her care Florence Nightingale would not leave her
post.
Meanwhile, however, the Queen and all classes of her people were eager
to give proof of the nation’s gratitude to the noble woman who had come
to the succour of the soldiers in their dire need. Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Herbert were approached on the matter by Mrs. S. C. Hall as to what
form of testimonial would, be most acceptable to Miss Nightingale, and
Mrs. Herbert replied:--
“49, BELGRAVE SQUARE,
_July, 1855_.
“MADAM,--
“There is but one testimonial which would be accepted by Miss
Nightingale.
“The one wish of her heart has long been to found a hospital in
London and to work it on her own system of unpaid nursing, and
I have suggested to all who have asked for my advice in this
matter to pay any sums that they may feel disposed to give, or
that they may be able to collect, into Messrs. Coutts’ Bank, where
a subscription list for the purpose is about to be opened, to be
called the ‘Nightingale Hospital Fund,’ the sum subscribed to be
presented to her on her return home, which will enable her to
carry out her object regarding the reform of the nursing system in
England.”
A Committee to inaugurate such a project was formed. It was presided
over by His Royal Highness the late Duke of Cambridge, and included
representatives of all classes. The Hon. Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr.
S. C. Hall acted as honorary secretaries, and the latter summarised
the variety of interests represented when he described the Committee
as having “three dukes, nine other noblemen, the Lord Mayor, two
judges, five right honourables, foremost naval and military officers,
physicians, lawyers, London aldermen, dignitaries of the Church,
dignitaries of Nonconformist Churches, twenty members of Parliament,
and several eminent men of letters.” While no state party was omitted,
none was unduly prominent. It was resolved by the Committee to devote
the money subscribed to the Nightingale Fund to founding an institute
for the training, sustenance, and protection of nurses and hospital
attendants, to embrace the paid and the unpaid, for whom a home should
be provided and a retreat for old age. A copy of the resolution was
forwarded to Miss Nightingale at Scutari and she replied to Mrs.
Herbert in the following letter:--
“Exposed as I am to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, in a field of
action in which the work is new, complicated, and distant from many
who sit in judgment on it, it is indeed an abiding support to have
such sympathy and such appreciation brought home to me in the midst of
labours and difficulties all but overpowering. I must add, however,
that my present work is such I would never desert for any other, so
long as I see room to believe that which I may do here is unfinished.
May I then beg you to express to the Committee that I accept their
proposals, provided I may do so on their understanding of this great
uncertainty as to when it will be possible for me to carry it out?”
The gift, indeed, gave Florence Nightingale a further task to perform
on her return home, but as Mr. Sidney Herbert said: “Miss Nightingale
looks to her reward from this country in having a fresh field for her
labours, and means of extending the good that she has already begun. A
compliment cannot be paid dearer to her heart than in giving her more
work to do.”
A public meeting was held at Willis’s Rooms on November 29th, 1855, to
inaugurate the scheme. It was presided over by the Duke of Cambridge
and addressed by the venerable Lord Lansdowne, Sir John Pakington
(Lord Hampton), Monckton-Milnes (Lord Houghton), Lord Stanley (Earl of
Derby), the Lord Mayor, the Marquis of Ripon, Rev. Dr. Cumming, and Dr.
Gleig, the Chaplain-General. All paid eloquent tributes to the work
accomplished by Miss Nightingale, but the most touching incident of the
meeting was when Mr. Sidney Herbert read a letter from a friend who
said: “I have just heard a pretty account from a soldier describing the
comfort it was even to see Florence pass. ‘She would speak to one and
another,’ he said, ‘and nod and smile to many more, but she could not
do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss
her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again content.’”
That story brought £10,000 to the Nightingale Fund, and the soldier who
had related it out of the fulness of his heart must have felt a proud
man.
Public meetings in aid of the scheme were held during the ensuing
months in all the principal cities and towns throughout the kingdom,
and also in all parts of the Empire, including India and the colony in
China. Never, I believe, has the work of any British subject been so
honoured and recognised in every part of our vast dominions as that of
Florence Nightingale.
Collections were made for the ‘fund’ in churches and chapels of varying
creeds in all parts of the country, and concerts and sales of work were
got up by enthusiastic ladies to help the subscriptions. As in the dark
winter of 1854–5 everybody was doing their part to strengthen Miss
Nightingale’s hands by supplying her with comforts and necessaries for
the soldiers, so in the joyous winter of 1855–6 people gave of their
time and money to present the heroine with means for inaugurating a
scheme which should revolutionise the nursing methods of the civil and
military hospitals, and render impossible the suffering and misery
among the sick soldiers which had characterised the late war.
There were no more enthusiastic and grateful supporters of the
Nightingale Fund than the brave “boys” of the Services. The officers
and men of nearly every regiment and many of the vessels contributed a
day’s pay.
Books were opened by the principal bankers throughout the kingdom, and
a very handsome gift to the fund came from M. and Madame Goldschmidt
(Jenny Lind), who gave a concert at Exeter Hall on March 11th, 1856,
which realised nearly £2,000. M. and Madame Goldschmidt defrayed all
the expenses of the concert, amounting to upwards of £500, and gave the
gross receipts to the Committee. In recognition of their generosity a
gift was made to M and Madame Goldschmidt of a marble bust of Queen
Victoria, the result of a private subscription.
In course of time the Nightingale fund reached £44,000, and in evidence
of the widespread interest which it evoked the detailed statement of
the honorary secretaries may be quoted:--
GENERAL ABSTRACT OF SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE NIGHTINGALE FUND
£ _s._ _d._
From Troops or all arms in various parts of the
world, including the Militia 8,952 1 7
From the officers and men of sixty-one ships of
Her Majesty’s Navy 758 19 8
From the officers and men of the Coastguard
service, thirty-nine stations 155 9 0
From the officers and men of Her Majesty’s Dockyards
at Woolwich and Pembroke 29 6 4
From East and West Indies, Australia, North
America, and other British possessions 4,495 15 6
From British residents in foreign countries,
transmitted through their respective ambassadors,
consuls, etc 1,647 16 10
From provincial cities and towns, collected and
forwarded by local committees 5,683 15 4
From church or parish collections in other towns
and villages, transmitted by the clergy and
ministers of various denominations 1,162 4 9
From merchants, bankers, etc, connected with the
City of London 3,511 13 6
-----------------
Carried forward 26,397 2 6
Brought forward 26,397 2 6
From other general subscriptions not included under
the above heads, made up of separate sums from
one penny to five hundred pounds 15,697 14 10
The contribution of M. and Madame Goldschmidt,
being the gross proceeds of a concert given by
them at Exeter Hall 1,872 6 0
Proceeds of sale of the “Nightingale Address” (a
lithographic print and poem published at one
shilling), received from Mrs. F. P. B. Martin 53 0 0
Proceeds of a series of “Twelve Photographic Views
in the Interior of Sebastopol,” by G. Shaw-Lefevre,
Esq. 18 18 0
------------------
Total £44,039 1 4
------------------
There is little doubt that the fund would have reached the £50,000
which the Committee had set itself to obtain if Miss Nightingale,
after her return home, had not herself brought the subscription list
to a close in order that public benevolence might be diverted to the
fund raised to help the victims of the devastating inundations in
France in 1857. Miss Nightingale had seen with great admiration the
self-sacrificing work of French ladies and sisters amongst the soldiers
in the Crimea, and had been supported in her own efforts by the
sympathy of commanding officers of the French troops, so that it gave
her peculiar pleasure to promote a fund for helping our late allies
when distress came upon their country.
Meantime, the heroine whose work had evoked the great outburst of
national gratitude of which the Nightingale Fund was the expression,
still remained in the East, to complete her work, for though the
fall of Sebastopol had brought the war to an end, the sick and
wounded soldiers still lay in the hospitals, and there was an army
of occupation in the Crimea pending the conclusion of the peace
negotiations. None knew better than Miss Nightingale the evils which
beset soldiers in camp when the exigencies of active warfare no longer
occupy them, and she now divided her attention between administering to
the sick and providing recreation and instruction for the convalescents
and the soldiers in camp.
As soon as her health was sufficiently established after the attack of
fever, she again left Scutari for the Crimea. Two new camp hospitals,
known as the “Left Wing” and the “Right Wing,” consisting of huts,
had been put up on the heights above Balaclava, not far from the
Sanatorium, and Miss Nightingale established a staff of nurses there,
and took the superintendence of the nursing department. She lived in a
hut consisting of three rooms with a medical store attached, situated
by the Sanatorium and conveniently near the new camp hospitals.
Three of the Roman Catholic sisters who had been working at Scutari
accompanied Miss Nightingale to the Crimea, and writing from the hut
encampment there to some of the sisters who remained at Scutari, she
says: “I want my ‘Cardinal’ (a name bestowed on a valued sister) very
much up here. The sisters are all quite well and cheerful, thank God
for it! They have made their hut look quite tidy, and put up with the
cold and inconveniences with the utmost self-abnegation. Everything,
even the ink, freezes in our hut every night.”
The sisters and their Chief had a rough experience on these Balaclava
heights. One relates that their hut was far from weather-proof, and
on awakening one morning they found themselves covered with snow,
which had fallen heavily all night. They were consoled for those
little discomforts by the arrival of a gentleman on horseback “bearing
the princely present of some eggs, tied up in a handkerchief.” The
benefactor was the Protestant chaplain, and the sisters returned his
kindness by washing his neckties. But alas! there was no flat iron
available, and the sisters, not to be beaten, smoothed out the clerical
lawn with a teapot filled with boiling water!
One of the sisters was stricken by fever, and Miss Nightingale insisted
on nursing her herself. While watching over the sick bed one night,
she saw a rat upon the rafters over the sister’s head, and taking an
umbrella, knocked it down and killed it without disturbing her patient.
Strict Protestant as Miss Nightingale was, she maintained the most
cordial relations with the Roman Catholic nurses, and was deeply
grateful for the loyal way in which they worked under her. When the
Rev. Mother who had come out with the sisters to Scutari returned in
ill-health to England, Miss Nightingale sent her a letter of farewell
in which she said: “You know that I shall do everything I can for the
sisters whom you have left me. I will care for them as if they were
my own children. But it will not be like you. I do not presume to
express praise or gratitude to you, Rev. Mother, because it would look
as though I thought you had done this work, not unto God, but unto
me. You were far above me in fitness for the general superintendency
in worldly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual
qualifications which God values in a superior; my being placed over you
was a misfortune, not my fault. What you have done for the work no one
can ever say. I do not presume to give you any other tribute but my
tears. But I should be glad that the Bishop of Southwark should know,
and Dr. Manning [afterwards Cardinal], that you were valued here as you
deserve, and that the gratitude of the army is yours.”
The roads over this mountain district where Miss Nightingale was
located in the Crimea were very uneven and dangerous, and one day
while driving to the hospitals she met with an accident. Her carriage
was drawn by a mule, and being carelessly driven by the attendant over
a large stone, was upset. Miss Nightingale suffered some injury, and
one of the Sisters accompanying her was severely wounded.
To prevent the repetition of such an accident, Colonel Macmurdo
presented Miss Nightingale with a specially constructed carriage for
her use. It is described as “being composed of wood battens framed
on the outside and basket-work. In the interior it is lined with a
sort of waterproof canvas. It has a fixed head on the hind part and a
canopy running the full length, with curtains at the side to enclose
the interior. The front driving seat removes, and thus the whole forms
a sort of small tilted waggon with a welted frame, suspended on the
back part, on which to recline, and well padded round the sides. It is
fitted with patent breaks to the hind wheels so as to let it go gently
down the steep hills of the Turkish roads.” This is the carriage which
after many vicissitudes is now preserved at Lea Hurst.
The carriage was one of the most interesting exhibits in the Nursing
Section of the Victorian Era Exhibition at Earl’s Court. Its
preservation and removal to this country are due to the excellent
M. Soyer, who on the eve of his departure from the Crimea rescued
it from the hands of some Tartar Jews. Miss Nightingale had left it
behind, doubtless thinking that it had served its purpose, and being
too modest to imagine that it would be of special interest to her
fellow-countrymen. M. Soyer, however, saw in that old battered vehicle
a precious relic for future generations, and hearing that some Jews
were going to purchase it next day, along with a lot of common carts
and harness, he obtained permission from Colonel Evans of the Light
Infantry to buy the carriage. He afterwards sent it to England by the
_Argo_. The sketch reproduced was taken by Mr. Landells, the artist
representing _The Illustrated London News_ in the Crimea. The carriage
was an object of great public interest when it arrived at Southampton
on the _Argo_. The Mayor took charge of it until the arrival of M.
Soyer, who had the extreme pleasure of restoring it to its famous owner.
After Miss Nightingale received the gift of this convenient vehicle,
she redoubled her exertions on behalf of the soldiers still remaining
in the Crimea. The winter was severe and snow lay thick on the ground,
but it did not deter her from constantly visiting the camp hospitals,
and she was known to stand for hours at the top of a bleak rocky
mountain near the hospitals, giving her instructions while the snow
was falling heavily. Then in the bleak dark night she would return down
the perilous mountain road with no escort save the driver. Her friends
remonstrated and begged her to avoid such risk and exposure, but she
answered by a smile, which seemed to say, “You may be right, but I have
faith.” M. Soyer was so impressed by the danger that Miss Nightingale
was incurring, that he addressed, as he relates, “a letter to a noble
duchess, who I knew had much influence with her.” I am afraid, however,
that neither the solicitous M. Soyer nor the “noble duchess” deterred
Miss Nightingale from following what she felt to be the path of duty.
During this period she was much engaged in promoting schemes for
the education and recreation of the convalescent soldiers and those
forming the army of occupation. She formed classes, established
little libraries or “reading huts,” which were supplied with books
and periodicals sent by friends at home. Queen Victoria contributed
literature and the Duchess of Kent sent Miss Nightingale a useful
assortment of books for the men. All the reading huts were numerously
and constantly attended, and Miss Nightingale remarked in her after
report that the behaviour of the men was “uniformly quiet and
well-bred.”
Lectures and schoolrooms were established for the men, both at Scutari
and in the Crimea, by various officers and chaplains, and in these
Miss Nightingale took a deep interest and was herself instrumental in
establishing a café at Inkerman, to serve as a counter-attraction to
the canteens where so much drunkenness prevailed. As she had ministered
to the bodily needs of the men while sickness reigned, now she tried
to promote their mental and moral good by providing them with rational
means of occupation and amusement.
With solicitous womanly thought for the wives and mothers at home,
Miss Nightingale had from the first encouraged the men to keep up
communication with their families by supplying those in hospital with
stationery, and stamps and writing materials were now at her instance
supplied to the convalescent and other reading huts. In the first
months of the war the men had been allowed to send any letters to Miss
Nightingale’s quarters in the Barrack Hospital to be stamped, and
many a reckless lad who had run away and enlisted was by her gentle
persuasions prevailed upon to write home and report himself.
Often she herself had the painful duty of writing to wives and mothers
to tell of the death of their dear ones, and several of these letters
were published by the recipients in journals of the time, and are
full of that thoughtful practical help which distinguished all the
Lady-in-Chief’s efforts. She would send home little mementoes, the last
book perhaps which the dying man had read, and would tell the bereaved
women how to apply for their widow’s allowance, send papers for them to
fill up, and in cases of doubtful identity would sift matters to the
bottom to discover whether such or such a man was among the slain.
Another matter of concern with Miss Nightingale was to induce the men
to send their pay home to their families. For this purpose she formed
at Scutari an extempore money order office in which she received, four
afternoons in the month, the money of any soldier who desired to send
it home to his family. Each month about £1,000 was sent home in small
sums of twenty or thirty shillings, which were, by Post Office orders
obtained in England, sent to their respective recipients. “This money,”
as Miss Nightingale says, “was literally so much rescued from the
canteen and drunkenness.”
Following her initiative, the Government during the last months that
the army remained in the East established money order offices at
Constantinople, Scutari, Balaclava and headquarters, Crimea, and in the
course of about six months, from January 30th to July 26th, 1856, no
less than £71,000 was sent home by the men. “Who will say after this,”
writes Miss Nightingale, “that the soldier must needs be reckless,
drunken, or disorderly?” But it may be added that Miss Nightingale’s
presence in the Crimea during the months which followed victory, when
“Tommy” was in an exulting state of mind and ready to drink healths
recklessly, and make each day an anniversary of the fall of Sebastopol,
had a great moral effect on the men.
The Treaty of Peace was signed at Paris on March 30th, 1856, and
the final evacuation of the Crimea took place on the following July
12th, on which day General Codrington formally gave up Sebastopol and
Balaclava to the Russians. Not until all the hospitals were closed, and
the last remnant of the British army was under sailing orders for home,
did Florence Nightingale quit the scene of her labours. Just before
leaving the Crimea, she was amazed to find that some fifty or sixty
women, who had followed their husbands to the Crimea without leave, but
had been allowed to remain because they were useful, were actually left
behind before Sebastopol when their husbands’ regiments had sailed. The
poor women gathered around Miss Nightingale’s hut in great distress,
and she managed to induce the authorities to send them home on a
British ship.
Miss Nightingale’s last act before leaving the Crimea was to order, at
her own expense, the erection of a monument to the dead. It took the
form of a monster white marble cross twenty feet high, and was placed
on the peak of a mountain near the Sanatorium above Balaclava, and
dedicated to the memory of the fallen brave, and to those sisters of
her “Angel Band” who slept their last sleep in that far-away Eastern
land. She caused it to be inscribed with the words,
Lord, have mercy upon us.
_Gospodi pomilori nass._
The “Nightingale Cross,” as the monument came to be called, strikes
the eye of the mariner as he crosses the Black Sea, and to the British
sailor it must ever be an object to stir a chivalrous feeling for the
noble woman who thus honoured the brave dead.
On her way home from the Crimea, Miss Nightingale called at Scutari,
that place of appalling memories, and saw the final closing of the
hospitals. The Barrack Hospital had now been taken back by the Turkish
authorities, but the suite of rooms which Miss Nightingale had occupied
in the southern tower were preserved as she left them, and kept so for
some years.
The Sultan had been an admiring witness of Miss Nightingale’s labours,
and presented her with a magnificent diamond bracelet as a farewell
gift and a mark of his estimation of her devotion.
Before leaving the Crimea Miss Nightingale had received from Queen
Victoria a beautiful jewel, for which the Prince Consort made the
design. It consists of a St. George’s Cross in red enamel, on a white
field, representative of England. On the cross are the letters V.R.,
surmounted by a crown in diamonds. A band of black enamel, inscribed in
gold letters with the words “Blessed are the merciful,” surrounds the
cross. Palm leaves, in green enamel, form a framework for the shield,
and on the blue enamel ribbon which confines the palms is inscribed in
letters of gold “Crimea.” On the back of the jewel is an inscription
written by Queen Victoria, recording that the gift was made in memory
of services rendered to her “brave army” by Florence Nightingale. The
following letter accompanied the gift.
“WINDSOR CASTLE,
_“January 1856_.
[Illustration: THE NIGHTINGALE JEWEL]
“DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE,--You are I know, well aware of the high
sense I entertain of the Christian devotion which you have
displayed during this great and bloody war, and I need hardly
repeat to you how warm my admiration is for your services, which
are fully equal to those of my dear and brave soldiers, whose
sufferings you have had the _privilege_ of alleviating in so
merciful a manner. I am, however, anxious of marking my feelings
in a manner which I trust will be agreeable to you, and therefore
send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of which
commemorate your great and blessed work, and which I hope you will
wear as a mark of the high approbation of your Sovereign!
“It will be a very great satisfaction to me when you return at
last to these shores, to make the acquaintance of one who has set
so bright an example to our sex. And with every prayer for the
preservation of your valuable health, believe me, always, yours
sincerely,
“VICTORIA R.”
The Government did not forget to officially acknowledge the work of the
Lady-in-Chief, and when the Treaty of Peace was under consideration in
the spring of 1856, Lord Ellesmere paid the following eloquent tribute
to her services:--
“My Lords, the agony of that time has become a matter of history. The
vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of
Balaclava and of Inkerman. Strong voices now answer to the roll-call,
and sturdy forms now cluster round the colours. The ranks are full,
the hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last
on the scene of her labours; but her mission is all but accomplished.
Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch
the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back
on the pillow content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now
comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she
may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation’s appreciation of the
deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale.”
Lord Ellesmere had correctly guessed Miss Nightingale’s desire to
escape a public demonstration. She declined the Government’s offer of
a British man-of-war to convey her home, and, embarking at Scutari on
a French vessel, sailed for Marseilles. She passed through France at
night, halted in Paris to visit her old friends, the Sisters of St.
Vincent de Paul, and then, accompanied by her aunt, Mrs. Smith, and
travelling incognito as “Miss Smith,” proceeded to Boulogne and sailed
for dear old England. What a life-time of memories had been crowded
into those twenty-one months which had elapsed since she had left on
her great mission!