PART II.

LADIES WHO MINISTERED TO THE SICK AND WOUNDED IN CAMP FIELD AND GENERAL

HOSPITALS.

CLARA HARLOWE BARTON.[C]

Of those whom the first blast of the war trump roused and called to

lives of patriotic devotion and philanthropic endeavor, some were led

instinctively to associated labor, and found their zeal inflamed, their

patriotic efforts cheered and encouraged by communion with those who

were like-minded. To these the organizations of the Soldiers' Aid

Societies and of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions were a

necessity; they provided a place and way for the exercise and

development of those capacities for noble and heroic endeavor, and

generous self-sacrifice, so gloriously manifested by many of our

American women, and which it has given us so much pleasure to record in

these pages.

[Footnote C: In the preparation of this sketch of Miss Barton, we have

availed ourselves, as far as practicable, of a paper prepared for us by

a clerical friend of the lady, who had known her from childhood. The

passages from this paper are indicated by quotation marks.]

But there were others endowed by their Creator with greater independence

of character and higher executive powers, who while not less modest and

retiring in disposition than their sisters, yet preferred to mark out

their own career, and pursue a comparatively independent course. They

worked harmoniously with the various sanitary and other organizations

when brought into contact with them, but their work was essentially

distinct from them, and was pursued without interfering in any way with

that of others.

To this latter class pre-eminently belongs Miss Clara Harlowe Barton.

Quiet, modest, and unassuming in manner and appearance, there is beneath

this quiet exterior an intense energy, a comprehensive intellect, a

resolute will, and an executive force, which is found in few of the

stronger sex, and which mingled with the tenderness and grace of refined

womanhood eminently qualifies her to become an independent power.

Miss Barton was born in North Oxford, Worcester County, Massachusetts.

Her father, Stephen Barton, Sr., was a man highly esteemed in the

community in which he dwelt, and by which his worth was most thoroughly

known. In early youth he had served as a soldier in the West under

General Wayne, the "Mad Anthony" of the early days of the Republic, and

his boyish eyes had witnessed the evacuation of Detroit by the British

in 1796. "His military training may have contributed to the sterling

uprightness, the inflexible will, and the devotion to law and order and

rightful authority for which he was distinguished." The little Clara was

the youngest by several years in a family of two brothers and three

sisters. She was early taught that primeval benediction, miscalled a

curse, which requires mankind to earn their bread. Besides domestic

duties and a very thorough public school training she learned the

general rules of business by acting as clerk and book-keeper for her

eldest brother. Next she betook herself to the district school, the

usual stepping-stone for all aspiring men and women in New England. She

taught for several years, commencing when very young, in various places

in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The large circle of friends thus formed

was not without its influence in determining her military career. So

many of her pupils volunteered in the first years of the war that at the

second battle of Bull Run she found seven of them, each of whom had lost

an arm or a leg.

"One example will show her character as a teacher. She went to

Bordentown, N. J., in 1853, where there was not, and never had been, a

public school. Three or four unsuccessful attempts had been made, and

the idea had been abandoned as not adapted to that latitude. The

brightest boys in the town ran untaught in the streets. She offered to

teach a free school for three months at her own expense, to convince the

citizens that it could be done; and she was laughed at as a visionary.

Six weeks of waiting and debating induced the authorities to fit up an

unoccupied building at a little distance from the town. She commenced

with six outcast boys, and in five weeks the house would not hold the

number that came. The commissioners, at her instance, erected the

present school-building of Bordentown, a three-story brick building,

costing four thousand dollars; and there, in the winter of 1853-4, she

organized the city free-school with a roll of six hundred pupils. But

the severe labor, and the great amount of loud speaking required, in the

newly plastered rooms, injured her health, and for a time deprived her

of her voice--the prime agent of instruction. Being unable to teach, she

left New Jersey about the 1st of March, 1854, seeking rest and a milder

climate, and went as far south as Washington. While there, a friend and

distant relative, then in Congress, voluntarily obtained for her an

appointment in the Patent Office, where she continued until the fall of

1857. She was employed at first as a copyist, and afterwards in the more

responsible work of abridging original papers, and preparing records for

publication. As she was an excellent chirographer, with a clear head for

business, and was paid by the piece and not by the month, she made money

fast, as matters were then reckoned, and she was very liberal with it. I

met her often during those years, as I have since and rarely saw her

without some pet scheme of benevolence on her hands which she pursued

with an enthusiasm that was quite heroic, and sometimes amusing. The

roll of those she has helped, or tried to help, with her purse, her

personal influence or her counsels, would be a long one; orphan

children, deserted wives, destitute women, sick or unsuccessful

relatives, men who had failed in business, and boys who never had any

business--all who were in want, or in trouble, and could claim the

slightest acquaintance, came to her for aid and were never repulsed.

Strange it was to see this generous girl, whose own hands ministered to

all her wants, always giving to those around her, instead of receiving,

strengthening the hands and directing the steps of so many who would

have seemed better calculated to help her. She must have had a native

genius for nursing; for in her twelfth year she was selected as the

special attendant of a sick brother, and remained in his chamber by day

and by night for two years, with only a respite of one half-day in all

that time. Think, O reader! of a little girl in short dresses and

pantalettes, neither going to school nor to play, but imprisoned for

years in the deadly air of a sick room, and made to feel, every moment,

that a brother's life depended on her vigilance. Then followed a still

longer period of sickness and feebleness on her own part; and from that

time to the present, sickness, danger and death have been always near

her, till they have grown familiar as playmates, and she has come to

understand all the wants and ways and waywardness of the sick; has

learned to anticipate their wishes and cheat them of their fears. Those

who have been under her immediate care, will understand me when I say

there is healing in the touch of her hand, and anodyne in the low melody

of her voice. In the first year of Mr. Buchanan's administration she was

hustled out of the Patent Office on a suspicion of anti-slavery

sentiments. She returned to New England, and devoted her time to study

and works of benevolence. In the winter following the election of Mr.

Lincoln, she returned to Washington at the solicitation of her friends

there, and would doubtless have been reinstated if peace had been

maintained. I happened to see her a day or two after the news came that

Fort Sumter had been fired on. She was confident, even enthusiastic. She

had feared that the Southern aristocracy, by their close combination and

superior political training, might succeed in gradually subjugating the

whole country; but of that there was no longer any danger. The war

might be long and bloody, but the rebels had voluntarily abandoned a

policy in which the chances were in favor of their ultimate success, for

one in which they had no chance at all. For herself, she had saved a

little in time of peace, and she intended to devote it and herself to

the service of her country and of humanity. If war must be, she neither

expected nor desired to come out of it with a dollar. If she survived,

she could no doubt earn a living; and if she did not, it was no matter.

This is actually the substance of what she said, and pretty nearly the

words--without appearing to suspect that it was remarkable."

Three days after Major Anderson had lowered his flag in Charleston

Harbor, the Sixth Massachusetts Militia started for Washington. Their

passage through Baltimore, on the 19th of April, 1861, is a remarkable

point in our national history. The next day about thirty of the sick and

wounded were placed in the Washington Infirmary, where the Judiciary

Square Hospital now stands. Miss Barton proceeded promptly to the spot

to ascertain their condition and afford such voluntary relief as might

be in her power. Hence, if she was not the first person in the country

in this noble work, no one could have been more than a few hours before

her. The regiment was quartered at the Capitol, and as those early

volunteers will remember, troops on their first arrival were often very

poorly provided for. The 21st of April happened to be Sunday. No

omnibuses ran that day, and street cars as yet were not; so she hired

five colored persons, loaded them with baskets of ready prepared food,

and proceeded to the Capitol. The freight they bore served as

countersign and pass; she entered the Senate Chamber, and distributed

her welcome store. Many of the soldiers were from her own neighborhood,

and as they thronged around her, she stood upon the steps to the Vice

President's chair and read to them from a paper she had brought, the

first written history of their departure and their journey. These two

days were the first small beginnings of her military experience,--steps

which naturally led to much else. Men wrote home their own impressions

of what they saw; and her acts found ready reporters. Young soldiers

whom she had taught or known as boys a few years before, called to see

her on their way to the front. Troops were gathering rapidly, and

hospitals--the inevitable shadows of armies--were springing up and

getting filled. Daily she visited them, bringing to the sick news, and

delicacies and comforts of her own procuring, and writing letters for

those who could not write themselves. Mothers and sisters heard of her,

and begged her to visit this one and that, committing to her care

letters, socks, jellies and the like. Her work and its fame grew week by

week, and soon her room, for she generally had but one, became sadly

encumbered with boxes, and barrels and baskets, of the most varied

contents. Through the summer of 1862, the constant stock she had on hand

averaged about five tons. The goods were mainly the contributions of

liberal individuals, churches and sewing-circles to whom she was

personally known. But, although articles of clothing, lint, bandages,

cordials, preserved fruits, liquors, and the like might be sent, there

was always much which she had to buy herself.

During this period as in her subsequent labors, she neither sought or

received recognition by any department of the Government, by which I

mean only that she had no acknowledged position, rank, rights or duties,

was not employed, paid, or compensated in any way, had authority over no

one, and was subject to no one's orders. She was simply an American

lady, mistress of herself and of no one else; free to stay at home, if

she had a home, and equally free to go where she pleased, if she could

procure passports and transportation, which was not always an easy

matter. From many individual officers, she received most valuable

encouragement and assistance; from none more than from General Rucker,

the excellent Chief Quartermaster at Washington. He furnished her

storage for her supplies when necessary, transportation for herself and

them, and added to her stores valuable contributions at times when they

were most wanted. She herself declares, with generous exaggeration, that

if she has ever done any good, it has been due to the watchful care and

kindness of General Rucker.

About the close of 1861, Miss Barton returned to Massachusetts to watch

over the declining health of her father, now in his eighty-eighth year,

and failing fast. In the following March she placed his remains in the

little cemetery at Oxford, and then returned to Washington and to her

former labors. But, as the spring and summer campaigns progressed,

Washington ceased to be the best field for the philanthropist. In the

hospitals of the Capitol the sick and wounded found shelter, food and

attendance. Private generosity now centered there; and the United States

Sanitary Commission had its office and officers there to minister to the

thousand exceptional wants not provided for by the Army Regulations.

There were other fields where the harvest was plenteous and the laborers

few. Yet could she as a young and not unattractive lady, go with safety

and propriety among a hundred thousand armed men, and tell them that no

one had sent her? She would encounter rough soldiers, and camp-followers

of every nation, and officers of all grades of character; and could she

bear herself so wisely and loftily in all trials as to awe the

impertinent, and command the respect of the supercilious, so that she

might be free to come and go at her will, and do what should seem good

to her? Or, if she failed to maintain a character proof against even

inuendoes, would she not break the bridge over which any successor would

have to pass? These questions she pondered, and prayed and wept over for

months, and has spoken of the mental conflict as the most trying one of

her life. She had foreseen and told all these fears to her father; and

the old man, on his death-bed, advised her to go wherever she felt it a

duty to go. He reminded her that he himself had been a soldier, and said

that all true soldiers would respect her. He was naturally a man of

great benevolence, a member of the Masonic fraternity, of the Degree of

Royal Arch Mason; and in his last days he spoke much of the purposes and

noble charities of the Order. She had herself received the initiation

accorded to daughters of Royal Arch Masons, and wore on her bosom a

Masonic emblem, by which she was easily recognized by the brotherhood,

and which subsequently proved a valuable talisman. At last she reached

the conclusion that it was right for her to go amid the actual tumult of

battle and shock of armies. And the fact that she has moved and labored

with the principal armies in the North and in the South for two years

and a half, and that now no one who knows her would speak of her without

the most profound respect, proves two things--that there may be heroism

of the highest order in American women--and that American armies are not

to be judged of, by the recorded statements concerning European ones.

Her first tentative efforts at going to the field were cautious and

beset with difficulties. Through the long Peninsula campaign as each

transport brought its load of suffering men, with the mud of the

Chickahominy and the gore of battle baked hard upon them like the shells

of turtles, she went down each day to the wharves with an ambulance

laden with dressings and restoratives, and there amid the turmoil and

dirt, and under the torrid sun of Washington, toiled day by day,

alleviating such suffering as she could. And when the steamers turned

their prows down the river, she looked wistfully after them, longing to

go to those dread shores whence all this misery came. But she was alone

and unknown, and how could she get the means and the permission to go?

The military authorities were overworked in those days and plagued with

unreasonable applications, and as a class are not very indulgent to

unusual requests. The first officer of rank who gave her a kind answer

was a man who never gave an unkind reply without great provocation--Dr.

R. H. Coolidge, Medical Inspector. Through him a pass was obtained from

Surgeon-General Hammond, and she was referred to Major Rucker,

Quartermaster, for transportation. The Major listened to her story so

patiently and kindly that she was overcome, and sat down and wept. It

was then too late in the season to go to McClellan's army, so she loaded

a railroad car with supplies and started for Culpepper Court-House, then

crowded with the wounded from the battle of Cedar Mountain. With a

similar car-load she was the first of the volunteer aid that reached

Fairfax Station at the close of the disastrous days that culminated in

the second Bull Run, and the battle of Chantilly. On these two

expeditions, and one to Fredericksburg, Miss Barton was accompanied by

friends, at least one gentleman and a lady in each case, but at last a

time came, when through the absence or engagements of these, she must go

alone or not at all.

On Sunday, the 14th of September, 1862, she loaded an army wagon with

supplies and started to follow the march of General McClellan. Her only

companions were Mr. Cornelius M. Welles, the teacher of the first

contraband school in the District of Columbia--a young man of rare

talent and devotion--and one teamster. She travelled three days along

the dusty roads of Maryland, buying bread as she went to the extent of

her means of conveyance, and sleeping in the wagon by night. After dark,

on the night of the sixteenth, she reached Burnside's Corps, and found

the two armies lying face to face along the opposing ridges of hills

that bound the valley of the Antietam. There had already been heavy

skirmishing far away on the right where Hooker had forded the creek and

taken position on the opposite hills; and the air was dark and thick

with fog and exhalations, with the smoke of camp-fires and premonitory

death. There was little sleep that night, and as the morning sun rose

bright and beautiful over the Blue Ridge and dipped down into the

Valley, the firing on the right was resumed. Reinforcements soon began

to move along the rear to Hooker's support. Thinking the place of danger

was the place of duty, Miss Barton ordered her mules to be harnessed and

took her place in the swift train of artillery that was passing. On

reaching the scene of action, they turned into a field of tall corn, and

drove through it to a large barn. They were close upon the line of

battle; the rebel shot and shell flew thickly around and over them; and

in the barn-yard and among the corn lay torn and bleeding men--the worst

cases--just brought from the places where they had fallen. The army

medical supplies had not yet arrived, the small stock of dressings was

exhausted, and the surgeons were trying to make bandages of corn-husks.

Miss Barton opened to them her stock of dressings, and proceeded with

her companions to distribute bread steeped in wine to the wounded and

fainting. In the course of the day she picked up twenty-five men who had

come to the rear with the wounded, and set them to work administering

restoratives, bringing and applying water, lifting men to easier

positions, stopping hemorrhages, etc., etc. At length her bread was all

spent; but luckily a part of the liquors she had brought were found to

have been packed in meal, which suggested the idea of making gruel. A

farm-house was found connected with the barn, and on searching the

cellar, she discovered three barrels of flour, and a bag of salt, which

the rebels had hidden the day before. Kettles were found about the

house, and she prepared to make gruel on a large scale, which was

carried in buckets and distributed along the line for miles. On the

ample piazza of the house were ranged the operating tables, where the

surgeons performed their operations; and on that piazza she kept her

place from the forenoon till nightfall, mixing gruel and directing her

assistants, under the fire of one of the greatest and fiercest battles

of modern times. Before night her face was as black as a negro's, and

her lips and throat parched with the sulphurous smoke of battle. But

night came at last, and the wearied armies lay down on the ground to

rest; and the dead and wounded lay everywhere. Darkness too had its

terrors, and as the night closed in, the surgeon in charge at the old

farm-house, looked despairingly at a bit of candle and said it was the

only one on the place; and no one could stir till morning. A thousand

men dangerously wounded and suffering terribly from thirst lay around,

and many must die before the light of another day. It was a fearful

thing to die alone and in the dark, and no one could move among the

wounded, for fear of stumbling over them. Miss Barton replied, that,

profiting by her experience at Chantilly, she had brought with her

thirty lanterns, and an abundance of candles. It was worth a journey to

Antietam, to light the gloom of that night. On the morrow, the fighting

had ceased, but the work of caring for the wounded was resumed and

continued all day. On the third day the regular supplies arrived, and

Miss Barton having exhausted her small stores, and finding that

continued fatigue and watching were bringing on a fever, turned her

course towards Washington. It was with difficulty that she was able to

reach home, where she was confined to her bed for some time. When she

recovered sufficiently to call on Colonel Rucker, and told him that with

five wagons she could have taken supplies sufficient for the immediate

wants of all the wounded in the battle, that officer shed tears, and

charged her to ask for enough next time.

It was about the 23d of October, when another great battle was expected,

that she next set out with a well appointed and heavily laden train of

six wagons and an ambulance, with seven teamsters, and thirty-eight

mules. The men were rough fellows, little used or disposed to be

commanded by a woman; and they mutinied when they had gone but a few

miles. A plain statement of the course she should pursue in case of

insubordination, induced them to proceed and confine themselves, for the

time being, to imprecations and grumbling. When she overtook the army,

it was crossing the Potomac, below Harper's Ferry. Her men refused to

cross. She offered them the alternative to go forward peaceably, or to

be dismissed and replaced by soldiers. They chose the former, and from

that day forward were all obedience, fidelity and usefulness. The

expected battle was not fought, but gave place to a race for Richmond.

The Army of the Potomac had the advantage in regard to distance,

keeping for a time along the base of the Blue Ridge, while the enemy

followed the course of the Shenandoah. There was naturally a skirmish at

every gap. The rebels were generally the first to gain possession of the

pass, from which they would attempt to surprise some part of the army

that was passing, and capture a portion of our supply trains. Thus every

day brought a battle or a skirmish, and its accession to the list of

sick and wounded; and for a period of about three weeks, until Warrenton

Junction was reached, the national army had no base of operations, nor

any reinforcements or supplies. The sick had to be carried all that time

over the rough roads in wagons or ambulances. Miss Barton with her wagon

train accompanied the Ninth Army Corps, as a general purveyor for the

sick. Her original supply of comforts was very considerable, and her men

contrived to add to it every day such fresh provisions as could be

gathered from the country. At each night's encampment, they lighted

their fires and prepared fresh food and necessaries for the moving

hospital. Through all that long and painful march from Harper's Ferry to

Fredericksburg, those wagons constituted the hospital larder and kitchen

for all the sick within reach.

It will be remembered that after Burnside assumed command of the Army of

the Potomac, the route by Fredericksburg was selected, and the march was

conducted down the left bank of the Rappahannock to a position opposite

that city. From Warrenton Junction Miss Barton made a visit to

Washington, while her wagons kept on with the army, which she rejoined

with fresh supplies at Falmouth. She remained in camp until after the

unsuccessful attack on the works behind Fredericksburg. She was on the

bank of the river in front of the Lacy House, within easy rifle shot

range of the enemy, at the time of the attack of the 11th

December--witnessed the unavailing attempts to lay pontoon bridges

directly into the city, and the heroic crossing of the 19th and 20th

Massachusetts Regiments and the 7th Michigan. During the brief

occupation of the city she remained in it, organizing the hospital

kitchens; and after the withdrawal of the troops, she established a

private kitchen for supplying delicacies to the wounded. Although it was

now winter and the weather inclement, she occupied an old tent while her

train was encamped around; and the cooking was performed in the open

air. When the wounded from the attack on the rebel batteries were

recovered by flag of truce, fifty of them were brought to her camp at

night. They had lain several days in the cold, and were wounded,

famished and frozen. She had the snow cleaned away, large fires built

and the men wrapped in blankets. An old chimney was torn down, the

bricks heated in the fire, and placed around them. As she believed that

wounded men, exhausted and depressed by the loss of blood, required

stimulants, and as Surgeon-General Hammond, with characteristic

liberality had given her one hundred and thirty gallons of confiscated

liquor, she gave them with warm food, enough strong hot toddy to make

them all measurably drunk. The result was that they slept comfortably

until morning, when the medical officers took them in charge. It was her

practice to administer a similar draught to each patient on his leaving

for Acquia Creek, _en route_ to the Washington hospitals.

A circumstance which occurred during the battle of Fredericksburg, will

illustrate very strikingly the courage of Miss Barton, a courage which

has never faltered in the presence of danger, when what she believed to

be duty called. In the skirmishing of the 12th of December, the day

preceding the great and disastrous battle, a part of the Union troops

had crossed over to Fredericksburg, and after a brief fight had driven

back a body of rebels, wounding and capturing a number of them whom they

sent as prisoners across the river to Falmouth, where Miss Barton as yet

had her camp. The wounded rebels were brought to her for care and

treatment. Among them was a young officer, mortally wounded by a shot in

the thigh. Though she could not save his life, she ministered to him as

well as she could, partially staunching his wound, quenching his raging

thirst, and endeavoring to make his condition as comfortable as

possible. Just at this time, an orderly arrived with a message from the

Medical Director of the Ninth Army Corps requesting her to come over to

Fredericksburg, and organize the hospitals and diet kitchens for the

corps. The wounded rebel officer heard the request, and beckoning to

her, for he was too weak to speak aloud, he whispered a request that she

would not go. She replied that she must do so; that her duty to the

corps to which she was attached required it. "Lady," replied the wounded

rebel, "you have been very kind to me. You could not save my life, but

you have endeavored to render death easy. I owe it to you to tell you

what a few hours ago I would have died sooner than have revealed. The

whole arrangement of the Confederate troops and artillery is intended as

a trap for your people. Every street and lane of the city is covered by

our cannon. They are now concealed, and do not reply to the bombardment

of your army, because they wish to entice you across. When your entire

army has reached the other side of the Rappahannock and attempts to move

along the streets, they will find Fredericksburg only a slaughter pen,

and not a regiment of them will be allowed to escape. Do not go over,

for you will go to certain death!" While her tender sensibilities

prevented her from adding to the suffering of the dying man, by not

apparently heeding his warning, Miss Barton did not on account of it

forego for an instant her intention of sharing the fortunes of the Ninth

Corps on the other side of the river. The poor fellow was almost gone,

and waiting only to close his eyes on all earthly objects, she crossed

on the frail bridge, and was welcomed with cheers by the Ninth Corps,

who looked upon her as their guardian angel. She remained with them

until the evening of their masterly retreat, and until the wounded men

of the corps in the hospitals were all safely across. While she was in

Fredericksburg, after the battle of the 13th, some soldiers of the corps

who had been roving about the city, came to her quarters bringing with

great difficulty a large and very costly and elegant carpet. "What is

this for?" asked Miss Barton. "It is for you, ma'am," said one of the

soldiers; "you have been so good to us, that we wanted to bring you

something." "Where did you get it?" she asked. "Oh! ma'am, we

confiscated it," said the soldiers. "No! no!" said the lady; "that will

never do. Governments confiscate. Soldiers when they take such things,

steal. I am afraid, my men, you will have to take it back to the house

from which you took it. I can't receive a stolen carpet." The men looked

sheepish enough, but they shouldered the carpet and carried it back. In

the wearisome weeks that followed the Fredericksburg disaster, when

there was not the excitement of a coming battle, and the wounded whether

detained in the hospitals around Falmouth or forwarded through the deep

mud to the hospital transports on the Potomac, still with saddened

countenances and depressed spirits looked forward to a dreary future,

Miss Barton toiled on, infusing hope and cheerfulness into sad hearts,

and bringing the consolations of religion to her aid, pointed them to

the only true source of hope and comfort.

In the early days of April, 1863, Miss Barton went to the South with the

expectation of being present at the combined land and naval attack on

Charleston. She reached the wharf at Hilton Head on the afternoon of the

7th, in time to hear the crack of Sumter's guns as they opened in

broadside on Dupont's fleet. That memorable assault accomplished nothing

unless it might be to ascertain that Charleston could not be taken by

water. The expedition returned to Hilton Head, and a period of

inactivity followed, enlivened only by unimportant raids, newspaper

correspondence, and the small quarrels that naturally arise in an

unemployed army.

Later in the season Miss Barton accompanied the Gilmore and Dahlgren

expedition, and was present at nearly all the military operations on

James, Folly, and Morris Islands. The ground occupied on the latter by

the army, during the long siege of Fort Wagner, was the low sand-hills

forming the sea-board of the Island. No tree, shrub, or weed grew there;

and the only shelter was light tents without floors. The light sand that

yielded to the tread, the walker sinking to the ankles at almost every

step, glistened in the sun, and burned the feet like particles of fire,

and as the ocean winds swept it, it darkened the air and filled the eyes

and nostrils. There was no defense against it, and every wound speedily

became covered with a concrete of gore and sand. Tent pins would not

hold in the treacherous sand, every vigorous blast from the sea,

overturned the tents, leaving the occupants exposed to the storm or the

torrid sun. It was here, under the fire of the heaviest of the rebel

batteries, that Miss Barton spent the most trying part of the summer.

Her employment was, with three or four men detailed to assist her, to

boil water in the lee of a sand-hill, to wash the wounds of the men who

were daily struck by rebel shot, to prepare tea and coffee, and various

dishes made from dried fruits, farina, and desiccated milk and eggs. On

the 19th of July, when the great night assault was made on Wagner, and

everybody expected to find rest and refreshments within the rebel

fortress, she alone, so far as I can learn, kept up her fires and

preparations. She alone had anything suitable to offer the wounded and

exhausted men who streamed back from the repulse, and covered the

sand-hills like a flight of locusts.

Through all the long bombardment that followed; until Sumter was

reduced, and Wagner and Gregg was ours, amid the scorching sun and the

prevalence of prostrating diseases, though herself more than once struck

down with illness, she remained at her post, a most fearless and

efficient co-worker with the indefatigable agent of the Sanitary

Commission, Dr. M. M. Marsh, in saving the lives and promoting the

health of the soldiers of the Union army. "How could you," said a friend

to her subsequently, "how could you expose your life and health to that

deadly heat?" "Why," she answered, evidently without a thought of the

heroism of the answer, "the other ladies thought they could not endure

the climate, and as I knew somebody must take care of the soldiers, I

went."

In January, 1864, Miss Barton returned to the North, and after spending

four or five weeks in visiting her friends and recruiting her wasted

strength, again took up her position at Washington, and commenced making

preparations for the coming campaign which from observation, she was

convinced would be the fiercest and most destructive of human life of

any of the war. The first week of the campaign found her at the

secondary base of the army at Belle Plain, and thence with the great

army of the wounded she moved to Fredericksburg. Extensive as had been

her preparations, and wide as were the circle of friends who had

entrusted to her the means of solace and healing, the slaughter had been

so terrific that she found her supplies nearly exhausted, and for the

first time during the war was compelled to appeal for further supplies

to her friends at the North, expending in the meantime freely, as she

had done all along, of her own private means for the succor of the poor

wounded soldiers. Moving on to Port Royal, and thence to the James

River, she presently became attached to the Army of the James, where

General Butler, at the instance of his Chief Medical Director, Surgeon

McCormick, acknowledging her past services, and appreciating her

abilities, gave her a recognized position, which greatly enhanced her

usefulness, and enabled her, with her energetic nature, to contribute as

much to the welfare and comfort of the army in that year, as she had

been able to do in all her previous connection with it. In January,

1865, she returned to Washington, where she was detained from the front

for nearly two months by the illness and death of a brother and nephew,

and did not again join the army in the field.

By this time, of course, she was very generally known, and the circle of

her correspondence was wide. Her influence in high official quarters

was supposed to be considerable, and she was in the daily receipt of

inquiries and applications of various kinds, in particular in regard to

the fate of men believed to have been confined in Southern prisons. The

great number of letters received of this class, led her to decide to

spend some months at Annapolis, among the camps and records of paroled

and exchanged prisoners, for the purpose of answering the inquiries of

friends. Her plan of operation was approved by President Lincoln, March

11, 1865, and notice of her appointment as "General Correspondent for

the friends of Paroled Prisoners," was published in the newspapers

extensively, bringing in a torrent of inquiries and letters from wives,

parents, State officials, agencies, the Sanitary Commission and the

Christian Commission. On reaching Annapolis, she encountered obstacles

that were vexatious, time-wasting, and in fact, insupportable. Without

rank, rights or authority credited by law, the officials there were at a

loss how to receive her. The town was so crowded that she could find no

private lodgings, and had to force herself as a scarce welcome guest

upon some one for a few days, while her baggage stood out in the snow.

Nearly two months were consumed in negotiations before an order was

obtained from the War Department to the effect that the military

authorities at Annapolis _might_ allow her the use of a tent, and its

furniture, and a moderate supply of postage stamps. This was not

mandatory, but permissive; and negotiations could now be opened with the

gentlemen at Annapolis. In the meantime the President had been

assassinated, Richmond taken, and Lee's army surrendered. The rebellion

was breaking away. All prisoners were to be released from parole, and

sent home, and nothing would remain at Annapolis but the records.

Unfortunately these proved to be of very little service--but a small per

centage of those inquired for, were found on the rolls, and obviously

these, for the most part, were not men who had been lost, but who had

returned. She was also informed, on good authority, that a large number

of prisoners had been exchanged without roll or record, and that some

rolls were so fraudulent and incorrect, as to be worthless. Poor

wretches in the rebel pens seemed even to forget the names their mother

called them. The Annapolis scheme was therefore abandoned, with

mortification that thousands of letters had lain so long unanswered,

that thousands of anxious friends were daily waiting for tidings of

their loved and lost. The pathos and simplicity of these letters was

often touching. An old man writes that he has two sons and three

grandsons in the army, and of two of the five he could get no tidings.

Another says she knew her son was brave, and if he died, he died

honorably. He was all she had and she gave him freely to the country. If

he be really lost she will not repine; but she feels she has a right to

be told what became of him. Many of the writers seemed to have a very

primitive idea of the way information was to be picked up. They imagined

that Miss Barton was to walk through all hospitals, camps, armies and

prisons, and narrowly scrutinizing every face, would be able to identify

the lost boy by the descriptions given her. Hence the fond mother

minutely described her boy as he remained graven on her memory on the

day of his departure. The result of these delays was the organization,

by Miss Barton, at her own cost, of a Bureau of Records of Missing Men

of the Armies of the United States, at Washington. Here she collected

all rolls of prisoners, hospital records, and records of burials in the

rebel prisons and elsewhere, and at short intervals published Rolls of

Missing Men, which, by the franks of some of her friends among the

Members of Congress, were sent to all parts of the United States, and

posted in prominent places, and in many instances copied into local

papers. The method adopted for the discovery of information concerning

these missing men, and the communication of that information to their

friends who had made inquiries concerning them may be thus illustrated.

A Mrs. James of Kennebunk, Maine, has seen a notice in the paper that

Miss Clara Barton of Washington will receive inquiries from friends of

"missing men of the Army," and will endeavor to obtain information for

them without fee or reward. She forthwith writes to Miss Barton that she

is anxious to gain tidings of her husband, Eli James, Sergeant Company

F. Fourth Maine Infantry, who has not been heard of since the battle of

----. This letter, when received, is immediately acknowledged,

registered in a book, endorsed and filed away for convenient reference.

The answer satisfied Mrs. James for the time, that her letter was not

lost and that some attention is given to her inquiry. If the fate of

Sergeant James is known or can be learned from the official rolls the

information is sent at once. Otherwise the case lies over until there

are enough to form a roll, which will probably be within a few weeks. A

roll of Missing Men is then made up--with an appeal for information

respecting them, of which from twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies

are printed to be posted all over the United States, in all places where

soldiers are most likely to congregate. It is not impossible, that in

say two weeks' time, one James Miller, of Keokuk, Iowa, writes that he

has seen the name of his friend James posted for information; that he

found him lying on the ground, at the battle of ---- mortally wounded

with a fragment of shell; that he, James, gave the writer a few articles

from about his person, and a brief message to his wife and children,

whom he is now unable to find; that the national troops fell back from

that portion of the field leaving the dead within the enemy's lines, who

consequently were never reported. When this letter is received it is

also registered in a book, endorsed and filed, and a summary of its

contents is sent to Mrs. James, with the intimation that further

particulars of interest to her can be learned by addressing James

Miller, of Keokuk, Iowa.

Soon after entering fully upon this work in Washington, and having

obtained the rolls of the prison hospitals of Wilmington, Salisbury,

Florence, Charleston, and other Rebel prisons of the South, Miss Barton

ascertained that Dorrance Atwater, a young Connecticut soldier, who had

been a prisoner at Andersonville, Georgia, had succeeded in obtaining a

copy of all the records of interments in that field of death, during his

employment in the hospital there, and that he could identify the graves

of most of the thirteen thousand who had died there the victims of Rebel

cruelty.

Atwater was induced to permit Government officers to copy his roll, and

on the representation of Miss Barton that no time should be lost in

putting up head-boards to the graves of the Union Soldiers, Captain

James M. Moore, Assistant Quartermaster, was ordered to proceed to

Andersonville with young Atwater and a suitable force, to lay out the

grounds as a cemetery and place head-boards to the graves; and Miss

Barton was requested by the Secretary of War to accompany him. She did

so, and the grounds were laid out and fenced, and all the graves except

about four hundred which could not be identified were marked with

suitable head-boards. On their return, Miss Barton resumed her duties,

and Captain Moore caused Atwater's arrest on the charge of having stolen

from the Government the list he had loaned them for copying, and after a

hasty trial by Court-Martial, he was sentenced to be imprisoned in the

Auburn State Prison for two years and six months. The sentence was

immediately carried into effect.

Miss Barton felt that this whole charge, trial and sentence, was grossly

unjust; that Atwater had committed no crime, not even a technical one,

and that he ought to be relieved from imprisonment. She accordingly

exerted herself to have the case brought before the President. This was

done; and in part through the influence of General Benjamin F. Butler,

an order was sent on to the Warden of the Auburn Prison to set the

prisoner at liberty, Atwater subsequently published his roll of the

Andersonville dead, to which Miss Barton prefixed a narrative of the

expedition to Andersonville. Her Bureau had by this time become an

institution of great and indispensable importance not only to the

friends of missing men but to the Sanitary Commission, and to the

Government itself, which could not without daily and almost hourly

reference to her records settle the accounts for bounties, back pay, and

pensions. Thus far, however, it had been sustained wholly at her own

cost, and in this and other labors for the soldiers she had expended her

entire private fortune of eight or ten thousand dollars. Soon after the

assembling of Congress, Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, who had

always been her firm friend, moved an appropriation of fifteen thousand

dollars to remunerate her for past expenditure, and enable her to

maintain the Bureau of Records of Missing Men, which had proved of such

service. To the honor of Congress it should be said, that the

appropriation passed both houses by a unanimous vote. Miss Barton still

continues her good work, and has been instrumental in sending certainty

if not solace to thousands of families, who mourned their loved ones as

lying in unknown graves.

In person Miss Barton is about of medium height, her form and figure

indicating great powers of endurance. Though not technically beautiful,

her dark expressive eye is attractive, and she possesses, evidently

unconsciously to herself, great powers of fascination. Her voice is

soft, low, and of extraordinary sweetness of tone. As we have said she

is modest, quiet and retiring in manner, and is extremely reticent in

speaking of anything she has done, while she is ever ready to bestow the

full meed of praise on the labors of others. Her devotion to her work

has been remarkable, and her organizing abilities are unsurpassed among

her own sex and equalled by very few among the other. She is still

young, and with her power and disposition for usefulness is destined we

hope to prove greatly serviceable to the country she so ardently loves.

HELEN LOUISE GILSON.

Miss Helen Louise Gilson is a native of Boston, but removed in childhood

to Chelsea, Massachusetts, where she now resides. She is a niece of Hon.

Frank B. Fay, former Mayor of Chelsea, and was his ward. Mr. Fay, from

the commencement of the war took the most active interest in the

National cause, devoting his time, his wealth and his personal efforts

to the welfare of the soldiers. In the autumn of 1861 he went in person

to the seat of war, and from that time forward, in every battle in which

the Army of the Potomac was engaged, he was promptly upon the field with

his stores and appliances of healing, and moved gently though rapidly

among the dead and wounded, soothing helpless, suffering and bleeding

men parched with fever, crazed with thirst, or lying neglected in the

last agonies of death. After two years of this independent work

performed when as yet the Sanitary Commission had no field agencies, and

did not attempt to minister to the suffering and wounded until they had

come under the hands of the surgeons, Mr. Fay laid before the Sanitary

Commission, in the winter of 1863-4, his plans for an Auxiliary Relief

Corps, to afford personal relief in the field, to the wounded soldier,

and render him such assistance, as should enable him to bear with less

injury the delay which must ensue before he could come under the

surgeon's care or be transferred to a hospital, and in cases of the

slighter wounds furnish the necessary dressings and attention. The

Sanitary Commission at once adopted these plans and made Mr. Fay chief

of the Auxiliary Relief Corps. In this capacity he performed an amount

of labor of which few men were capable, till December, 1864, when he

retired from it but continued his independent work till the close of the

war. During his visits at home he was active in organizing and directing

measures for raising supplies and money for the Sanitary Commission and

the independent measures of relief.

Influenced by such an example of lofty and self-sacrificing patriotism,

and with her own young heart on fire with love for her country, Miss

Gilson from the very commencement of the war, gave herself to the work

of caring for the soldiers, first at home, and afterward in the field.

In that glorious uprising of American women, all over the North, in the

spring of 1861, to organize Soldiers' Aid Societies she was active and

among the foremost in her own city. She had helped to prepare and

collect supplies, and to arrange them for transportation. She had also

obtained a contract for the manufacture of army clothing, from the

Government, by means of which she provided employment for soldiers'

wives and daughters, raising among the benevolent and patriotic people

of Chelsea and vicinity, a fund which enabled her to pay a far more

liberal sum than the contractors' prices, for this labor.

When Mr. Fay commenced his personal services with the Army of the

Potomac, Miss Gilson, wishing to accompany him, applied to Miss D. L.

Dix, Government Superintendent of Female Nurses, for a diploma, but as

she had not reached the required age she was rejected. This, however,

did not prevent her from fulfilling her ardent desire of ministering to

the sick and wounded, but served in a measure to limit her to services

upon the field, where she could act in concert with Mr. Fay, or

otherwise under the direction of the Sanitary Commission.

During nearly the whole term of Miss Gilson's service she was in company

with Mr. Fay and his assistants. The party had their own tent, forming

a household, and carrying with them something of home-life.

In this manner she, with her associates, followed the Army of the

Potomac, through its various vicissitudes, and was present at, or near,

almost every one of its great battles except the first battle of Bull

Run.

In the summer of 1862 Miss Gilson was for some time attached to the

Hospital Transport service, and was on board the Knickerbocker when up

the Pamunky River at White House, and afterward at Harrison's Landing

during the severe battles which marked McClellan's movement from the

Chickahominy to the James River. Amidst the terrible scenes of those

eventful days, the quiet energy, the wonderful comforting and soothing

power, and the perfect adaptability of Miss Gilson to her work were

conspicuous.

Whatever she did was done well, and so noiselessly that only the results

were seen. When not more actively employed she would sit by the

bed-sides of the suffering men, and charm away their pain by the

magnetism of her low, calm voice, and soothing words. She sang for them,

and, kneeling beside them, where they lay amidst all the agonizing

sights and sounds of the hospital wards, and even upon the field of

carnage, her voice would ascend in petition, for peace, for relief, for

sustaining grace in the brief journey to the other world, carrying with

it their souls into the realms of an exalted faith.

As may be supposed, Miss Gilson exerted a remarkable personal influence

over the wounded soldiers as well as all those with whom she was brought

in contact. She always shrank from notoriety, and strongly deprecated

any publicity in regard to her work; but the thousands who witnessed her

extraordinary activity, her remarkable executive power, her ability in

evoking order out of chaos, and providing for thousands of sick and

wounded men where most persons would have been completely overwhelmed in

the care of scores or hundreds, could not always be prevented from

speaking of her in the public prints. The uniform cheerfulness and

buoyancy of spirit with which all her work was performed, added greatly

to its efficiency in removing the depressing influences, so common in

the hospitals and among the wounded.

From some of the reports of agents of the Sanitary Commission we select

the following passages referring to her, as expressing in more moderate

language than some others, the sentiments in regard to her work

entertained by all who were brought into contact with her.

"Upon Miss Gilson's services, we scarcely dare trust ourselves to

comment. Upon her experience we relied for counsel, and it was chiefly

due to her advice and efforts, that the work in our hospital went on so

successfully. Always quiet, self-possessed, and prompt in the discharge

of duty, she accomplished more than any one else could for the relief of

the wounded, besides being a constant example and embodiment of

earnestness for all. Her ministrations were always grateful to the

wounded men, who devotedly loved her for her self-sacrificing spirit.

Said one of the Fifth New Jersey in our hearing, 'There isn't a man in

our regiment who wouldn't lay down his life for Miss Gilson.'

"We have seen the dying man lean his head upon her shoulder, while she

breathed into his ear the soothing prayer that calmed, cheered and

prepared him for his journey through the dark valley.

"Under the direction of Miss Gilson, the special diet was prepared, and

we cannot strongly enough express our sense of the invaluable service

she rendered in this department. The food was always eagerly expected

and relished by the men, with many expressions of praise."

After the battle of Gettysburg Mr. Fay and his party went thither on

their mission of help and mercy. And never was such a mission more

needed. Crowded within the limits, and in the immediate vicinity, of

that small country-town, were twenty-five thousand wounded men,

thirteen thousand seven hundred and thirteen of our own, and nearly

twelve thousand wounded rebel prisoners. The Government in anticipation

of the battle had provided medical and surgical supplies and attendance

for about ten thousand. Had not the Sanitary Commission supplemented

this supply, and sent efficient agents to the field, the loss of life,

and the amount of suffering, terrible as they were with the best

appliances, must have been almost incredibly great.

Here as elsewhere Miss Gilson soon made a favorable impression on the

wounded men. They looked up to her, reverenced and almost worshipped

her. She had their entire confidence and respect. Even the roughest of

them yielded to her influence and obeyed her wishes, which were always

made known in a gentle manner and in a voice peculiarly low and sweet.

It has been recorded by one who knew her well, that she once stepped out

of her tent, before which a group of brutal men were fiercely

quarrelling, having refused, with oaths and vile language, to carry a

sick comrade to the hospital at the request of one of the male agents of

the Commission, and quietly advancing to their midst, renewed the

request as her own. Immediately every angry tone was stilled. Their

voices were lowered, and modulated respectfully. Their oaths ceased, and

quietly and cheerfully, without a word of objection, they lifted their

helpless burden, and tenderly carried him away.

At the same time she was as efficient in action as in influence. Without

bustle, and with unmoved calmness, she would superintend the preparation

of food for a thousand men, and assist in feeding them herself. Just so

she moved amidst the flying bullets upon the field, bringing succor to

the wounded; or through the hospitals amidst the pestilent air of the

fever-stricken wards. Self-controlled, she could control others, and

order and symmetry sprung up before her as a natural result of the

operation of a well-balanced mind.

In all her journeys Miss Gilson made use of the opportunities afforded

her wherever she stopped to plead the cause of the soldier to the

people, who readily assembled at her suggestion. She thus stimulated

energies that might otherwise have flagged, and helped to swell the

supplies continually pouring in to the depots of the Sanitary

Commission. But Miss Gilson's crowning work was performed during that

last protracted campaign of General Grant from the Rapidan to Petersburg

and the Appomattox, a campaign which by almost a year of constant

fighting finished the most terrible and destructive war of modern times.

She had taken the field with Mr. Fay at the very commencement of the

campaign, and had been indefatigable in her efforts to relieve what she

could of the fearful suffering of those destructive battles of May,

1864, in which the dead and wounded were numbered by scores of

thousands. To how many poor sufferers she brought relief from the raging

thirst and the racking agony of their wounds, to how many aching hearts

her words of cheer and her sweet songs bore comfort and hope, to how

many of those on whose countenances the Angel of death had already set

his seal, she whispered of a dying and risen Saviour, and of the

mansions prepared for them that love him, will never be known till the

judgment of the great day; but this we know, that thousands now living

speak with an almost rapturous enthusiasm, of "the little lady who in

their hours of agony, ministered to them with such sweetness, and never

seemed to weary of serving them."

A young physician in the service of the Sanitary Commission, Dr. William

Howell Reed, who was afterwards for many months associated with her and

Mr. Fay in their labors of auxiliary relief, thus describes his first

opportunity of observing her work. It was at Fredericksburg in May,

1864, when that town was for a time the base of the Army of the Potomac,

and the place to which the wounded were brought for treatment before

being sent to the hospitals at Washington and Baltimore. The building

used as a hospital, and which she visited was the mansion of John L.

Marie, a large building, but much of it in ruins from the previous

bombardment of the city. It was crowded with wounded in every part. Dr.

Reed says:--

"One afternoon, just before the evacuation, when the atmosphere of our

rooms was close and foul, and all were longing for a breath of our

cooler northern air, while the men were moaning in pain, or were

restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with pity for the

sufferers, I heard a light step upon the stairs; and looking up I saw a

young lady enter, who brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and

cheerful courage, so much freshness, such an expression of gentle,

womanly sympathy, that her mere presence seemed to revive the drooping

spirits of the men, and to give a new power of endurance through the

long and painful hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of

another, a friendly word here, a gentle nod and smile there, a tender

sympathy with each prostrate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in

his eyes his longing for home love, and for the presence of some absent

one--in those few minutes hers was indeed an angel ministry. Before she

left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody,

then some sweet or plaintive hymn to strengthen the fainting heart; and

I remember how the notes penetrated to every part of the building.

Soldiers with less severe wounds, from the rooms above, began to crawl

out into the entries, and men from below crept up on their hands and

knees, to catch every note, and to receive of the benediction of her

presence--for such it was to them. Then she went away. I did not know

who she was, but I was as much moved and melted as any soldier of them

all. This is my first reminiscence of Helen L. Gilson."

Thus far Miss Gilson's cares and labors had been bestowed almost

exclusively on the white soldiers; but the time approached when she was

to devote herself to the work of creating a model hospital for the

colored soldiers who now formed a considerable body of troops in the

Army of the Potomac. She was deeply interested in the struggle of the

African race upward into the new life which seemed opening for them, and

her efforts for the mental and moral elevation of the freedmen and their

families were eminently deserving of record.

Dr. Reed relates how, as they were passing down the Rappahannock and up

the York and Pamunky rivers to the new temporary base of the army at

Port Royal, they found a government barge which had been appropriated to

the use of the "contrabands," of whom about a thousand were stowed away

upon it, of all ages and both sexes, all escaped from their former

masters in that part of Virginia. The hospital party heard them singing

the negroes' evening hymn, and taking a boat from the steamer rowed to

the barge, and after a little conversation persuaded them to renew their

song, which was delivered with all the fervor, emotion and _abandon_ of

the negro character.

When their song had ceased, Miss Gilson addressed them. She pictured the

reality of freedom, told them what it meant and what they would have to

do, no longer would there be a master to deal out the peck of corn, no

longer a mistress to care for the old people or the children. They were

to work for themselves, provide for their own sick, and support their

own infirm; but all this was to be done under new conditions. No

overseer was to stand over them with the whip, for their new master was

the necessity of earning their daily bread. Very soon new and higher

motives would come; fresh encouragements, a nobler ambition, would grow

into their new condition. Then in the simplest language she explained

the difference between their former relations with the then master and

their new relations with the northern people, showing that labor here

was voluntary, and that they could only expect to secure kind employers

by faithfully doing all they had to do. Then, enforcing truthfulness,

neatness, and economy, she said,--

"You know that the Lord Jesus died and rose again for you. You love to

sing his praise and to draw near to him in prayer. But remember that

this is not all of religion. You must do right as well as pray right.

Your lives must be full of kind deeds towards each other, full of gentle

and loving affections, full of unselfishness and truth: this is true

piety. You must make Monday and Tuesday just as good and pure as Sunday

is, remembering that God looks not only at your prayers and your

emotions, but at the way you live, and speak, and act, every hour of

your lives."

Then she sang Whittier's exquisite hymn:--

"O, praise an' tanks,--the Lord he come

To set de people free;

An' massa tink it day ob doom,

An' we ob jubilee.

De Lord dat heap de Red Sea wabes,

He just as 'trong as den;

He say de word, we last night slabes,

To-day de Lord's free men."

Here were a thousand people breathing their first free air. They were

new born with this delicious sense of freedom. They listened with

moistened eyes to every word which concerned their future, and felt that

its utterance came from a heart which could embrace them all in its

sympathies. Life was to them a jubilee only so far as they could make it

so by a consciousness of duty faithfully done. They had hard work before

them, much privation, many struggles. They had everything to learn--the

new industries of the North, their changed social condition, and how to

accept their new responsibilities.

As she spoke the circle grew larger, and they pressed round her more

eagerly. It was all a part of their new life. They welcomed it; and, by

every possible expression of gratitude to her, they showed how desirous

they were to learn. Those who were present can never forget the scene--a

thousand dusky faces, expressive of such fervency and enthusiasm, their

large eyes filled with tears, answering to the throbbing heart below,

all dimly outlined by the flickering rays of a single lamp. And when it

was over, we felt that we could understand our relations to them, and

the new duties which this great hour had brought upon us.

It was not till the sanguinary battles of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th

of June, 1864, that there had been any considerable number of the

colored troops of the Army of the Potomac wounded. In those engagements

however, as well as in the subsequent ones of the explosion of the mine,

and the actions immediately around Petersburg, they suffered terribly.

The wounded were brought rapidly to City Point, where a temporary

hospital had been provided. We give a description of this hospital in

the words of Dr. Reed, who was associated subsequently with Miss Gilson

in its management.

"It was, in no other sense a hospital, than that it was a depot for

wounded men. There were defective management and chaotic confusion. The

men were neglected, the hospital organization was imperfect, and the

mortality was in consequence frightfully large. Their condition was

horrible. The severity of the campaign in a malarious country had

prostrated many with fevers, and typhoid, in its most malignant forms,

was raging with increasing fatality.

"These stories of suffering reached Miss Gilson at a moment when the

previous labors of the campaign had nearly exhausted her strength; but

her duty seemed plain. There were no volunteers for the emergency, and

she prepared to go. Her friends declared that she could not survive it;

but replying that she could not die in a cause more sacred, she started

out alone. A hospital was to be created, and this required all the tact,

finesse and diplomacy of which a woman is capable. Official prejudice

and professional pride was to be met and overcome. A new policy was to

be introduced, and it was to be done without seeming to interfere. Her

doctrine and practice always were instant, silent, and cheerful

obedience to medical and disciplinary orders, without any qualification

whatever; and by this she overcame the natural sensitiveness of the

medical authorities.

"A hospital kitchen was to be organized upon her method of special diet;

nurses were to learn her way, and be educated to their duties; while

cleanliness, order, system, were to be enforced in the daily routine.

Moving quietly on with her work of renovation, she took the

responsibility of all changes that became necessary; and such harmony

prevailed in the camp that her policy was vindicated as time rolled on.

The rate of mortality was lessened, and the hospital was soon considered

the best in the department. This was accomplished by a tact and energy

which sought no praise, but modestly veiled themselves behind the orders

of officials. The management of her kitchen was like the ticking of a

clock--regular discipline, gentle firmness, and sweet temper always. The

diet for the men was changed three times a day; and it was her aim to

cater as far as possible to the appetites of individual men. Her daily

rounds in the wards brought her into personal intercourse with every

patient, and she knew his special need. At one time, when nine hundred

men were supplied from her kitchen (with seven hundred rations daily), I

took down her diet list for one dinner, and give it here in a note,[D]

to show the variety of the articles, and her careful consideration of

the condition of separate men."

[Footnote D: "List of rations in the Colored Hospital at City Point,

being a dinner on Wednesday, April 25th, 1865:--

Roast Beef,

Shad,

Veal Broth,

Stewed Oysters,

Beef Tea,

Mashed Potatoes,

Lemonade,

Apple Jelly,

Farina Pudding.

Tomatoes,

Tea,

Coffee,

Toast,

Gruel,

Scalded Milk,

Crackers and Sherry Cobbler,

Roast Apple

Let it not be supposed that this was an ordinary hospital diet. Although

such a list was furnished at this time, yet it was only possible while

the hospital had an ample base, like City Point. The armies, when

operating at a distance, could give but two or three articles; and in

active campaigns these were furnished with great irregularity."]

The following passage from the pen of Harriet Martineau, in regard to

the management of the kitchen at Scutari, by Florence Nightingale, is

true also of those organized by Miss Gilson in Virginia. The parallel is

so close, and the illustration of the daily administration of this

department of her work so vivid, that, if the circumstances under which

it was written were not known, I should have said it was a faithful

picture of our kitchen in the Colored Hospital at City Point:--

"The very idea of that kitchen was savory in the wards; for out of it

came, at the right moment, arrowroot, hot and of the pleasantest

consistence; rice puddings, neither hard on the one hand or clammy on

the other; cool lemonade for the feverish; cans full of hot tea for the

weary, and good coffee for the faint. When the sinking sufferer was

lying with closed eyes, too feeble to make moan or sigh, the hospital

spoon was put between his lips, with the mouthful of strong broth or hot

wine, which rallied him till the watchful nurse came round again. The

meat from that kitchen was tenderer than any other, the beef tea was

more savory. One thing that came out of it was the lesson on the saving

of good cookery. The mere circumstance of the boiling water being really

boiling there, made a difference of two ounces of rice in every four

puddings, and of more than half the arrowroot used. The same quantity of

arrowroot which made a pint thin and poor in the general kitchen, made

two pints thick and good in Miss Nightingale's.

"Again, in contrasting the general kitchen with the light or special

diet prepared for the sicker men, there was all the difference between

having placed before them 'the cold mutton chop with its opaque fat, the

beef with its caked gravy, the arrowroot stiff and glazed, all

untouched, as might be seen by the bed-sides in the afternoons, while

the patients were lying back, sinking for want of support,' and seeing

'the quick and quiet nurses enter as the clock struck, with their hot

water tins, hot morsels ready cut, bright knife, and fork, and

spoon,--and all ready for instant eating!'

"The nurses looked for Miss Gilson's word of praise, and labored for it;

and she had only to suggest a variety in the decoration of the tents to

stimulate a most honorable rivalry among them, which soon opened a wide

field for displaying ingenuity and taste, so that not only was its

standard the highest, but it was the most cheerfully picturesque

hospital at City Point.

"This colored hospital service was one of those extraordinary tasks, out

of the ordinary course of army hospital discipline, that none but a

woman could execute. It required more than a man's power of endurance,

for men fainted and fell under the burden. It required a woman's

discernment, a woman's tenderness, a woman's delicacy and tact; it

required such nerve and moral force, and such executive power, as are

rarely united in any woman's character. The simple grace with which she

moved about the hospital camps, the gentle dignity with which she

ministered to the suffering about her, won all hearts. As she passed

through the wards, the men would follow her with their eyes, attracted

by the grave sweetness of her manner; and when she stopped by some

bed-side, and laid her hand upon the forehead and smoothed the hair of a

soldier, speaking some cheering, pleasant word, I have seen the tears

gather in his eyes, and his lips quiver, as he tried to speak or to

touch the fold of her dress, as if appealing to her to listen, while he

opened his heart about the mother, wife, or sister far away. I have seen

her in her sober gray flannel gown, sitting motionless by the dim

candle-light,--which was all our camp could afford,--with her eyes open

and watchful, and her hands ever ready for all those endless wants of

sickness at night, especially sickness that may be tended unto death, or

unto the awful struggle between life and death, which it was the lot of

nearly all of us at some time to keep watch over until the danger had

gone by. And in sadder trials, when the life of a soldier whom she had

watched and ministered to was trembling in the balance between earth and

heaven, waiting for Him to make all things new, she has seemed, by some

special grace of the Spirit, to reach the living Christ, and draw a

blessing down as the shining way was opened to the tomb. And I have seen

such looks of gratitude from weary eyes, now brightened by visions of

heavenly glory, the last of many recognitions of her ministry. Absorbed

in her work, unconscious of the spiritual beauty which invested her

daily life,--whether in her kitchen, in the heat and overcrowding

incident to the issues of a large special diet list, or sitting at the

cot of some poor lonely soldier, whispering of the higher realities of

another world,--she was always the same presence of grace and love, of

peace and benediction. I have been with her in the wards when the men

have craved some simple religious services,--the reading of Scripture,

the repetition of a psalm, the singing of a hymn, or the offering of a

prayer,--and invariably the men were melted to tears by the touching

simplicity of her eloquence.

"These were the tokens of her ministry among the sickest men; but it was

not here alone that her influence was felt in the hospital. Was there

jealousy in the kitchen, her quick penetration detected the cause, and

in her gentle way harmony was restored; was there profanity among the

convalescents, her daily presence and kindly admonition or reproof, with

an occasional glance which spoke her sorrow for such sin, were enough to

check the evil; or was there hardship or discontent, the knowledge that

she was sharing the discomfort too, was enough to compel patient

endurance until a remedy could be provided. And so, through all the war,

from the seven days' conflict upon the Peninsula, in those early July

days of 1862, through the campaigns of Antietam and Fredericksburg, of

Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and after the conflicts of the

Wilderness, and the fierce and undecided battles which were fought for

the possession of Richmond and Petersburg, in 1864 and 1865, she labored

steadfastly on until the end. Through scorching heat and pinching cold,

in the tent or upon the open field, in the ambulance or on the saddle,

through rain and snow, amid unseen perils of the enemy, under fire upon

the field, or in the more insidious dangers of contagion, she worked

quietly on, doing her simple part with all womanly tact and skill, until

now the hospital dress is laid aside, and she rests, with the sense of a

noble work done, and with the blessings and prayers of the thousands

whose sufferings she has relieved, or whose lives she has saved."

Amid all these labors, Miss Gilson found time and opportunity to care

for the poor negro washerwomen and their families, who doing the washing

of the hospital were allowed rations and a rude shelter by the

government in a camp near the hospital grounds. Finding that they were

suffering from overcrowding, privation, neglect, and sickness, she

procured the erection of comfortable huts for them, obtained clothing

from the North for the more destitute, and by example and precept

encouraged them in habits of neatness and order, while she also

inculcated practical godliness in all their life. In a short time from

one of the most miserable this became the best of the Freedmen's camps.

As was the case with nearly every woman who entered the service at the

seat of war, Miss Gilson suffered from malarious fever. As often as

possible she returned to her home for a brief space, to recruit her

wasted energies, and it was those brief intervals of rest which enabled

her to remain at her post until several months after the surrender of

Lee virtually ended the war.

She left Richmond in July, 1865, and spent the remainder of the summer

in a quiet retreat upon Long Island, where she partially recovered her

impaired health, and in the autumn returned to her home in Chelsea.

In person Miss Gilson is small and delicately proportioned. Without

being technically beautiful, her features are lovely both in form and

expression, and though now nearly thirty years of age she looks much

younger than she actually is. Her voice is low and soft, and her speech

gentle and deliberate. Her movements correspond in exact harmony with

voice and speech. But, under the softness and gentleness of her external

demeanor, one soon detects a firmness of determination, and a fixedness

of will. No doubt, once determined upon the duty and propriety of any

course, she will pursue it calmly and persistently to the end. It is to

these qualifications, and physical and moral traits, that she owes the

undoubted power and influence exercised in her late mission.

MRS. JOHN HARRIS.

He would have been a man of uncommon sagacity and penetration, who in

the beginning of 1861, should have chosen Mrs. Harris as capable of the

great services and the extraordinary power of endurance with which her

name has since been identified. A pale, quiet, delicate woman, often an

invalid for months, and almost always a sufferer; the wife of a somewhat

eminent physician, in Philadelphia, and in circumstances which did not

require constant activity for her livelihood, refined, educated, and

shrinking from all rough or brutal sights or sounds, she seemed one of

those who were least fitted to endure the hardships, and encounter the

roughnesses of a life in the camp or field hospitals.

But beneath that quiet and frail exterior, there dwelt a firm and

dauntless spirit. She had been known by her neighbors, and especially in

the church of which she was an honored member, as a woman of remarkable

piety and devotion, and as an excellent and skilful attendant upon the

sick. When the war commenced, she was one of the ladies who assembled to

form the Ladies' Aid Society of Philadelphia, and was chosen, we believe

unanimously, Corresponding Secretary. She seems to have entered upon the

work from the feeling that it was a part of her duty, a sacrifice she

was called to make, a burden which she ought to bear. And through the

war, mainly from her temperament, which inclined her to look on the dark

side, she never seemed stimulated or strengthened in her work by that

abiding conviction of the final success of our arms, which was to so

many of the patient workers, the day-star of hope. Like Bunyan's Master

Fearing, she was always apprehensive of defeat and disaster, of the

triumph of the adversary; and when victories came, her eyes were so dim

with tears for the bereaved and sorrow-stricken, and her heart so heavy

with their griefs that she could not join in the songs of triumph, or

smile in unison with the nation's rejoicings. We speak of this not to

depreciate her work or zeal, but rather to do the more honor to both.

The despondent temperament and the intense sympathy with sorrow were

constitutional, or the result of years of ill-health, and that under

their depressing influence, with no step of her way lighted with the

sunshine of joy, she should have not only continued faithful to her

work, but have undergone more hardships and accomplished more, for the

soldiers than most others, reflects the highest credit upon her

patience, perseverance and devotion to the cause.

We have elsewhere in this volume given an account of the origin and

progress of the Ladies' Aid Society, of Philadelphia. Mrs. Harris,

though continued as its Corresponding Secretary through the war, was,

during the greater part of the time, its correspondent in the field, and

left to the other officers, the work of raising and forwarding the money

and supplies, while she attended in person to their distribution. This

division of labor seems to have satisfied her associates, who forwarded

to her order their hospital stores and money with the most perfect

confidence in her judicious disposition of both. Other Societies, such

as the Penn Relief, the Patriotic Daughters of Lancaster, and Aid

Societies from the interior of Pennsylvania, as well as the Christian

and Sanitary Commissions, made her their almoners, and she distributed a

larger amount of stores, perhaps, than any other lady in the field.

The history of her work during the war, is given very fully, in her

correspondence with the Ladies' Aid Society, published in their

semi-annual reports. From these we gather that she had visited in 1861,

and the winter of 1862, before the movement of the army to the

peninsula, more than one hundred hospitals of the army of the Potomac,

in and around Washington, and had not only ministered to the physical

wants of the sick and wounded men, but had imparted religious

instruction and consolation to many of them. Everywhere her coming had

been welcomed; in many instances, eyes dimmed by the shadow of the wings

of the death-angel, saw in her the wife or mother, for whose coming they

had longed and died, with the hallowed word "mother" on their lips.

When in the spring of 1862, the army of the Potomac moved to the

Peninsula, Mrs. Harris went thither, first distributing as far as

practicable, her stores among the men. Soon after her arrival on the

Peninsula, she found ample employment for her time. The Chesapeake and

Hygeia hospitals at Fortress Monroe, filled at first mostly with the

sick, and the few wounded in the siege of Yorktown, were, after the

battles of Williamsburg and West Point crowded with such of the wounded,

both Union and Confederate soldiers as could be brought so far from the

battle-fields. She spent two or three weeks here, aiding the noble women

who were acting as Matrons of these hospitals. From thence she went on

board the Vanderbilt, then just taken as a Government Transport for the

wounded from the bloody field of Fair Oaks.

She thus describes the scene and her work:

"There were eight hundred on board. Passage-ways, state-rooms,

floors from the dark and foetid hold to the hurricane deck, were

all more than filled; some on mattresses, some on blankets, others

on straw; some in the death-struggle, others nearing it, some

already beyond human sympathy and help; some in their blood as they

had been brought from the battle-field of the Sabbath previous, and

all hungry and thirsty, not having had anything to eat or drink,

except hard crackers, for twenty-four hours.

"The gentlemen who came on with us hurried on to the White House,

and would have had us go with them, but something held us back;

thank God it was so. Meeting Dr. Cuyler, Medical Director, he

exclaimed, 'Here is work for you!' He, poor man, was completely

overwhelmed with the general care of all the hospitals at Old

Point, and added to these, these mammoth floating hospitals, which

are coming in from day to day with their precious cargoes. Without

any previous notice, they anchor, and send to him for supplies,

which it would be extremely difficult to improvise, even in our

large cities, and quite impossible at Old Point. 'No bakeries, no

stores, except small sutlers.' The bread had all to be baked; the

boat rationed for two days; _eight hundred_ on board.

"When we went aboard, the first cry we met was for tea and bread.

'For God's sake, give us _bread_,' came from many of our wounded

soldiers. Others shot in the face or neck, begged for liquid food.

With feelings of a _mixed_ character, shame, indignation, and

sorrow blending, we turned away to see what resources we could

muster to meet the demand. A box of tea, a barrel of cornmeal,

sundry parcels of dried fruit, a few crackers, ginger cakes, dried

rusk, sundry jars of jelly and of pickles, were seized upon,

soldiers and contrabands impressed into service, all the cooking

arrangements of three families appropriated, by permission, and

soon three pounds of tea were boiling, and many gallons of gruel

blubbering. In the meantime, all the bread we could buy,

twenty-five loaves, were cut into slices and _jellied_, pickles

were got in readiness, and in an incredibly short time, we were

back to our poor sufferers.

"When we carried in bread, hands from every quarter were

outstretched, and the cry, 'Give me a piece, O please! I have had

nothing since Monday;' another, 'Nothing but hard crackers since

the fight,' etc. When we had dealt out nearly all the bread, a

surgeon came in, and cried, 'Do please keep some for the poor

fellows in the hold; they are so badly off for everything.' So with

the remnant we threaded our way through the suffering crowd, amid

such exclamations as 'Oh! please don't touch my foot,' or, 'For

mercy's sake, don't touch my arm;' another, 'Please don't move the

blanket; I am so terribly cut up,' down to the hold, in which were

not less than one hundred and fifty, nearly all sick, some very

sick. It was like plunging into a vapor bath, so hot, close, and

full of moisture, and then in this dismal place, we distributed our

bread, oranges, and pickles, which were seized upon with avidity.

And here let me say, at least twenty of them told us next day that

the pickles had done them more good than all the medicine they had

taken. The tea was carried all around in buckets, sweetened, but no

milk in it. How much we wished for some concentrated milk. The

gruel, into which we had put a goodly quantity of wine, was

relished, you cannot know how much. One poor wounded boy, exhausted

with the loss of blood and long fasting, looked up after taking the

first nourishment he could swallow since the battle of Saturday,

then four days, and exclaimed, with face radiant with gratitude and

pleasure, 'Oh! that is life to me; I feel as if _twenty years were

given me_ to live.' He was shockingly wounded about the neck and

face, and could only take liquid food from a feeding-cup, of which

they had none on board. We left them four, together with a number

of tin dishes, spoons, etc. After hours spent in this way, we

returned to the Hygeia Hospital, stopping on our way to stew a

quantity of dried fruit, which served for supper, reaching the

Hygeia wet through and through, _every garment_ saturated.

Disrobed, and bathing with bay rum, was glad to lie down, every

bone aching, and head and heart throbbing, unwilling to cease work

where so much was to be done, and yet wholly unable to do more.

There I lay, with the sick, wounded, and dying all around, and

slept from sheer exhaustion, the last sounds falling upon my ear

being groans from the operating room."

Her ministrations to the wounded on the Vanderbilt were unexpectedly

prolonged by the inability of the officers to get the necessary supplies

on board, but two days after she was on the Knickerbocker, a Sanitary

Commission Transport, and on her way to White House Landing where in

company with Miss Charlotte Bradford, she spent the whole night on the

Transport Louisiana, dressing and caring for the wounded. When she left

the boat at eleven o'clock the next night she was obliged to wash all

her skirts which were saturated with the mingled blood of the Union and

Confederate soldiers which covered the floor, as she kneeled between

them to wash their faces. She had torn up all her spare clothing which

could be of use to them for bandages and compresses. From White House

she proceeded to the battle-ground of Fair Oaks, and presently pitched

her tent on the Dudley Farm, near Savage Station, to be near the group

of field hospitals, to which the wounded in the almost daily skirmishes

and the sick smitten with that terrible Chickahominy fever were sent.

The provision made by the Medical Bureau of the Government at this time

for the care and comfort of the wounded and fever-stricken was small and

often inappropriate. Where tents were provided, they were either of the

wedge pattern or the bivouacking tent of black cloth, and in the hot sun

of a Virginia summer absorbed the sun's rays till they were like ovens;

many of the sick were put into the cabins and miserable shanties of the

vicinity, and not unfrequently in the attics of these, where amid the

intense heat they were left without food or drink except when the

Sanitary Commission's agents or some of the ladies connected with other

organizations, like Mrs. Harris, ministered to their necessities. One

case of this kind, not by any means the worst, but told with a simple

pathos deserves to be quoted:

"Passing a forlorn-looking house, we were told by a sentinel that a

young Captain of a Maine regiment laid in it very sick; we went in,

no door obstructing, and there upon a stretcher in a corner of the

room opening directly upon the road lay an elegant-looking youth

struggling with the last great enemy. His mind wandered; and as we

approached him he exclaimed: 'Is it not cruel to keep me here when

my mother and sister, whom I have not seen for a year, are in the

next room; they might let me go in?' His mind continued to wander;

only for an instant did he seem to have a glimpse of the reality,

when he drew two rings from his finger, placed there by a loving

mother and sister, handed them to an attendant, saying: 'Carry them

home,' and then he was amid battle scenes, calling out, 'Deploy to

the left;' 'Keep out of that ambuscade;' 'Now go, my braves, double

quick, and strike for your flag! On, on,' and he threw up his arms

as if cheering them, 'you'll win the day;' and so he continued to

talk, whilst death was doing its terrible work. As we looked upon

the beautiful face and manly form, and thought of the mother and

sister in their distant home, surrounded by every luxury wealth

could purchase, worlds seemed all too cheap to give to have him

with them. But this could not be. The soldier of three battles, he

was not willing to admit that he was sick until his strength

failed, and he was actually dying. He was carried to this cheerless

room, a rude table the only furniture; no door, no window-shutters;

the western sun threw its hot rays in upon him,--no cooling shade

for his fevered brow: and so he lay unconscious of the monster's

grasp, which would not relax until he had done his work. His last

expressions told of interest in his men. He was a graduate of

Waterville College. Twenty of his company graduated at the same

institution. He was greatly beloved; his death, even in this

Golgotha, was painfully impressive. There was no time to talk to

him of that spirit-land upon which he was so soon to enter.

Whispered a few verses of Scripture into his ear; he looked with a

sweet smile and thanked me, but his manner betokened no

appreciation of the sacred words. He was an only son. His mother

and sister doted on him. He had everything to bind him to life, but

the mandate had gone forth."

Of the scenes of the retreat from the Chickahominy to Harrison's

Landing, Mrs. Harris was an active and deeply interested witness; she

remained at Savage Station caring for the wounded, for some time, and

then proceeded to Seven Pines, where a day was passed in preparing the

wounded for the operations deemed necessary, obtaining, at great

personal peril, candles to light the darkness of the field hospital, and

was sitting down, completely exhausted with her trying and wearisome

labors, when an army chaplain, an exception it is to be hoped to most of

his profession, in his unwillingness to serve the wounded, came to her

and said, "They have just brought in a soldier with a leg blown off; he

is in a horrible condition; could you wash him?" Wearied as she was, she

performed the duty tenderly, but it was scarcely finished when death

claimed him. Her escape to White House, and thence to Harrison's

Landing, was made not a minute too soon; she was obliged to abandon her

stores, and to come off on the steamer in a borrowed bonnet.

At this trying time, her constitutional tendency to despondency took

full possession of her. "The heavens are filled with blackness," she

writes; "I find myself on board the Nelly Baker, on my way to City

Point, with supplies for our poor army, if we still have one; I am not

always hopeful, you see. * * * Alarming accounts come to us. Prepare for

the worst, but hope for the best. We do not doubt we are in a very

critical condition, out of which only the Most High can bring us." This

is not the language of fear or cowardice. There was no disposition on

her part to seek her own personal safety, but while she despaired of

success, she was ready to brave any danger for the sake of the wounded

soldiers. This courage in the midst of despair, is really greater than

that of the battle-field.

The months of July and August, 1862, except a brief visit home, were

spent at Harrison's Landing, amid the scenes of distress, disease,

wounds and suffering, which abounded there. The malaria of the

Chickahominy swamps had done much to demoralize the finest army ever put

into the field; tens of thousands were ill with it, and these, with the

hosts of wounded accumulated more rapidly than the transports, numerous

as they were, could carry them away. Their condition at Harrison's

Landing was pitiable; the medical bureau seemed to have shared in the

general demoralization. The proper diet, the necessary hospital

arrangements, everything required for the soldiers' restoration to

health, was wanting; the pasty, adhesive mud was everywhere, and the

hospital tents, old, mildewed, and leaky, were pitched in it, and no

floors provided; hard tack, salt junk, fat salt pork, and cold, greasy

bean soup, was the diet provided for men suffering from typhoid fever,

and from wounds which rendered liquid food indispensable. Soft bread was

promised, but was not obtained till just before the breaking up of the

encampment. Nor was the destitution of hospital clothing less complete.

In that disastrous retreat across the peninsula, many of the men had

lost their knapsacks; the government did not provide shirts, drawers,

undershirts, as well as mattresses, sheets, blankets, etc., in anything

like the quantity needed, and men had often lain for weeks without a

change of clothing, in the mud and filth. So far as a few zealous

workers could do it, Mrs. Harris, and her willing and active coadjutors

sought to remedy these evils; the clothing, and the more palatable and

appropriate food they could and did provide for most of those who

remained. Having accomplished all for these which she could, and the

army having left the James River, after spending a few days at the

hospitals near Fortress Monroe, Mrs. Harris came up the Potomac in one

of the Government transports, reaching Alexandria on the 31st of August.

Here she found ample employment in bestowing her tender care upon the

thousands of wounded from Pope's campaigns.

On the 8th of September, she followed, with her supplies, the army on

its march toward South Mountain and Antietam. She reached Antietam the

day after the battle, and from that time till the 3rd of November, aided

by a corps of most devoted and earnest laborers in the work of mercy,

among whom were Mrs. M. M. Husband, Miss M. M. C. Hall, Mrs. Mary W.

Lee, Miss Tyson, and others. Mrs. Harris gave herself to the work of

caring for the wounded. Sad were the sights she was often called to

witness. She bore ample testimony to the patience and the uncomplaining

spirit of our soldiers; to their filial devotion, to the deep love of

home, and the dear ones left behind, which would be manifested in the

dying hour, by brave, noble-hearted men, and to the patriotism which

even in the death agony, made them rejoice to lay down their lives for

their country.

Early in November, 1862, Mrs. Harris left Smoketown General Hospital,

near Antietam, and came to Washington. In the hospitals in and around

that city thirty thousand sick and wounded men were lying, some of them

well and tenderly cared for, some like those in the Parole and

Convalescent Camps near Alexandria, (the "Camp Misery" of those days),

suffering from all possible privations. She did all that she could to

supply the more pressing needs of these poor men. After a few weeks

spent in the vicinity of the Capitol, news of the disastrous battle of

Fredericksburg came to Washington. Though deeply depressed by the

intelligence, she hastened to the front to do what she could for the

thousands of sufferers. From this time till about the middle of June,

1863, Mrs. Harris had her quarters in the Lacy House, Falmouth, and

aided by Mrs. Beck and Mrs. Lee, worked faithfully for the soldiers,

taking measures to relieve and cure the ailing, and to prevent illness

from the long and severe exposures to which the troops were subject on

picket duty, or special marches, through that stormy and inclement

winter. This work was in addition to that in the camp and field

hospitals of the Sixth Corps. Another part of her work and one of

special interest and usefulness, was the daily and Sabbath worship at

her rooms, in which such of the soldiers as were disposed, participated.

The contrabands were also the objects of her sympathy and care, and she

assembled them for religious worship and instruction on the Sabbath.

But the invasion of Pennsylvania was approaching, and she went forward

to Harrisburg, which was at first thought to be threatened, on the 25th

of June. After two or three days, finding that there was no probability

of an immediate battle there, she returned to Philadelphia, and thence

to Washington, which she reached on the 30th of June. The next three

days were spent in the effort to forward hospital stores, and obtain

transportation to Gettysburg. The War Department then, as in most of the

great battles previously, refused to grant this privilege, and though

she sought with tears and her utmost powers of persuasion, the

permission to forward a single car-load of stores, she was denied, even

on the 3rd of July. She could not be restrained, however, from going

where she felt that her services would be imperatively needed, and at

five P. M., of the 3rd of July, she left Washington carrying only some

chloroform and a few stimulants, reached Westminster at four A. M., of

the 4th, and was carried to the battle-field of Gettysburg, in the

ambulance which had brought the wounded General Hancock to Westminster.

The next week was spent day and night amid the horrors of that field of

blood, horrors which no pen can describe. That she and her indefatigable

aid, (this time a young lady from Philadelphia), were able to alleviate

a vast amount of suffering, to give nourishment to many who were

famishing; to dress hundreds of wounds, and to point the dying sinner to

the Saviour, or whisper words of consolation to the agonized heart, was

certain. On the night of the 10th of July, Mrs. Harris and her friend

Miss B. left for Frederick, Maryland, where a battle was expected; but

as only skirmishing took place, they kept on to Warrenton and Warrenton

Junction, where their labors were incessant in caring for the great

numbers of wounded and sick in the hospitals. Constant labor had so far

impaired her health, that on the 18th of August she attempted to get

away from her work for a few days rest; but falling in with the sick men

of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, she went to work with her usual zeal to

prepare food and comforts for them, and when they were supplied returned

to her work; going to Culpepper Court House, where there were four

hospitals, and remaining there till the last of September.

The severe battle of Chickamauga, occurring on the 19th and 20th of

September, roused her to the consciousness of the great field for labor,

offered by the Western armies, and about the 1st of October, she went to

Nashville, Tennessee, taking her friends Miss Tyson and Mrs. Beck with

her. It was her intention to go on to Chattanooga, but she found it

impossible at that time to procure transportation, and she and her

friends at once commenced work among the refugees, the "poor white

trash," who were then crowding into Nashville. For a month and more they

labored zealously, and with good results, among these poor, ignorant,

but loyal people, and then Mrs. Harris, after a visit to Louisville to

provide for the inmates of the numerous hospitals in Nashville, a

Thanksgiving dinner, pushed forward to the front, reaching Bridgeport,

on the 28th of November, and Chattanooga the next day. Here she found

abundant work, but her protracted labors had overtasked her strength,

and she was for several weeks so ill that her life was despaired of. She

was unable to resume her labors until the latter part of January, 1864,

and then she worked with a will for the half starved soldiers in the

hospitals, among whom scurvy and hospital gangrene were prevailing.

After two months of faithful labor among these poor fellows, she went

back to Nashville, and spent four or five months more among the

refugees. She returned home early in May, 1864, hoping to take a brief

period of rest, of which she was in great need; but two weeks later, she

was in Fredericksburg, attending to the vast numbers of wounded brought

from the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, and followed on

with that sad procession of the wounded, the dead, and the dying, to

Port Royal, White House, and City Point. Never had been there so much

need for her labors, and she toiled on, though suffering from constant

prostration of strength, until the close of June, when she was obliged

to relinquish labor for a time, and restore the almost exhausted vital

forces. In September, she was again in the field, this time with the

Army of the Shenandoah, at Winchester, where she ministered to the

wounded for some weeks. She was called home to attend her mother in her

last illness, and for three or four months devoted herself to this

sacred duty. Early in the spring of 1865, she visited North Carolina,

and all the sympathy of her nature was called out in behalf of the poor

released prisoners from Andersonville and Salisbury, to whom she

ministered with her usual faithfulness. At the close of the war, she

returned to her home, more an invalid than ever from the effects of a

sun-stroke received while in attendance on a field hospital in

Virginia.

MRS. ELIZA C. PORTER

Mrs. Eliza C. Porter, the subject of the following sketch, is the wife

of the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, a Presbyterian clergyman of Chicago,

Illinois.

Of all the noble band of Western women who during the late war devoted

time, thought, and untiring exertions to the care of our country's

defenders, very few, if any are more worthy of honorable mention, and

the praise of a grateful nation, than Mrs. Porter. Freely she gave all,

withholding not even the most precious of her possessions and

efforts--her husband, her sons, her time and strength, the labor of

hands and brain, and, above all, her prayers. Few indeed at a time when

sacrifices were general, and among the women of our country the rule

rather than the exception, made greater sacrifices than she. Her home

was broken up, and the beloved circle scattered, each member in his or

her own appropriate sphere, actively engaged in the great work which the

war unfolded.

A correspondent thus describes Mrs. Porter; "Mrs. Porter is from

forty-five to fifty years of age, a quiet, modest, lady-like woman, very

gentle in her manners, and admirably qualified to soothe, comfort and

care for the sick and wounded." But this description, by no means

includes, or does justice to the admirable fitness for the work which

her labors have developed, her quiet energy, her great executive and

organizing ability, and her tact ever displayed in doing and saying the

right thing at precisely the right time. Of the value of this latter

qualification few can form an estimate who have not seen excellent and

praiseworthy exertions so often wither unfruitfully for the lack alone

of an adjunct so nearly indispensable.

Mrs. Porter was early stimulated to exertion and sacrifice. In the

spring of 1861, immediately after the breaking out of the war, while

sitting one morning at her breakfast table, her husband, eldest son and

two nephews being present, she exclaimed fervently; "If I had a hundred

sons, I would gladly send them all forth to this work of putting down

the rebellion."

The three young men then present all entered the army. One of them after

three years' service was disabled by wounds and constant labor. The

other two gave themselves anew to their country, all they could give.

During the summer of 1861 Mrs. Porter visited Cairo where hospitals had

been established, and in her labors and experiences there carried what

things were most needed by the sick and wounded soldiers. In October of

that year, Illinois was first roused to co-operation in the work of the

Sanitary Commission. The Northwestern Sanitary Commission was

established, and at the request of Mr. E. W. Blatchford and others, Mrs.

Porter was induced to take charge of the Commission Rooms which were

opened in Chicago. Her zeal and abilities, as well as the hospital

experiences of the summer, had fitted her for the arduous task, and as

opening to her a field of great usefulness, she accepted the

appointment. How she devoted herself to that work, at what sacrifice of

family comfort, and with what success, is well known to the Commission,

and to thousands of its early contributors.

In April, 1862, she became satisfied that she could be more useful in

the field, by taking good nurses to the army hospitals, and herself

laboring with them. Her husband, who the previous winter had been

commissioned as Chaplain of the First Illinois Light Artillery, was then

at Cairo, where he had been ordered to labor in hospitals; and Mrs.

Porter, visiting Cairo and Paducah, entered earnestly into the work of

placing the nurses she had brought with her from Chicago. Some of these

devoted themselves constantly to the service, and proved equally

successful and valuable.

At Cairo, Mrs. Porter made the acquaintance of Miss Mary J. Safford,

since known as the "Cairo Angel," and co-operating with her there, and

with Mr. Porter and various surgeons and philanthropists, aided in

receiving, and temporarily caring for seven hundred men from the field

of Pittsburgh Landing, and in transferring them to the hospitals of

Mound City, Illinois.

From four o'clock in the morning until ten at night, Mrs. Porter and her

friends labored, and then, their work accomplished and their suffering

charges made as comfortable as circumstances would permit, they were

forced, by the absence of hotel accommodations, to spend the night

upon the steamer where the state-rooms being occupied, they slept upon

chairs.

Soon afterward she went, accompanied by Miss Safford, to Pittsburgh

Landing. There she obtained from the Medical Director, Dr. Charles

McDougal, an order for several female nurses for his department. She

hastened to Chicago, secured them, and accompanying them to Tennessee

placed them at Savannah with Mrs. Mary Bickerdyke, who had been with the

wounded since the battle of Shiloh. From thence she went to Corinth,

then just taken by General Grant. She was accompanied by several

benevolent ladies from Chicago, like herself bent on doing good to the

sick and wounded. At Corinth she joined her husband, and he being

ordered to join his regiment at Memphis, she went thither in his

company.

Here, principally in the hospital of the First Light Artillery at Fort

Pickering, she labored through the summer of 1862, and afterwards

returned to visit some of the southern towns of Illinois in search of

stores from the farmers, which she added to the supplies forwarded by

the Commission.

While at Memphis, Mrs. Porter became deeply interested in the welfare

of the escaped slaves and their families congregated there.

Receiving aid from friends at the North, she organized a school for

them, and spent all her leisure hours in giving them instruction. One of

the nurses she had brought thither desired to aid in the work, and

obtaining needful books and charts she organized a school for Miss

Humphrey at Shiloh.

Mrs. Porter was very successful in this work. In her youth she had

gathered an infant school among the half-breed children at Mackinac and

Point St. Ignace, and understood well how to deal with these minds

scarce awakened from the dense slumber of ignorance.

The school flourished, and others entered into the work, and other

schools were established. Ministering to their temporal wants as well,

clothing, feeding, medicating these unfortunate people, visiting their

hospitals as well as those of the army, Mrs. Porter remained at Memphis

and in its vicinity until June, 1863.

Her schools having by that time become well-established, and general

interest in the scheme awakened, Mrs. Porter felt herself constrained to

once more devote herself exclusively to the soldiers, a large number of

whom were languishing in Southern hospitals in an unhealthy climate.

Failing in her attempts to get them rapidly removed to the North,

through correspondence with the Governors of Ohio and Illinois, she went

North for the purpose of obtaining interviews with these gentlemen. At

Green Bay, Wisconsin, she joined Mrs. Governor Harvey, who was striving

to obtain a State Hospital for Wisconsin. Here she proposed to Senator

T. O. Howe to draft a petition to the President, praying for the

establishment of such hospitals. Judge Howe was greatly pleased to

comply, and accordingly drew up the petition to which Mrs. Howe and

others obtained over eight thousand names. Mrs. Harvey desired Mrs.

Porter to accompany her to Washington with the petition, but she

declined, and Mrs. Harvey went alone, and as the result of her efforts,

succeeded in the establishment of the Harvey Hospital at Madison,

Wisconsin.

Other parties took up the matter in Illinois, and Mrs. Porter returned

to her beloved work at the South, visiting Natchez and Vicksburg. At the

latter place she joined Mrs. Harvey and Mrs. Bickerdyke, all three

ministering by Sanitary stores and personal aid to the sick and wounded

in hospitals and regiments.

While on her way, at Memphis, she learned that the battery, in which

were her eldest son and a nephew, had gone with Sherman's army toward

Corinth, and started by rail to overtake them. At Corinth, standing in

the room of the Sanitary Commission, she saw the battery pass in which

were her boys. It was raining, and mud-bespattered and drenched, her son

rode by in an ague chill, and could only give her a look of recognition

as he passed on to the camp two miles beyond. The next morning she went

out to his camp, but missed him, and returning found him at the Sanitary

Rooms in another chill. The next day she nursed him through a third

chill, and then parting she sent her sick boy on his way toward

Knoxville and Chattanooga.

After a short stay at Vicksburg she once more returned to Illinois to

plead with Governor Yates to bring home his disabled soldiers, then went

back, by way of Louisville and Nashville, to Huntsville, Alabama, where

she met and labored indefatigably with Mrs. Lincoln Clark and her

daughter, of Chicago, and Mrs. Bickerdyke.

After a few weeks spent there in comforting the sick, pointing the dying

to the Saviour, and ministering to surgeons, officers, and soldiers, she

followed our conquering arms to Chattanooga, Resaca, Kingston, Allatoona

Pass, Marietta and Atlanta.

As a memorial of her earlier movements in this campaign, we extract the

following letter from the Report for January and February, 1864, of the

Northwestern Sanitary Commission.

"From a mass of deeply interesting correspondence on hand, we select

the following letter from Rev. Mrs. Jeremiah Porter, who, with Mrs.

Bickerdyke, the widely known and very efficient Hospital Matron, has

been laboring in the hospitals of the 15th Army Corps, most of the time

since the battle of Chickamauga. Mrs. Bickerdyke was assigned to

hospital duty in this corps, at the request of General Sherman, and is

still actively engaged there. This letter affords glimpses of the

hardships and privations of our brave men, whose sufferings in Southern

and Eastern Tennessee during the months of December and January, have

been unparalleled."

"IN CAMP, NOVEMBER 4TH FIELD HOSPITAL,

"CHATTANOOGA, _January 24, 1864._

"I reached this place on New Year's Eve, making the trip of the few

miles from Bridgeport to Chattanooga, in twenty-four hours. New

Year's morning was very cold. I went immediately to the Field

Hospital about two miles out of town, where I found Mrs. Bickerdyke

hard at work, as usual, endeavoring to comfort the cold and

suffering, sick and wounded. The work done on that day told most

happily on the comfort of the poor wounded men.

"The wind came sweeping around Lookout Mountain, and uniting with

currents from the valleys of Mission Ridge, pressed in upon the

hospital tents, overturning some, and making the inmates of all

tremble with cold and anxious fear. The cold had been preceded by a

great rain, which added to the general discomfort. Mrs. Bickerdyke

went from tent to tent in the gale, carrying hot bricks and hot

drinks to warm and to cheer the poor fellows. 'She is a power of

good,' said one soldier. 'We fared mighty poor till she came here,'

said another. 'God bless the Sanitary Commission,' said a third,

'for sending women among us!' The soldiers fully appreciate 'Mother

Bickerdyke,' as they call her, and her work.

"Mrs. Bickerdyke left Vicksburg at the request of General Sherman,

and other officers of his corps, as they wished to secure her

services for the then approaching battle. The Field Hospital of the

15th (Sherman's) Army Corps, was situated on the north bank of the

Genesee river, on a slope at the base of Mission Ridge, where,

after the struggle was over, seventeen hundred of our wounded and

exhausted soldiers were brought. Mrs. Bickerdyke reached there

before the din and smoke of battle were well over, and before all

were brought from the field of blood and carnage. There she

remained the only female attendant for four weeks. Never has she

rendered more valuable service. Dr. Newberry arrived in Chattanooga

with Sanitary goods which Mrs. Bickerdyke had the pleasure of

using, as she says, 'just when and where needed,' and never were

Sanitary goods more deeply felt to be _good goods_. 'What could we

do without them?' is a question I often hear raised, and answered

with a hearty 'God bless the Sanitary Commission!' which is now,

everywhere, acknowledged as a great power for good.

"The Field Hospital was in a forest, about five miles from

Chattanooga, wood was abundant, and the camp was warmed by immense

burning 'log heaps,' which were the only fire-places or

cooking-stoves of the camp or hospitals. Men were detailed to fell

the trees and pile the logs to heat the air, which was very wintry.

And beside them Mrs. Bickerdyke made soup and toast, tea and

coffee, and broiled mutton, without a gridiron, often blistering

her fingers in the process. A house in due time was demolished to

make bunks for the worst cases, and the brick from the chimney was

converted into an oven, when Mrs. Bickerdyke made bread, yeast

having been found in the Chicago boxes, and flour at a neighboring

mill, which had furnished flour to secessionists through the war

until now. Great multitudes were fed from these rude kitchens.

Companies of hungry soldiers were refreshed before those open

fire-places, and from those ovens. On one occasion, a citizen came

and told the men to follow him, he would show them a reserve of

beef and sheep which had been provided for General Bragg's army,

and about thirty head of cattle and twenty sheep was the prize.

Large potash kettles were found, which were used over the huge log

fires, and various kitchen utensils for cooking were brought into

camp from time to time, almost every day adding to our

conveniences. After four weeks of toil and labor, all the soldiers

who were able to leave were furloughed home, and the rest brought

to the large hospital where I am now located. About nine hundred

men are here, most of them convalescents, and waiting anxiously to

have the men and mules supplied with food, so that they may have

the benefit of the cars, which have been promised to take them

home.