LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR SERVICES IN SOLDIERS' HOMES, VOLUNTEER
REFRESHMENT SALOONS, ON GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL TRANSPORTS, ETC.
MRS. O. E. HOSMER.
At the opening of the late war, the subject of this sketch, Mrs. O. E.
Hosmer, was residing with her family in Chicago, Illinois. Hers was by
no means a vague patriotism that contented itself with verbal
expressions of sympathy for her country's cause and defenders. She
believed that she had sacrifices to make, and work to do, and could hope
for no enjoyment, or even comfort, amidst the luxuries of home, while
thousands to whom these things were as dear as to herself, had
resolutely turned away from them, willing to perish themselves, if the
national life might be preserved.
Her first sacrifice was that of two of her sons, whom she gave to the
service of the country in the army. Then, to use her own words, "feeling
a burning desire to aid personally in the work, I did not wait to hear
of sufferings I have since so often witnessed, but determined, as God
had given me health and a good husband to provide for me, to go forth as
a volunteer and do whatever my hands found to do." Few perhaps will ever
know to the full extent, how much the soldier benefited by this resolve.
To such a spirit, waiting and ardent, opportunities were not long in
presenting themselves. Mrs. Hosmer's first experiences, away from home,
were at Tipton, and Smithtown, Missouri. This was early in the winter of
1862, only a few months after the commencement of the War; but as all
will remember there had already been desperate campaigns, and hard
fighting in Missouri, and there were the usual consequences,
devastation, want and suffering to be met on all sides.
At this time the effects of that beneficent and excellent institution,
the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, had not been felt at all points
where need existed; for the field was vast, and even with the wonderful
charities of the great Northwest, pouring into its treasury and
store-houses, with a powerful organization, and scores of willing hands
and brains at command, time was necessary to enable it to assume that
sort of omnipresence which afterward caused it to be found in all places
where battles were fought, or hospitals erected, or men suffered from
the casualties of war, throughout that great territory.
Mrs. Hosmer found the hospitals at Tipton and Smithtown in the worst
possible condition, and the men suffering for almost everything required
for their comfort. This, under the circumstances, caused no surprise,
for medical stores were not readily available at points so remote. But
Mrs. Hosmer had the pleasure of causing a large box of Sanitary stores
and comforts to be sent them by the kind and efficient agent at St.
Louis, which she helped to distribute. She was thus enabled to leave
them in a much more comfortable condition.
On her return to Chicago, a number of influential ladies residing there,
formed an association to which the name of the "Ladies' War Committee"
was given. Mrs. Hosmer was appointed secretary of this organization.
This association was very useful and efficient, and met daily to work
for the soldiers, particularly in making up garments for the Regiments
sent out by the Board of Trade of Chicago.
When these, the Eighty-eighth and Seventy-second Illinois Regiments, and
the Board of Trade Battery, participated in any battle, they volunteered
to go and look after the wounded. The first volunteers were sent out
upon this charitable mission after the battle of Stone River, about the
1st of January, 1863, when two ladies, Mrs. Hosmer and Mrs. Smith
Tinkham proceeded to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with a large quantity of
supplies. They remained there, in constant and unwearied attendance upon
the large number of wounded from this important battle, for nine or ten
weeks.
The writer of this sketch was at that time in Chicago, and well
remembers the return of these ladies from this errand of mercy, and the
simple pathos of the report they then made, to the Board of Trade, of
their work and their stewardship of the funds entrusted to them by that
body for the expenses of the expedition, and the use of the wounded.
As these ladies were the first volunteers upon the ground, they were
warmly welcomed by the medical director and surgeons, and their services
at once rendered available both in the preparation of delicacies for the
sufferers, and in personal attendance upon them. Here Mrs. Hosmer met
with a most singular and touching incident. A soldier who had been
wounded in the leg, and taken prisoner, had his leg amputated by a Rebel
surgeon. He was afterwards recaptured, and being found in a dreadful and
dangerous condition, had to suffer a second amputation. It was only by
the closest and best of care that there remained a possibility that his
life might be saved; and this the surgeon in charge requested of Mrs.
Hosmer.
On approaching his bed, Mrs. Hosmer was almost painfully struck by his
strong resemblance to one of her sons, while he was at the same instant,
bewildered and excited by discovering in her an equally strong likeness
to the mother he was never to see again.
It need hardly be said that this accidental likeness caused a strong
bond of feeling between those till that moment utter strangers. The
soldier begged to be allowed to call the lady mother, and she was only
too glad to minister to him as she hoped some kind soul might do to the
son he resembled, should an hour of need occur. She found him to be an
educated and intelligent young man. She did for him all she could, and
watched and tended him with real devotion, but in vain. It was found
impossible to save him; and when he was gone, she performed the last of
her sad offices, by cutting from above his brow a mass of clustering,
raven curls, which she enclosed in a letter to his mother, telling her
all she knew of her boy's bravery, and his fate.
These days at Murfreesboro were days of hard labor, but of great
satisfaction. There had been more than five thousand men in hospital,
but these were thinned out by deaths, convalescence, etc., until but few
remained. Then Mrs. Hosmer and her friend returned to their home.
The following summer that admirable and most useful institution, the
"Soldiers' Home," was established in Chicago, and Mrs. Hosmer was
appointed first vice-president.
This "Home" occupied much of her time for the following year. In
connection with this was the Soldiers' Rest, where hundreds, and
sometimes thousands of men, _in transitu_, were furnished with good warm
meals, and with lodging for the sick, to the extent of its
accommodations. This was entirely sustained and carried on by the ladies
of Chicago, and Mrs. Hosmer often passed entire days and nights there,
in these labors of love.
After the battle of Chickamauga she again felt it a duty and privilege
to proceed to the field, on a mission of mercy. Her friend, Mrs.
Tinkham, again accompanied her. As they neared Chattanooga, they were
unfortunately taken prisoners. They suffered much fatigue, and many
privations, but no other ill-treatment, though they were, a part of the
time, in great danger from the shells which were exploding all about
them. They were however soon recaptured, and proceeded on their way.
Having lost their supplies, however, they found they could be of little
service. Provisions were very scarce, as in fact were all necessaries,
both for the wounded and well. Therefore, being provided with an escort,
they slowly retraced their way, and, after a disastrous and fatiguing
journey, arrived in Chicago, completely worn and exhausted, and without
the cheering influence of the consciousness of having accomplished much
good by their efforts.
From this time, with the exception of occasional trips to Cairo, to look
after the sick and wounded there, Mrs. Hosmer remained in Chicago,
laboring for the soldiers at the "Home" and "Rest," until the close of
the year, 1864. The "Northwestern Sanitary and Soldiers' Home Fair," was
then in contemplation, and was to take place in June, 1865. Mrs. Hosmer
had been appointed one of the Executive Committee, and Corresponding
Secretary of the organization, which had the mammoth fair in charge.
In pursuance of the objects in view, she then went down the Mississippi
River, to solicit donations of money and articles for the fair. Thinking
she could materially aid the object, by visiting hospitals, and giving
her testimony that supplies were still needed, she paid particular
attention to this part of her duty, and visited nearly every hospital
from Cairo to New Orleans. She had the satisfaction of raising about
five thousand dollars in money for the fair, besides obtaining a variety
and large amount of valuable articles for sale. She also had the
pleasure of causing supplies to be sent, at that time, to points where
they were much needed.
She was at Vicksburg when five thousand emaciated wrecks of manhood from
the prisons of Andersonville and Catawba, were brought thither to be
exchanged, and often visited their camp and aided in distributing the
supplies so greatly needed.
Many a time her kind heart was bursting with pain and sympathy for these
suffering men, many of whom had been tortured and starved till already
beyond the reach of help. But she was to see still greater horrors,
when, as the culmination of their fate, the steamer Sultana, on which
their homeward passage was taken, exploded, and, she, being near, beheld
hundreds who had escaped the sufferings of the prison pens, drawn from
the water, dying or dead, drowned or scalded, in that awful accident.
As she says, herself, her heart was nearly broken by this dreadful
sight.
Mrs. Hosmer returned to Chicago, and did not cease her labors until the
Soldiers' Rest was closed, and the war ended. For about four years she
gave untiring devotion to the cause, and few have accomplished more
real, earnest and persistent service. Since the close of the war, Mrs.
Hosmer has become a resident of New York, though she is, at this present
writing, established at St. Paul, Minnesota, in charge of a sick son,
who seeks the recovery of his health in that bracing climate.
MISS HATTIE WISWALL.
Miss Hattie Wiswall entered the service as Hospital Nurse, May 1, 1863.
For the first five or six months she was employed in the Benton Barracks
Hospital at St. Louis. At that time the suffering of our boys in
Missouri was very great, and all through that summer the hospitals of
St. Louis were crowded to overflowing. From one thousand to fifteen
hundred were lying in Benton Barracks alone. Men, wounded in every
conceivable manner, were frequently arriving from the battle-fields, and
our friend went through the same experience to which so many brave
women, fresh from the quiet and happy scenes of their peaceful homes,
have been willing to subject themselves for the sake of humanity.
Sensitive and delicate though she was, she acquired here, by constant
attention to her duties, a coolness in the presence of appalling sights
that we have rarely seen equaled even in the stronger sex, and which,
when united with a tender sympathy, as in her case, makes the model
nurse. The feeling of horror which shrinks from the sight of agony and
vents itself in vapid exclamations, she rightly deemed had no place in
the character of one who proposes to do anything. So putting this aside
she learned to be happy in the hospital, and consequently made others
happy. Never in our observation has this first condition of success in
nursing been so completely met. It became so intense a satisfaction to
her to lessen, in ever so slight a degree, the misery of a sick or
wounded soldier that the horror of the case seemed never to occur to
her. It was often remarked that "Miss Hattie was never quite so happy as
when administering medicine or dressing a wound."
From Benton Barracks she was ordered in the autumn of 1863 to Nashville,
Tennessee, where she remained a short time and was then ordered to
Vicksburg, Mississippi, to assist in conducting a Soldiers' Home. Here
she remained until the close of the war. How faithfully she discharged
her duties, first as assistant and then as principal Matron, the one
hundred and fifteen thousand guests who were entertained there during
her stay know, and the living can testify. Her position for much of the
time was an extremely responsible and laborious one, the capacities of
the Home being sometimes extended to the accommodation of six hundred
men, and averaging, for nearly the whole period of her stay, two hundred
daily. The multiplicity of duties in the charge of the household affairs
of such an institution, with the uncertain assistance to be found in
such a place, may be better imagined than told. Under her satisfactory
management the Vicksburg Home acquired an enviable reputation, and was
the favorite stopping-place on the river. The great difficulty in
conducting a Soldiers' Home in time of war, as every one knows who has
been connected with one, is to keep it neat and clean, to have the
floors, the tables, the beds sufficiently respectable to remind the
soldier of the home he has left. Nothing but ceaseless vigilance could
do this at Vicksburg, as men were constantly arriving from filthy camps,
and still filthier prisons, covered not with greenbacks but with what
was known there as the rebel "currency." But on any one of the hundreds
of beds that filled the dormitories of this Home our most fastidious
reader could have slept in peace and safety; and, but for the fact that
the bill of fare was mostly limited to the army ration, could have set
down at any of the tables and enjoyed a meal.
The good work of Miss Wiswall in Vicksburg was not confined to the
Soldiers' Home. She did not forget the freedmen, but was true to the
teachings of her uncles, the great and good Lovejoys. Of the sufferings
of these poor people she had opportunity to see much, and often did her
sympathies lead her beyond the sphere of her ordinary duties, to carry
food and clothing and medicine to such as were ready to perish.
In these charities, which were extended also to the white refugees, Miss
Wiswall did not lose sight of the direct line of her duty, the work she
had set out to do. The needs of the loyal soldier took precedence in her
mind of all others. No service so delighted her as this, and to none was
she so well fitted.
We remember after the calamitous Red River expedition, boat-load after
boat-load of the wounded were sent up to Vicksburg. As soon as they
touched the shore, our friend and her companions met the poor fellows
stretched upon the decks and scattered through the cabins and around the
engines, with words of womanly cheer, and brought the delicacies and
refreshments prepared by thoughtful hands at home. Many a brave man will
remember to his dying day how he shed tears of joy at sight of the first
true Northern woman's face that met him after that toilsome, disastrous
march.
At length a boat-load of the severely wounded were about to be sent up
the river to Northern hospitals, or on furlough to go to their homes.
The surgeon in charge desired the aid of a competent lady assistant; and
Miss Wiswall obtained temporary leave of absence to accompany him and
help take care of the sufferers. Her influence, we were told, was
inspiriting to all on board. She was once more in hospital and entirely
at home. At Cairo, where a portion of the wounded were discharged, she
took charge of an officer, whose limb had been amputated, and saw him
safely to his home in Elgin, Illinois. Making her friends in Chicago a
brief visit, she returned to her duties at Vicksburg, where she remained
until, with the close of the war, the Soldiers' Home was discontinued
about the 1st of June, 1865.
MRS. LUCY E. STARR.
In an early period of the civil war this heroic woman left her home at
Griggsville, Illinois, came to St. Louis and offered her services to the
Western Sanitary Commission as a nurse in the hospitals. She was already
known as a person of excellent Christian character, of education and
refinement, of real practical ability, the widow of a deceased
clergyman, and full of the spirit of kindness and patriotic sympathy
towards our brave soldiers in the field. Her services were gladly
accepted, and she entered at once upon her duties as a nurse in the
Fifth Street Hospital at St. Louis, which was in charge of the excellent
Dr. John T. Hodgen, an eminent surgeon of that city.
For nearly two years Mrs. Starr served as nurse in this hospital, having
charge of one of the special diet kitchens, and ministering with her own
hands to the sick and wounded inmates. In these services the great
kindness of her manners, the cheerful and hopeful spirit that animated
her, the words of sympathy and encouragement she gave her patients, and
the efficiency and excellence of everything she did won for her a large
measure of esteem and confidence, and made her a favorite nurse with the
authorities of the hospital, and with the sick and wounded, who received
her ministrations and care. Small in stature, it was wonderful how much
labor she was able to accomplish, and how she was sustained by a soul
full of noble purposes and undoubting faith.
In the autumn of 1863 Mrs. Starr was needed by the Western Sanitary
Commission to take the position of Matron of the Soldiers' Home at
Memphis, to have charge of the domestic arrangements of the institution,
and to extend a true hospitality to the many invalid soldiers going on
furlough to their homes or returning to the hospitals, or to their
regiments, passing through Memphis on their way. The number thus
entertained sometimes reached as high as three hundred and fifty in one
day. The average daily number for two years and a half was one hundred
and six. When the Home was first opened, and before it was much known,
the first guests were brought in by Mrs. Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin,
who found them wandering in the streets, sadly in need of a kind friend
to give them assistance and care. Sometimes the Superintendent, Mr. O.
E. Waters, would have from twenty to thirty discharged, furloughed and
invalid soldiers to aid, in collecting their pay, procuring
transportation, many of whom he found lying on the hard pavements in the
streets and on the bluff near the steamboat landing, in a helpless
condition, with no friend to assist them. The object of the Soldiers'
Home was to take care of such, give them food and lodging without
charge, make them welcome while they stayed, and send them rejoicing on
their way.
In the internal management of this institution, and in the kind
hospitality extended to the soldiers Mrs. Starr was doing a congenial
work. For two years she filled this position with great fidelity and
success, and to the highest satisfaction of those who placed her here,
and of all who were the guests of the Home. At the end of this service,
on the closing of the Home, the Superintendent in his final report to
the Western Sanitary Commission, makes this acknowledgment of her
services:
"It would not only be improper but unjust, not to speak of the
faithfulness and hearty co-operation of the excellent and much esteemed
Matron, Mrs. Lucy E. Starr. Her mission has been full of trials and
discouragements, yet she has patiently and uncomplainingly struggled
through them all; and during my frequent absences she has cheerfully
assumed the entire responsibility of the Home. Her Christian forbearance
and deep devotion to the cause of humanity have won the admiration of
all who have come within the sphere of her labors."
On the closing of the Soldiers' Home, Mrs. Starr became connected with
an institution for the care of suffering refugees and freedmen at
Memphis, under the patronage of the Freedmen's Aid Commission of
Cincinnati, Ohio. She took a great interest in the thousands of this
class of destitute people who had congregated in the vicinity of
Memphis; visited them for weeks almost daily; and in the language of Mr.
Waters' report, "administered to the sick with her own hands, going from
pallet to pallet, giving nourishing food and medicines to many helpless
and friendless beings."
Thus she continued to be a worker for the suffering soldiers of the
Union army from the beginning to the end of the war, and when peace had
come, devoted herself to the poor and suffering refugees and freedmen,
whom the war had driven from their homes and reduced to misery and want.
With a wonderful fortitude, endurance and heroism she persevered in her
faithfulness to the end, and through the future of her life on earth and
in heaven, those whom she has comforted and relieved of their sorrows
and distresses will constitute for her a crown of rejoicing, and their
tears of gratitude will be the brightest jewels in her diadem.
CHARLOTTE BRADFORD
This lady, like her friend, Miss Abby W. May, of Boston, though a woman
of extraordinary attainments and culture, and an earnest outspoken
advocate of the immediate abolition of slavery before the War, is
extremely averse to any mention of her labors in behalf of the soldiers,
alleging that they were not worthy to be compared with the sacrifices of
those humbler and unnamed heroines, who in their country homes, toiled
so incessantly for the boys in blue. We have no desire to detract one
iota of the honors justly due to these noble and self-sacrificing women;
but when one is called to a position of more prominent usefulness than
others, and performs her duties with great ability, system and
perseverance, though her merits may be no greater than those of humbler
and more obscure persons, yet the public position which she assumes,
renders her service so far public property, that she cannot with
justice, refuse to accept the consequences of such public action or the
sacrifices it entails. Holding this opinion we deem it a part of our
duty to speak of Miss Bradford's public and official life. With her
motives and private feelings we have no right to meddle.
So far as we can learn, Miss Bradford's first public service in
connection with the Sanitary Commission, was in the Hospital Transport
Corps in the waters of the Peninsula, in 1862. Here she was one of the
ladies in charge of the Elm City, and afterward of the Knickerbocker,
having as associates Mrs. Bailey, Miss Helen L. Gilson, Miss Amy M.
Bradley, Mrs. Balustier, Miss Gardner and others.
Miss Bradley was presently called to Washington by the officers of the
Sanitary Commission, to take charge of the Soldiers' Home then being
established there, and Miss Bradford busied herself in other Relief
work. In February following, Miss Bradley relinquished her position as
Matron of the Home, to enter upon her great work of reforming and
improving the Rendezvous of Distribution, which under the name of "Camp
Misery," had long been the opprobrium of the War Department, and Miss
Bradford was called to succeed her in charge of the Soldiers' Home at
Washington. Of the efficiency and beneficence of her administration here
for two and a half years there is ample testimony. Thoroughly refined
and ladylike in her manners, there was a quiet dignity about her which
controlled the wayward and won the respect of all. Her executive ability
and administrative skill were such, that throughout the realm where she
presided, everything moved with the precision and quietness of the most
perfect machinery. There was no hurry, no bustle, no display, but
everything was done in time and well done. To thousands of the soldiers
just recovering from sickness or wounds, feeble and sometimes almost
disheartened, she spoke words of cheer, and by her tender and kind
sympathy, encouraged and strengthened them for the battle of life; and
in all her intercourse with them she proved herself their true and
sympathizing friend.
After the close of the war, Miss Bradford returned to private life at
her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
UNION VOLUNTEER REFRESHMENT SALOON OF PHILADELPHIA.
We have already in our sketch of the labors of Mrs. Mary W. Lee, one of
the most efficient workers for the soldiers in every position in which
she was placed, given some account of this institution, one of the most
remarkable philanthropic organizations called into being by the War, as
in the sketch of Miss Anna M. Ross we have made some allusions to the
Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon, its rival in deeds of charity and love
for the soldier. The vast extent, the wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice
and persevering patience and fidelity in which these labors were
performed, demand, however, a more than incidental notice in a record
like this.
No philanthropic work during the war was more thoroughly free from
self-seeking, or prompted by a higher or nobler impulse than that of
these Refreshment Saloons. Beginning in the very first movements of
troops in the patriotic feeling which led a poor man[M] to establish his
coffee boilers on the sidewalk to give a cup of hot coffee to the
soldiers as they waited for the train to take them on to Washington, and
in the generous impulses of women in humble life to furnish such food as
they could provide for the soldier boys, it grew to be a gigantic
enterprise in its results, and the humble commencement ere long
developed into two rival but not hostile organizations, each zealous to
do the most for the defenders of their country. Very early in the
movement some men of larger means and equally earnest sympathies were
attracted to it, and one of them, a thorough patriot, Samuel B. Fales,
Esq., gave himself wholly to it for four and a half years. The interest
of the community was excited also in the labors of these humble men and
women, and the enterprise seldom lacked for funds; the zealous and
earnest Chairman, Mr. Arad Barrows, and Corresponding Secretary, Mr.
Fales, of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, took good care of that
part of the work, and Mr. W. M. Cooper and his associates did the same
for the Cooper Shop Saloon.
[Footnote M: Mr. Bazilla S. Brown]
Ample provision was made to give the regiments the benefit of a bath and
an ample repast at whatever hour of day or night they might come into
the city. In the four and a half years of their labors, the Volunteer
Refreshment Saloon fed between eight hundred thousand and nine hundred
thousand soldiers and expended about one hundred thousand dollars in
money, aside from supplies. The Cooper Shop Saloon, closing a little
earlier, fed about four hundred thousand men and expended nearly seventy
thousand dollars. Both Saloons had hospitals attached to them for sick
and wounded soldiers. The Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon had, during
the war, nearly fifteen thousand patients, the Cooper Shop, perhaps half
that number.
But noble and patriotic as were the labors of the men connected with
these Saloons, they were less deserving of the highest meed of praise
than those of the women who, with a patience and fidelity which has
never been surpassed, winter and summer, in cold and heat, at all hours
of night as well as in the day, at the boom of the signal gun, hastened
to the Refreshment Saloons and prepared those ample repasts which made
Philadelphia the Mecca to which every soldier turned longingly during
his years of Army life. These women were for the most part in the middle
and humbler walks of life; they were accustomed to care for their own
households, and do their own work; and it required no small degree of
self-denial and patriotic zeal on their part, after a day of the
housekeeper's never ending toil, to rise from their beds at midnight
(for the trains bringing soldiers came oftener at night than in the day
time), and go through the darkness or storm, a considerable distance,
and toil until after sunrise at the prosaic work of cooking and
dish-washing.
Of some of these noble women we have the material for brief sketches,
and we know of none more deserving a place in our record.
MRS. ELIZA G. PLUMMER was a native of Philadelphia, of revolutionary
stock, born in 1812, and had been a widow for nearly twenty-five years.
Though possessed of but little property, she had for many years been the
friend and helper of the poor, attending them in sickness, and from her
scanty purse and by her exertions, securing to them a decent and
respectable Christian burial when they were called to die. At the very
commencement of the War, she entered into the Refreshment Saloon
enterprise with a zeal and perseverance that never flagged. She was
particularly devoted to the hospital, and when the accommodations of the
Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon Hospital were too limited for the
number who needed relief, as was the case in 1862, she received a
considerable number of the worst cases of sick or wounded soldiers into
her own house, and nursed them without any compensation till they
recovered. At the second fair held by the Saloon in June, 1863, she was
instant in season and out of season, feeding the soldiers as well as
attending the fair; and often remaining at her post till long after
midnight. In July and August, 1863, she was constantly engaged in
nursing the wounded from Gettysburg, who crowded the Saloon Hospitals
for some time, and in supplying the needs of the poor fellows who passed
through in the Hospital Cars on their way to Northern hospitals. For
these she provided tea and toast always, having everything ready
immediately on their arrival. These excessive labors impaired her
health, and being called to nurse her aged blind mother during a severe
fit of sickness, her strength failed and she sank rapidly, and died on
the 21st of October, 1863. The soldier has lost no more earnest or
faithful friend than she.
MRS. MARY B. WADE, a widow and now nearly eighty years of age, but a
woman of remarkable energy and perseverance, was throughout the whole
four and a half years, as constantly at her post, as faithful and as
efficient as any of the Executive Committee of the Saloon. Suffering
from slight lameness, she literally hobbled down to the Saloon with a
cane, by night or day; but she was never absent. Her kind, winning and
motherly ways made her always a great favorite with the soldiers, who
always called her Mother Wade. She is a woman of rare conscientiousness,
truthfulness and amiability of character. She is a native of Southwark,
Philadelphia, and the widow of a sea-captain.
MRS. ELLEN J. LOWRY, a widow upwards of fifty years of age, a native of
Baltimore, was in the beginning of the War a woman of large and powerful
frame, and was surpassed by none in faithfulness and efficiency, but her
labors among the wounded from Gettysburg seriously injured her health,
and have rendered her, probably a permanent invalid; she suffered
severely from typhoid fever, and her life was in peril in the summer of
1864.
MRS. MARGARET BOYER, a native of Philadelphia, the wife of a
sea-captain, but in very humble circumstances, and advanced in years,
was also one of the faithful untiring workers of the Union Saloon, but
like Mrs. Lowry, lost her health by her care of the Gettysburg wounded,
and those from the great battles of Grant's Campaign.
[Illustration: MRS. MARY B. WADE.
Eng^d. by A.H. Ritchie.]
MRS. PRISCILLA GROVER and MRS. GREEN, both women about sixty years of
age, were constant in their attendance and remarkably faithful in their
services at the Saloon. Our record of these remarkable women of advanced
age would be incomplete did we omit MRS. MARY GROVER, MRS. HANNAH SMITH,
MRS. SARAH FEMINGTON and MISS SARAH HOLLAND, all noble, persevering and
efficient nurses, and strongly attached to their work. Nor were the
younger women lacking in skill, patience or activity. Mrs. Ellen B.
Barrows, wife of the Chairman of the Saloon, though blessed with more
ample means of usefulness than some of the others, was second to none in
her untiring energy and persistency in the discharge of her duties both
in the hospitals and the Saloon. Mrs. Eliza J. Smith, whose excessive
labors have nearly cost her her life, Mrs. Mary A. Cassedy, Mrs. Kate B.
Anderson, Mrs. Mary E. Field, Mrs. Emily Mason, Mrs. Anna A. Elkinton
and Mrs. Hannah F. Bailey were all notable women for their steady and
efficient work in the hospitals and Saloon. Of Mrs. Mary W. Lee and her
daughter, Miss Amanda Lee, we have spoken elsewhere.
Miss Catharine Bailey, Mrs. Eliza Helmbold, Mrs. Mary Courteney, Mrs.
Elizabeth Horton and Misses Grover, Krider and Field were all useful and
active, though their duties were less severe than those we have
previously named.
The Cooper Shop Saloon was smaller and its work consequently less
severe, yet, as we have seen, the labors of Miss Ross in its hospital
proved too severe for even her vigorous constitution, and she added
another to the long list of blessed martyrs in the cause of liberty.
Others there were in that Saloon and hospital, who, by faithful labor,
patient and self-denying toil, and great sacrifices, won for themselves
an honorable place in that record which the great day of assize shall
reveal. We may not know their names, but God knows them, and will reward
them for their deeds of mercy and love.
MRS. R. M. BIGELOW.
In the ordinary acceptation of the term, Mrs. Bigelow has not been
connected with Soldiers' Homes either in Washington or elsewhere; yet
there are few if any ladies in the country who have taken so many sick
or wounded soldiers to their own houses, and have made them _at home_
there, as she. To hundreds, if not thousands, of the soldiers of the
Army of the Potomac, the name of "Aunty Bigelow," the title by which she
was universally known among the sick and wounded soldiers, is as
carefully, and quite as gratefully cherished as the name of their
commanders. Mrs. Bigelow is a native of Washington, in which city she
has always resided. She was never able, in consequence of her family
duties, to devote herself exclusively to hospital work, but was among
the first to respond to the call for friendly aid to the sick soldier.
She was, in 1861, a daily visitor to the Indiana Hospital in the Patent
Office Building, coming at such hours as she could spare from her home
duties; and she was always welcome, for no one was more skillful as a
nurse than she, or could cheer and comfort the sick better. When she
could not come, she sent such delicacies as would tempt the appetite of
the invalid to the hospital. Many a soldier remembers to this day the
hot cakes, or the mush and milk, or the custard which came from Aunty
Bigelow's, on purpose for him, and always exactly at the right time.
Mrs. R. K. Billing, a near relative of Mrs. Bigelow, and the mother of
that Miss Rose M. Billing whose patriotic labors ended only with her
life--a life freely sacrificed for the relief of our poor returned
prisoners from Andersonville, as related in our sketch of the Annapolis
Hospital Corps,--was the co-laborer of her kinswoman in these labors of
love. Both were indefatigable in their labors for the sick soldiers;
both knew how to make "that bread which tasted exactly like mother's" to
the convalescent soldier, whose feeble appetite was not easily tempted;
and both opened their houses, as well as their hearts to these poor
suffering invalids, and many is the soldier who could and did say: "I
don't know what would have become of me if I had not met with such good
friends."
Mrs. Bigelow became, ere long, the almoner of the bounty of many Aid
Societies at the North, and vast quantities of supplies passed through
her hands, to the patients of the hospitals; and they were always
judiciously distributed. She not only kept up a constant correspondence
with these societies, but wrote regularly to the soldier-boys who had
been under her care, after they returned to their regiments, and thus
retained her influence over them, and made them feel that somebody cared
for them, even when they were away from all other home influences.
Besides these labors, which were seemingly sufficient to occupy her
entire time, she visited continually the hospitals about the city, and
always found room in her house for any sick one, who came to her begging
that he might "come home," rather than go to a boarding-house or to a
hospital. Three young officers, who came to her with this plea, were
received and watched over till death relieved them of their sufferings,
and cared for as tenderly as they could have been in their own homes;
and those who came thither were nursed and tended till their recovery
were numbered by scores.
To all the hospital workers from abroad, and the number was not few, her
house was always a home. There was some unappropriated room or some
spare bed in which they could be accommodated, and they were welcome for
the sake of the cause for which they were laboring. Had she possessed an
ample fortune, this kindness, though honorable, might not have been so
noteworthy, but her house was small and her means far from ample. In the
midst of these abundant labors for the soldiers, she was called to pass
through deep affliction, in the illness and death of her husband; but
she suffered no personal sorrow to so absorb her interest as to make her
unmindful of her dear hospital and home-work for the soldiers. This was
continued unfalteringly as long as there was occasion for it.
Few, if any, of the "Women of the War," have been or have deserved to
be, more generally beloved by the soldiers and by all true
hospital-workers than Mrs. Bigelow.
MISS SHARPLESS AND ASSOCIATES.
What the Hospital Transport service was under the management of the
Sanitary Commission, we have elsewhere detailed, and have also given
some glimpses of its chaotic confusion, its disorder and wretchedness
under the management of government officials, early in the war. Under
the efficient direction of Surgeon-General Hammond, and his successor,
Surgeon-General Barnes, there was a material improvement; and in the
later years of the war the Government Hospital Transports bore some
resemblance to a well ordered General Hospital. There was not, indeed,
the complete order and system, the thorough ventilation, the well
regulated diet, and the careful and systematic treatment which marked
the management of the great hospitals, for these were to a considerable
extent impossible on shipboard, and especially where the changes of
patients were so frequent.
For a period of nearly seventeen months, during the last two years of
the war, the United States Steamship Connecticut was employed as a
hospital transport, bringing the sick and wounded from City Point to
Washington and Baltimore, and later, closing up one after another, the
hospitals in Virginia and on the shores of Maryland and Delaware, and
transferring their patients to convalescent camps or other hospitals, or
some point where they could be put _en route_ for home. On this
steamship Miss HATTIE R. SHARPLESS commenced her labors as matron, on
the 10th of May, 1864, and continued with only a brief intermission
till September 1st, 1865. She was no novice in hospital work when she
assumed this position. A native and resident of Bloomsburg, Columbia
County, Pa., she had first entered upon her duties as nurse in the Army
in July, 1862, when in connection with Miss Rose M. Billing and Miss
Belle Robinson, the latter being also a Pennsylvanian, she commenced
hospital work at Fredericksburg. Subsequently, with her associate, she
was at the Falls Church Hospital and at Antietam, and we believe also at
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. She is a lady admirably adapted to the
hospital-work; tender, faithful, conscientious, unselfish, never resting
while she could minister to the suffering, and happiest when she could
do most for those in her care. During her service on the Connecticut,
thirty-three thousand sick and wounded men were conveyed on that steamer
to hospitals in Washington, Alexandria, Baltimore and other points.
Constant and gentle in the discharge of her duties, with a kind and if
possible a cheering word for each poor sufferer, and skillful and
assiduous in providing for them every needed comfort so far as lay in
her power, she proved herself a true Christian heroine in the extent and
spirit of her labors, and sent joy to the heart of many who were on the
verge of despair.
Her religious influence upon the men was remarkable. Never obtrusive or
professional in her treatment of religious subjects, she exhibited rare
tact and ability in bringing those who were in the possession of their
reason and consciousness to converse on their spiritual condition, and
in pointing them affectionately to the atoning Sacrifice for sin.
In these works of mercy and piety she was ably seconded by her cousin,
Miss Hattie S. Reifsnyder, of Catawissa, Columbia County, Pa., a lady of
very similar spirit and tact, who was with her for about eight months;
and subsequently by Mrs. Cynthia Case, of Newark, Ohio, who succeeded
Miss Reifsnyder, and entered into her work in the same thorough
Christian spirit.
Miss W. F. HARRIS is a native, and was previous to the war, a resident
of Providence, Rhode Island. She was a faithful worker through the whole
war, literally wearing herself out in the service. She commenced her
work at the Indiana Hospital, in the Patent Office, Washington, in the
spring of 1862. After the closing of that hospital, she transferred her
service to Ascension Church Hospital, and subsequently early in 1863, to
the Carver Hospital, both in Washington, where she labored with great
assiduity and faithfulness. Early in May, 1864, she was appointed to
service on the Transport Connecticut, where she was indefatigable in her
service, and manifested the same tender spirit, and the same skill and
tact, as Miss Sharpless. Of less vigorous constitution than her
associates, she was frequently a severe sufferer from her over
exertions. In the summer of 1864, she was transferred to the Hospital at
Harper's Ferry, and at that hospital and at Winchester continued her
service faithfully, though amid much pain and weariness, to the close of
the war. Though her health was much shattered by her labors she could
not rest, and has devoted herself to the instruction and training of the
Freedmen from that time to the present. A gentleman who was associated
with her in her service in the Carver Hospital and afterward on the
Transport Connecticut, says of her: "I know of no more pure-minded,
unselfish and earnest laborer among all the Women of the war that came
under my notice."