Woman's Work in the Civil War Part 1

Woman's Work in the Civil War.

by Linus Pierpont Brockett and Mary C. Vaughan.

PREFACE.

The preparation of this work, or rather the collection of material for it, was commenced in the autumn of 1863. While engaged in the compilation of a little book on "The Philanthropic Results of the War"

for circulation abroad, in the summer of that year, the writer became so deeply impressed with the extraordinary sacrifices and devotion of loyal women, in the national cause, that he determined to make a record of them for the honor of his country. A voluminous correspondence then commenced and continued to the present time, soon demonstrated how general were the acts of patriotic devotion, and an extensive tour, undertaken the following summer, to obtain by personal observation and intercourse with these heroic women, a more clear and comprehensive idea of what they had done and were doing, only served to increase his admiration for their zeal, patience, and self-denying effort.

Meantime the war still continued, and the collisions between Grant and Lee, in the East, and Sherman and Johnston, in the South, the fierce campaign between Thomas and Hood in Tennessee, Sheridan's annihilating defeats of Early in the valley of the Shenandoah, and Wilson's magnificent expedition in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as the mixed naval and military victories at Mobile and Wilmington, were fruitful in wounds, sickness, and death. Never had the gentle and patient ministrations of woman been so needful as in the last year of the war; and never had they been so abundantly bestowed, and with such zeal and self-forgetfulness.

From Andersonville, and Millen, from Charleston, and Florence, from Salisbury, and Wilmington, from Belle Isle, and Libby Prison, came also, in these later months of the war, thousands of our bravest and n.o.blest heroes, captured by the rebels, the feeble remnant of the tens of thousands imprisoned there, a majority of whom had perished of cold, nakedness, starvation, and disease, in those charnel houses, victims of the fiendish malignity of the rebel leaders. These poor fellows, starved to the last degree of emaciation, crippled and dying from frost and gangrene, many of them idiotic from their sufferings, or with the fierce fever of typhus, more deadly than sword or minie bullet, raging in their veins, were brought to Annapolis and to Wilmington, and unmindful of the deadly infection, gentle and tender women ministered to them as faithfully and lovingly, as if they were their own brothers.

Ever and anon, in these works of mercy, one of these fair ministrants died a martyr to her faithfulness, asking, often only, to be buried beside her "boys," but the work never ceased while there was a soldier to be nursed. Nor were these the only fields in which n.o.ble service was rendered to humanity by the women of our time. In the larger a.s.sociations of our cities, day after day, and year after year, women served in summer's heat and winter's cold, at their desks, corresponding with auxiliary aid societies, taking account of goods received for sanitary supplies, re-packing and shipping them to the points where they were needed, inditing and sending out circulars appealing for aid, in work more prosaic but equally needful and patriotic with that performed in the hospitals; and throughout every village and hamlet in the country, women were toiling, contriving, submitting to privation, performing unusual and severe labors, all for the soldiers. In the general hospitals of the cities and larger towns, the labors of the special diet kitchen, and of the hospital nurse were performed steadily, faithfully, and uncomplainingly, though there also, ever and anon, some fair toiler laid down her life in the service. There were many too in still other fields of labor, who showed their love for their country; the faithful women who, in the Philadelphia Refreshment Saloons, fed the hungry soldier on his way to or from the battle-field, till in the aggregate, they had dispensed nearly eight hundred thousand meals, and had cared for thousands of sick and wounded; the matrons of the Soldiers' Homes, Lodges, and Rests; the heroic souls who devoted themselves to the n.o.ble work of raising a nation of bondmen to intelligence and freedom; those who attempted the still more hopeless task of rousing the blunted intellect and cultivating the moral nature of the degraded and abject poor whites; and those who in circ.u.mstances of the greatest peril, manifested their fearless and undying attachment to their country and its flag; all these were ent.i.tled to a place in such a record. What wonder, then, that, pursuing his self-appointed task a.s.siduously, the writer found it growing upon him; till the question came, not, who should be inscribed in this roll, but who could be omitted, since it was evident no single volume could do justice to all.

In the autumn of 1865, Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan, a skilful and practiced writer, whose tastes and sympathies led her to take an interest in the work, became a.s.sociated with the writer in its preparation, and to her zeal in collecting, and skill in arranging the materials obtained, many of the interesting sketches of the volume are due. We have in the prosecution of our work been constantly embarra.s.sed, by the reluctance of some who deserved a prominent place, to suffer anything to be communicated concerning their labors; by the promises, often repeated but never fulfilled, of others to furnish facts and incidents which they alone could supply, and by the forwardness of a few, whose services were of the least moment, in presenting their claims.

We have endeavored to exercise a wise and careful discrimination both in avoiding the introduction of any name unworthy of a place in such a record, and in giving the due meed of honor to those who have wrought most earnestly and acceptably. We cannot hope that we have been completely successful; the letters even now, daily received, render it probable that there are some, as faithful and self-sacrificing as any of those whose services we have recorded, of whom we have failed to obtain information; and that some of those who entered upon their work of mercy in the closing campaigns of the war, by their zeal and earnestness, have won the right to a place. We have not, knowingly, however, omitted the name of any faithful worker, of whom we could obtain information, and we feel a.s.sured that our record is far more full and complete, than any other which has been, or is likely to be prepared, and that the number of prominent and active laborers in the national cause who have escaped our notice is comparatively small.

We take pleasure in acknowledging our obligations to Rev. Dr. Bellows, President of the United States Sanitary Commission, for many services and much valuable information; to Honorable James E. Yeatman, the President of the Western Sanitary Commission, to Rev. J. G. Forman, late Secretary of that Commission, and now Secretary of the Unitarian a.s.sociation, and his accomplished wife, both of whom were indefatigable in their efforts to obtain facts relative to western ladies; to Rev. N.

M. Mann, now of Kenosha, Wisconsin, but formerly Chaplain and Agent of the Western Sanitary Commission, at Vicksburg; to Professor J. S.

Newberry, now of Columbia College, but through the war the able Secretary of the Western Department of the United States Sanitary Commission; to Mrs. M. A. Livermore, of Chicago, one of the managers of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission; to Rev. G. S. F. Savage, Secretary of the Western Department of the American Tract Society, Boston; Rev.

William De Loss Love, of Milwaukee, author of a work on "Wisconsin in the War," Samuel B. Fales, Esq., of Philadelphia, so long and n.o.bly identified with the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, Dr. A. N. Read, of Norwalk, Ohio, late one of the Medical Inspectors of the Sanitary Commission, Dr. Joseph Parrish, of Philadelphia, also a Medical Inspector of the Commission, Mrs. M. M. Husband, of Philadelphia, one of the most faithful workers in field hospitals during the war, Miss Katherine P. Wormeley, of Newport, Rhode Island, the accomplished historian of the Sanitary Commission, Mrs. W. H. Holstein, of Bridgeport, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Miss Maria M. C. Hall, of Washington, District of Columbia, and Miss Louise t.i.tcomb, of Portland, Maine. From many of these we have received information indispensable to the completeness and success of our work; information too, often afforded at great inconvenience and labor. We commit our book, then, to the loyal women of our country, as an earnest and conscientious effort to portray some phases of a heroism which will make American women famous in all the future ages of history; and with the full conviction that thousands more only lacked the opportunity, not the will or endurance, to do, in the same spirit of self-sacrifice, what these have done.

L. P. B.

BROOKLYN, N. Y., _February, 1867_.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Patriotism in some form, an attribute of woman in all nations and climes--Its modes of manifestation--Paeans for victory--Lamentations for the death of a heroic leader--Personal leadership by women--The a.s.sa.s.sination of tyrants--The care of the sick and wounded of national armies--The hospitals established by the Empress Helena--The Beguines and their successors--The cantinieres, vivandieres, etc.--Other modes in which women manifested their patriotism--Florence Nightingale and her labors--The results--The awakening of patriotic zeal among American women at the opening of the war--The organization of philanthropic effort--Hospital nurses--Miss Dix's rejection of great numbers of applicants on account of youth--Hired nurses--Their services generally prompted by patriotism rather than pay--The State relief agents (ladies) at Washington--The hospital transport system of the Sanitary Commission--Mrs. Harris's, Miss Barton's, Mrs. Fales', Miss Gilson's, and other ladles' services at the front during the battles of 1862-- Services of other ladies at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg--The Field Relief of the Sanitary Commission, and services of ladies in the later battles--Voluntary services of women in the armies in the field at the West--Services in the hospitals of garrisons and fortified towns-- Soldiers' homes and lodges, and their matrons--Homes for Refugees-- Instruction of the Freedmen--Refreshment Saloons at Philadelphia-- Regular visiting of hospitals in the large cities--The Soldiers' Aid Societies, and their mode of operation--The extraordinary labors of the managers of the Branch Societies--Government clothing contracts--Mrs.

Springer, Miss Wormeley and Miss Gilson--The managers of the local Soldiers' Aid Societies--The sacrifices made by the poor to contribute supplies--Examples--The labors of the young and the old--Inscriptions on articles--The poor seamstress--Five hundred bushels of wheat--The five dollar gold piece--The army of martyrs--The effect of this female patriotism in stimulating the courage of the soldiers--Lack of persistence in this work among the Women of the South--Present and future--Effect of patriotism and self-sacrifice in elevating and enn.o.bling the female character.

PART I. SUPERINTENDENT OF NURSES.

MISS DOROTHEA L. DIX.

Early history--Becomes interested in the condition of prison convicts-- Visit to Europe--Returns in 1837, and devotes herself to improving the condition of paupers, lunatics and prisoners--Her efforts for the establishment of Insane Asylums--Second visit to Europe--Her first work in the war the nursing of Ma.s.sachusetts soldiers in Baltimore-- Appointment as superintendent of nurses--Her selections--Difficulties in her position--Her other duties--Mrs. Livermore's account of her labors-- The adjutant-general's order--Dr. Bellows' estimate of her work--Her kindness to her nurses--Her publications--Her manners and address-- Labors for the insane poor since the war.

PART II. LADIES WHO MINISTERED TO THE SICK AND WOUNDED IN CAMP, FIELD AND GENERAL HOSPITALS.

CLARA HARLOWE BARTON.

Early life--Teaching--The Bordentown school--Obtains a situation in the Patent Office--Her readiness to help others--Her native genius for nursing--Removed from office in 1857--Return to Washington in 1861-- Nursing and providing for Ma.s.sachusetts soldiers at the Capitol in April, 1861--Hospital and sanitary work in 1861--Death of her father-- Washington hospitals again--Going to the front--Cedar Mountain--The second Bull Run battle--Chantilly--Heroic labors at Antietam--Soft bread--Three barrels of flour and a bag of salt--Thirty lanterns for that night of gloom--The race for Fredericksburg--Miss Barton as a general purveyor for the sick and wounded--The battle of Fredericksburg-- Under fire--The rebel officer's appeal--The "confiscated" carpet--After the battle--In the department of the South--The sands of Morris Island-- The horrors of the siege of Forts Wagner and Sumter--The reason why she went thither--Return to the North--Preparations for the great campaign-- Her labors at Belle Plain, Fredericksburg, White House, and City Point-- Return to Washington--Appointed "General correspondent for the friends of paroled prisoners"--Her residence at Annapolis--Obstacles--The Annapolis plan abandoned--She establishes at Washington a "Bureau of records of missing men in the armies of the United States"--The plan of operations of this Bureau--Her visit to Andersonville--The case of Dorrance At.w.a.ter--The Bureau of missing men an inst.i.tution indispensable to the Government and to friends of the soldiers--Her sacrifices in maintaining it--The grant from Congress--Personal appearance of Miss Barton.

HELEN LOUISE GILSON.

Early history--Her first work for the soldiers--Collecting supplies-- The clothing contract--Providing for soldiers' wives and daughters-- Application to Miss Dix for an appointment as nurse--She is rejected as too young--a.s.sociated with Hon. Frank B. Fay in the Auxiliary Relief Service--Her labors on the Hospital Transports--Her manner of working-- Her extraordinary personal influence--Her work at Gettysburg--Influence over the men--Carrying a sick comrade to the hospital--Her system and self-possession--Pleading the cause of the soldier with the people-- Her services in Grant's protracted campaign--The hospitals at Fredericksburg--Singing to the soldiers--Her visit to the barge of "contrabands"--Her address to the negroes--Singing to them--The hospital for colored soldiers--Miss Gilson re-organizes and re-models it, making it the best hospital at City Point--Her labors for the spiritual good of the men in her hospital--Her care for the negro washerwomen and their families--Completion of her work--Personal appearance of Miss Gilson.

MRS. JOHN HARRIS.

Previous history--Secretary Ladies' Aid Society--Her decision to go to the "front"--Early experiences--On the Hospital Transports--Harrison's Landing--Her garments soaked in human gore--Antietam--French's Division Hospital--Smoketown General Hospital--Return to the "front"-- Fredericksburg--Falmouth--She almost despairs of the success of our arms--Chancellorsville--Gettysburg--Following the troops--Warrenton-- Insolence of the rebels--Illness--Goes to the West--Chattanooga--Serious illness--Return to Nashville--Labors for the refugees--Called home to watch over a dying mother--The returned prisoners from Andersonville and Salisbury.

MRS. ELIZA C. PORTER.

Mrs. Porter's social position--Her patriotism--Labors in the hospitals at Cairo--She takes charge of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission Rooms at Chicago--Her determination to go, with a corps of nurses, to the front--Cairo and Paducah--Visit to Pittsburg Landing after the battle-- She brings nurses and supplies for the hospitals from Chicago--At Corinth--At Memphis--Work among the freedmen at Memphis and elsewhere-- Efforts for the establishment of hospitals for the sick and wounded in the Northwest--Co-operation with Mrs. Harvey and Mrs. Howe--The Harvey Hospital--At Natchez and Vicksburg--Other appeals for Northern hospitals--At Huntsville with Mrs. Bickerd.y.k.e--At Chattanooga-- Experiences in a field hospital in the woods--Following Sherman's army from Chattanooga to Atlanta--"This seems like having mother about"-- Constant labors--The distribution of supplies to the soldiers of Sherman's army near Washington--A patriotic family.

MRS. MARY A. BICKERd.y.k.e.

Previous history of Mrs. Bickerd.y.k.e--Her regard for the private soldiers--"Mother Bickerd.y.k.e and her boys"--Her work at Savannah after the battle of Shiloh--What she accomplished at Perryville--The Gayoso Hospital at Memphis--Colored nurses and attendants--A model hospital-- The delinquent a.s.sistant-surgeon--Mrs. Bickerd.y.k.e's philippic--She procures his dismissal--His interview with General Sherman--"She ranks me"--The commanding generals appreciate her--Convalescent soldiers _vs._ colored nurses--The Medical Director's order--Mrs. Bickerd.y.k.e's triumph--A dairy and hennery for the hospitals--Two hundred cows and a thousand hens--Her first visit to the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce--"Go over to Canada--This country has no place for such creatures"--At Vicksburg--In field hospitals--The dresses riddled with sparks--The box of clothing for herself--Trading for b.u.t.ter and eggs for the soldiers-- The two lace-trimmed night-dresses--A new style of hospital clothing for wounded soldiers--A second visit to Milwaukee--Mrs. Bickerd.y.k.e's speech--"Set your standard higher yet"--In the Huntsville Hospital--At Chattanooga at the close of the battle--The only woman on the ground for four weeks--Cooking under difficulties--Her interview with General Grant--Complaints of the neglect of the men by some of the surgeons-- "Go around to the hospitals and see for yourself"--Visits Huntsville, Pulaski, etc.--With Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta--Making dishes for the sick out of hard tack and the ordinary rations--At Nashville and Franklin--Through the Carolinas with Sherman--Distribution of supplies near Washington--"The Freedmen's Home and Refuge" at Chicago.

MARGARET ELIZABETH BRECKINRIDGE. _By Mrs. J. G. Forman._

Sketch of her personal appearance--Her gentle, tender, winning ways-- The American Florence Nightingale--What if I do die?--The Breckinridge family--Margaret's childhood and youth--Her emanc.i.p.ation of her slaves-- Working for the soldiers early in the war--Not one of the Home Guards-- Her earnest desire to labor in the hospitals--Hospital service at Baltimore--At Lexington, Kentucky--Morgan's first raid--Her visit to the wounded soldiers--"Every one of you bring a regiment with you"--Visiting the St. Louis hospitals--On the hospital boats on the Mississippi-- Perils of the voyage--Severe and incessant labor--The contrabands at Helena--Touching incidents of the wounded on the hospital boats--"The service pays"--In the hospitals at St. Louis--Impaired health--She goes eastward for rest and recovery--A year of weakness and weariness--In the hospital at Philadelphia--A ministering angel--Colonel Porter her brother-in-law killed at Cold Harbor--She goes to Baltimore to meet the body--Is seized with typhoid fever and dies after five weeks illness.

MRS. STEPHEN BARKER.

Family of Mrs. Barker--Her husband Chaplain of First Ma.s.sachusetts Heavy Artillery--She accompanies him to Washington--Devotes herself to the work of visiting the hospitals--Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital--She removes to Fort Albany and takes charge as Matron of the Regimental Hospital--Pleasant experiences--Reading to the soldiers--Two years of labor--Return to Washington in January, 1864--She becomes one of the hospital visitors of the Sanitary Commission--Ten hospitals a week-- Remitting the soldiers' money and valuables to their families--The service of Mr. and Mrs. Barker as lecturers and missionaries of the Sanitary Commission to the Aid Societies in the smaller cities and villages--The distribution of supplies to the disbanding armies--Her report.

AMY M. BRADLEY.

Childhood of Miss Bradley--Her experiences as a teacher--Residence in Charleston, South Carolina--Two years of illness--Goes to Costa Rica-- Three years of teaching in Central America--Return to the United States--Becomes corresponding clerk and translator in a large gla.s.s manufactory--Beginning of the war--She determines to go as a nurse-- Writes to Dr. Palmer--His quaint reply--Her first experience as nurse in a regimental hospital--Skill and tact in managing it--Promoted by General Sloc.u.m to the charge of the Brigade Hospital--Hospital Transport Service--Over-exertion and need of rest--The organization of the Soldiers' Home at Washington--Visiting hospitals at her leisure--Camp Misery--Wretched condition of the men--The rendezvous of distribution-- Miss Bradley goes thither as Sanitary Commission Agent--Her zealous and multifarious labors--Bringing in the discharged men for their papers-- Procuring the correction of their papers, and the reinstatement of the men--"The Soldiers' Journal"--Miss Bradley's object in its establishment--Its success--Presents to Miss Bradley--Personal appearance.

MRS. ARABELLA GRIFFITH BARLOW.

Birth and education of Mrs. Griffith--Her marriage at the beginning of the war--She accompanies her husband to the camp, and wherever it is possible ministers to the wounded or sick soldiers--Joins the Sanitary Commission in July, 1862, and labors among the sick and wounded at Harrison's Landing till late in August--Colonel Barlow severely wounded at Antietam--Mrs. Barlow nurses him with great tenderness, and at the same time ministers to the wounded of Sedgwick Hospital--At Chancellorsville and Gettysburg--General Barlow again wounded, and in the enemy's lines--She removes him and succors the wounded in the intervals of her care of him--In May, 1864, she was actively engaged at Belle Plain, Fredericksburg, Port Royal, White House, and City Point-- Her incessant labor brought on fever and caused her death July 27, 1864--Tribute of the Sanitary Commission Bulletin, Dr. Lieber and others, to her memory.

MRS. NELLIE MARIA TAYLOR.

Parentage and early history--Removal to New Orleans--Her son urged to enlist in the rebel army--He is sent North--The rebels persecute Mrs.

Taylor--Her dismissal from her position as princ.i.p.al of one of the city schools--Her house mobbed--"I am for the Union, tear my house down if you choose!"--Her house searched seven times for the flag--The Judge's son--"A piece of Southern chivalry"--Her son enlists in the rebel army to save her from molestation--New Orleans occupied by the Union forces-- Mrs. Taylor reinstated as teacher--She nurses the soldiers in the hospitals, during her vacations and in all the leisure hours from her school duties, her daughter filling up the intermediate time with her services--She expends her entire salary upon the sick and wounded-- Writes eleven hundred and seventy-four letters for them in one year-- Distributes the supplies received from the Cincinnati Branch of Sanitary Commission in 1864, and during the summer takes the management of the special diet of the University Hospital--Testimony of the soldiers to her labors--Patriotism and zeal of her children--Terms on which Miss Alice Taylor would present a confederate flag to a company.

MRS. ADALINE TYLER.

Residence in Boston--Removal to Baltimore--Becomes Superintendent of a Protestant Sisterhood in that city--Duties of the Sisterhood--The "Church Home"--Other duties of "Sister" Tyler--The opening of the war--The Baltimore mob--Wounding and killing members of the Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts regiment--Mrs. Tyler hears that Ma.s.sachusetts men are wounded and seeks admission to them--Is refused--She persists, and threatening an appeal to Governor Andrew is finally admitted--She takes those most severely wounded to the "Church Home," procures surgical attendance for them, and nurses them till their recovery--Other Union wounded nursed by her--Receives the thanks of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature and Governor--Is appointed Superintendent of the Camden Street Hospital, Baltimore--Resigns at the end of a year, and visits New York--The surgeon-general urges her to take charge of the large hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania--She remains at Chester till the hospital is broken up, when she is transferred to the First Division General Hospital, Naval Academy, Annapolis--The returned prisoners--Their terrible condition--Mrs. Tyler procures photographs of them--Impaired health--Resignation--She visits Europe, and spends eighteen months there, advocating as she has opportunity the National cause--The fiendish rebel spirit--Incident relative to President Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination.

MRS. WILLIAM H. HOLSTEIN.