Woman's Work in the Civil War Part 53

When she accompanied her husband to Washington in the spring, her health failed, cough and hoa.r.s.eness troubled her, and she was obliged to leave for visits in her native air, and for a stay of some months at Geneva Water Cure.

From the breaking out of the war Mrs. Pomeroy, on all occasions, proved herself desirous of the welfare of our soldiers. The record of her deeds of kindness in their behalf is not as ample as that of some others, for her health forbade the active nursing, and visiting of the sick in hospitals, which is the most showy part of the work. But her contributions of supplies were always large; and she had always a peculiar care and interest in the religious and moral welfare of the volunteers, who, far from the influences of home, and exposed to new and numerous temptations, were, she felt, in more than one sense encircled by peculiar dangers.

Only once did she revisit her Kansas home, and in the autumn of 1862 spent some months there. There was at that time a regiment in camp at Atchison, and she was enabled to do great good to the sick in hospital, not only with supplies, but by her own personal efforts for their physical and spiritual welfare.

On her return to Washington she there entered as actively as possible into this work. Her form became known in the hospitals, and many a suffering man hailed her coming with a new light kindling his dimmed eyes. She brought them comforts and delicacies, and she added her prayers and her precious instructions. She cared both for souls and bodies, and earned the immortal grat.i.tude of those to whom she ministered.

In January, 1863, her last active benevolent work was commenced, namely the foundation of an asylum at the National Capital for the freed orphans and dest.i.tute aged colored women whom the war, and the Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation, had thrown upon the care of the benevolent. For several months she was actively engaged in this enterprise. A charter was immediately obtained, and when the a.s.sociation was organized, Mrs. Pomeroy was chosen President.

Almost entirely by her exertions, a building for the Asylum was obtained, as well as some condemned hospital furniture, which was to be sold at auction by the Government, but was instead transferred--a most useful gift--to the Asylum.

But when the time came, about the 1st of June, 1863, for the a.s.sociation to be put in possession of the buildings and grounds a.s.signed them, Mrs.

Pomeroy was too ill to receive the keys, and the Secretary took her place. She was never able to look upon the fruit of her labors. Again, she had exhausted her feeble powers, and she was never more to rally.

A slow fever followed, which at last a.s.sumed the form of typhoid. She lingered on, slightly better at times, until the 17th of July, when preparations were completed for removing her to the Geneva Water Cure, and she started upon her last journey. She went by water, and arrived at New York very comfortably, leaving there again on the boat for Albany, on the morning of the 20th. But death overtook her before even this portion of the journey was finished. She died upon the pa.s.sage, on the afternoon of July 20th, 1863. After her life of usefulness and devotion, her name at last stands high upon the roll of martyr-women, whom this war has made.

MARIA R. MANN.

Among the heroic women who labored most efficiently and courageously during the late civil war for the good of our soldiers, and the poor "contrabands," as the freed people were called, was Miss Maria R. Mann, an educated and refined woman from Ma.s.sachusetts, a near relative of the first Secretary of the Board of Education of that renowned Commonwealth, who gave his life and all his great powers to the cause of education, and finished his n.o.ble career as the President of Antioch College, in Ohio.

Miss Mann, is a native of Ma.s.sachusetts, and spent the greater portion of her mature life previous to the war, as a teacher. In this, her chosen profession, she attained a high position, and for a number of years taught in the High Schools. As a teacher she was highly esteemed for her varied and accurate knowledge, the care and minuteness with which she imparted instruction to her pupils, the high moral and religious principle which controlled her actions, and made her life an example of truth and goodness to her pupils, and for her enthusiastic interest in the cause of education, of freedom and justice for the slave, and of philanthropy and humanity towards the orphan, the prisoner, the outcast, the oppressed and the poor, to whom her heart went out in kindly sympathies, and in prayer and effort for the improvement of their condition.

During the first year of the rebellion, she left all her pleasant a.s.sociations in New England, and came out to St. Louis, that she might be nearer to the scene of conflict, and aid in the work of the Western Sanitary Commission, and in nursing the sick and wounded soldiers, with whom the hospitals at St. Louis were crowded that year. On her arrival, she was duly commissioned by Mr. Yeatman, (the agent of Miss Dix for the employment of women nurses), and entered upon her duties in the Fifth Street Hospital.

For several months, she devoted herself to this work with great fidelity and patience, and won the grat.i.tude of many a poor sufferer by her kindness, and the respect of the surgeons, by her good judgment and her blended gentleness and womanly dignity.

Late in the fall of 1862, the Western Sanitary Commission was moved to establish an agency at Helena, Ark., for the special relief of several hundred colored families at that military post who had gathered there from the neighboring country, and from the opposite sh.o.r.e in Mississippi, as a place of refuge from their rebel owners. It was at that time a miserable refuge, for the post was commanded by pro-slavery Generals, who succeeded the humane and excellent Major-General Curtis, who was unfortunately relieved of his command, and transferred to St.

Louis, in consequence of slanders against him at Washington, which some of his pro-slavery subordinates had been busy in fabricating; and the free papers which he gave to the colored people were violated; they were subjected to all manner of cruelties and hardships; they were put under a forced system of labor; driven by mounted orderlies to work on the fortifications, and to unload steamboats and coal barges; and discharged at night without compensation, or a comfortable shelter. No proper record was kept of their services, and most of them never received any pay for months of incessant toil. They were compelled to camp together in the outskirts of the town, in huts and condemned tents, and the rations issued to them were cut down to a half ration for the women and children; so that they were neither well fed nor sheltered properly from the weather, while they were entirely dest.i.tute of comfortable clothing, and were without the means of purchasing new. Subjected to this treatment, very great sickness and mortality prevailed among them.

In the miserable building a.s.signed them for a hospital, which was wholly unprovided with hospital furniture and bedding, and without regular nurses or attendants, they were visited once a day by a contract surgeon, who merely looked in upon them, administered a little medicine, and left them to utter neglect and misery. Here they died at a fearful rate, and their dead bodies were removed from the miserable pallet of straw, or the bare floor where they had breathed their last, and buried in rude coffins, and sometimes coffinless, in a low piece of ground near by. The proportion of deaths, was about seventy-five percent. of all who were carried sick to this miserable place, so that the colored people became greatly afraid of being sent to the hospital, considering it the same as going to a certain death; and many of them refused to go, even in the last stages of sickness, and died in their huts, and in and out of the very places into which they had crawled for concealment, neglected and alone.

This state of things was fully known to the Generals commanding, and to the medical director, and the army surgeons at Helena, without the least effort being made on their part towards their improvement or alleviation. From August, 1862, to January, 1863, they continued to suffer in this manner, until the printed report and appeal of the chaplains at Helena for aid, brought some voluntary contributions of clothing, and secured the attention of the Western Sanitary Commission, at St. Louis, to the great need of help at Helena, for the "contrabands."

It was at this juncture that the Commission proposed to Miss Mann to go to Helena, and act the part of the Good Samaritan to the colored people who had congregated there; to establish a hospital for the sick among them; to supply them with clothing and other necessaries, and in all possible ways to improve their condition. The offer was readily accepted by her, and in the month of January she arrived at Helena, with an ample supply of sanitary goods and clothing, and with letters commending her to the protection and aid of the commanding general, and to the chaplain of the post, (who now furnishes this sketch from his memory), and to the superintendent of freedmen, who welcomed her as a providential messenger whom G.o.d had sent to his neglected and suffering poor.

The pa.s.sage from St. Louis to Helena, a distance of six hundred miles, in mid-winter, at a time when the steamers were fired on by guerrillas from the sh.o.r.e, and sometimes captured, was made by Miss Mann, unattended, and without knowing where she would find a shelter when she arrived. The undertaking was attended with difficulty and danger, and many obstacles were to be overcome, but the brave spirit of this n.o.ble woman knew no such word as fail. Fortunately, the post chaplain, who had been detailed to a service requiring clerks, was able to receive Miss Mann, provide rooms for her, give her a place at the mess board, and render useful aid in her work. He remembers with a grateful interest how bravely she encountered every difficulty, and persevered in her humane undertaking, until almost every evil the colored people suffered was removed. A new hospital building was secured, furnished, and provided with good surgeons and nurses, and the terrible sickness and mortality reduced to the minimum per-centage of the best regulated hospitals; a new and better camping ground was obtained, and buildings erected for shelter; a school for the children was established, and the women taught how to cut and make garments, and advised and instructed how to live and be useful to themselves and their families. Material for clothing was furnished them, which they made up for themselves. As the season of spring came, the able-bodied men were enlisted as soldiers, by a new order of the Government; those who were not fit for the military service were hired by the new lessees of the plantations, and the condition of the colored people was changed from one of utter misery and despair, to one of thrift, improvement and comparative happiness.

In all these changes Miss Mann was a moving spirit, and with the co-operation of the chaplains, and the friendly sanction and aid of Major-General Prentiss--who on his arrival in February, 1863, introduced a more humane treatment of the freed people--she was able to fulfil her benevolent mission, and remained till the month of August of that year.

The heroism of Miss Mann during the winter season at Helena, was a marvel to us all. It was an exceedingly rainy winter, and the streets were often knee deep with mud. The town is built on a level, marshy region of bottom land, and for weeks the roads became almost impa.s.sable, and had to be waded on horseback, or the levee followed, and causeways had to be built by the military. But Miss Mann was not to be prevented by these difficulties from visiting the "Contraband Hospital," as it was called, and from going her rounds to the families of the poor colored people who needed her advice and a.s.sistance. I have often taken her myself in an open wagon with which we carried the mail bags to and from the steamers--having charge of the military post-office--and conveyed her from place to place, when the wheels would sink almost to the hubs, and returned with her to her quarters; and on several occasions when she had gone on foot when the side-walks were dry, and she came to a crossing that required deep wading, I have known her to call some stout black man to her aid, to carry her across, and set her down on the opposite sidewalk. In these cases the service was rendered with true politeness and gallantry, and with the remark, "Bress the Lord, missus, it's no trouble to carry you troo de mud, and keep your feet dry, you who does so much for us black folks. You's light as a fedder, anyhow, and de good Lord gibs you a wonderful sight of strength to go 'bout dis yere muddy town, to see de poor culled folks, and gib medicines to the sick, and feed the hungry, and clothe de naked, and I bress de good Lord dat he put it into your heart to come to Helena."

In the autumn of 1863 Miss Mann felt that her work in Helena was accomplished, and she returned to St. Louis, the colored people greatly lamenting her departure. In her work there she not only had the co-operation and a.s.sistance of the Western Sanitary Commission, but of many benevolent ladies in New England, personal friends of Miss Mann and others, who, through Rev. Dr. Eliot of St. Louis, supplied a large portion of the funds that were necessary to defray the expenses of our mission.

A new call to a theatre of usefulness in Washington City, in the District of Columbia, now came to Miss Mann, to become the teacher of a colored orphan asylum, which she accepted, where she devoted her energies to the welfare of the children of those who in the army, or in some other service to their country and race have laid down their lives, and left their helpless offspring to be cared for by Him, who hears even the young ravens when they cry, and moves human hearts to fulfil the ministry of his love; and who by his Spirit is moving the American people to do justly to the freed people of this land, and to make reparation for the oppression and wrong they have endured for so many generations.

After rendering a useful and excellent service as a teacher in the Colored Orphan Asylum at Washington, she was induced by the colored people, who greatly appreciated her work for their children, to establish an independent school in Georgetown. Friends at the North purchased a portable building for a school-house; the Freedmen's Bureau offered her a lot of ground to put it on, but not being in the right locality she rented one, and the building was sent to her, and has been beautifully fitted up for the purpose. The school has been successfully established, and under her excellent management, teaching, and discipline, it has become a model school. Intelligent persons visiting it are impressed by the perfect order maintained, and the advancement of the scholars in knowledge and good behaviour.

Miss Mann has made many personal sacrifices in establishing and carrying forward this school without government patronage or support, and the only fear concerning it is that the colored people will not be able from their limited resources to sustain it. It is her wish to prepare her scholars to become teachers of other colored schools, a work she is amply and remarkably qualified to do, and one in which she would be sustained by philanthropic aid, if the facts were known to those who feel the importance of all such efforts for the education and improvement of the colored people of this country, in the new position upon which they have entered as free citizens of the republic.

Among the gratifying results which Miss Mann has found in this work of instruction among the colored people are the rapid improvement she has witnessed among them, the capacity and eagerness with which they pursue the acquisition of knowledge, the grat.i.tude they have evinced to her, and the consciousness that she has contributed to their welfare and happiness.

As a n.o.ble, self-sacrificing woman, devoted to the service of her fellow-beings, and endowed with the best attributes of human nature, Miss Mann deserves the t.i.tle of a Christian philanthropist, and her life and labors will be remembered with grat.i.tude, and the blessing of him that was ready to perish, and of those who had no helper, will follow her all the remainder of her days.

SARAH J. HAGAR

It is due to the memory of this n.o.ble young woman that she should be included in the record of those sainted heroines who fearlessly went into the midst of danger and death that they might minister to the poor and suffering freedmen, whom our victorious arms had emanc.i.p.ated from their rebel masters, and yet had left for a time without means or opportunity to fit themselves for the new life that opened before them.

To this humane service she freely devoted herself and became a victim to the climate of the lower Mississippi, while engaged in the arduous work of ministering to the physical wants and the education of the freed people, who in the winter and spring of 1864, had gathered in camps around Vicksburg, and along the Louisiana sh.o.r.e.

Miss Hagar was the eldest daughter of Mrs. C. C. Hagar, who also was one of the army of heroic nurses who served in the hospitals of St. Louis during the greater part of the war. For many months they had served together in the same hospital, and by their faithfulness and careful ministrations to the sick and wounded soldier had won the highest confidence of the Western Sanitary Commission, by whose President they were appointed.

During the fall of 1863 the National Freedmen's Aid Commission of New York, under the presidency of Hon. Francis G. Shaw, sent two agents, Messrs. William L. Marsh and H. R. Foster, to Vicksburg, to establish an agency there, and at Natchez, for the aid of the freed people, in furnishing supplies of food and clothing to the dest.i.tute, and establishing schools for the children of the freedmen, and for such adults as could attend, and to help them in all possible ways to enter upon the new and better civilization that awaited them. In this work the Western Sanitary Commission co-operated, and Messrs. Marsh and Foster wrote to the writer of this sketch, then acting as Secretary of the above Commission, to send them several teachers and a.s.sistants in their work. Among those who volunteered for the service was Miss Hagar, who was wanted in another situation in St. Louis, but preferred this more arduous work for the freedmen.

The reasons she gave for her choice were, that she was well and strong, and felt a real interest in the welfare of the freed people; that she had no prejudices against them, and that while there were enough who were willing to fill the office of nurse to the white soldiers, it was more difficult to get those who would render equal kindness and justice to the black troops, and to the freed people, and therefore she felt it her duty and pleasure to go. She was accordingly commissioned, and with Miss A. M. Knight, of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, (another worthy laborer in the same cause) went down the river to Vicksburg, in the winter of 1864.

For several months she labored there with untiring devotion to the interests and welfare of the colored people, under the direction of Messrs. Marsh and Foster. No task was too difficult for her to undertake that promised good results, and in danger of all kinds, whether from disease, or from the a.s.saults of the enemy, she never lost her presence of mind, nor was wanting in the requisite courage for that emergency. In person she was above the medium height, and had a face beaming with kindness, and pleasant to look upon. Her mind had received a good degree of culture, and her natural intelligence was of a high order. And better than all within her earthly form dwelt a n.o.ble and heroic soul.

Late in April of that year, she had an attack of malarial fever, which prostrated her very suddenly, and just in the proportion that she had been strong and apparently well fortified against disease, it took a deep hold of her vital powers, and on the 3d of May, she yielded to the fell destroyer, and breathed no more.

The following tribute to her character, is taken from the letter of Mr.

Marsh, in which he communicated the sad tidings of her death.

"In her death the National Freedmen's Aid a.s.sociation, has lost a most earnest, devoted, Christian laborer. She entered upon her duties at a time of great suffering and dest.i.tution among the Freedmen at Vicksburg, and when we were much in need of aid. The fidelity with which she performed her labors, and the deep interest she manifested in them soon endeared her to us all. We shall miss her sorely; but the n.o.ble example she has left us will encourage us to greater efforts, and more patient toil. She seemed also to realize the magnitude and importance of this work upon which she had entered, and the need of Divine a.s.sistance in its performance. She seemed also to realize what sacrifice might be demanded of one engaged in a work like this, and the summons, although sudden, did not find her unprepared to meet it. She has done a n.o.ble work, and done it well.

"The sacrifice she made is the greatest one that can be made for any cause, the sacrifice of life. 'Greater love than this hath no man, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' She has gone to receive her reward."

Her remains were brought to her native town in Illinois, and deposited there, where the blessed memory she has left among her friends and kindred, is cherished with heartfelt reverence and affection.

MRS. JOSEPHINE R. GRIFFIN.

If the most thoroughly unselfish devotion of an earnest and gifted woman to the interests and welfare of a despised and down-trodden race, to the manifest injury and detriment of her own comfort, ease, or pecuniary prospects, and without any hope or desire of reward other than the consciousness of having been their benefactor, const.i.tutes a woman a heroine, then is Mrs. Griffin one of the most remarkable heroines of our times.

Of her early history we know little. She was a woman of refinement and culture, has always been remarkable for her energy and resolution, as well as for her philanthropic zeal for the poor and oppressed. The beginning of the war found her a widow, with, we believe, three children, all daughters, in Washington, D. C. Of these daughters, the eldest has a position in the Treasury Department, a second has for some time a.s.sisted her mother in her labors, and the youngest is in school.

Mrs. Griffin was too benevolent ever to be rich, and when the freedmen and their families began to concentrate in the District of Columbia, and on Arlington Heights, across the Potomac, she sought them out, and made the effort to ameliorate their condition. At that time they hardly knew whether they were to be permanently free or not, and ma.s.sed together as they were, their old slave habits of recklessness, disorder, and over-crowding soon gained the predominance, and showed their evil effect in producing a fearful amount of sickness and death. They were not, with comparatively few exceptions, indolent; but they had naturally lapsed into the easy, slovenly methods, or rather want of method of the old slave life, and a few were doing the greater part of what was done.

They were mere children in capacity, will and perseverance. Mrs.

Griffin, with her intensely energetic nature, soon effected a change.

Order took the place of disorder, under her direction; new cabins were built, neatness and system maintained, till their good effects were so apparent, that the freedmen voluntarily pursued the course advised by their teacher and friend; all who were able to do any work were provided as far as possible with employment, and schools for the children in the day time, and for adults in the evening, were established. In this good work she received material a.s.sistance from that devoted young Christian now gone to his rest, the late Cornelius M. Welles. After awhile, the able-bodied men were enlisted in the army, and the stronger and healthier women provided with situations in many instances at the North, and the children, and feeble, decrepit men and women, could not perform work enough for their maintenance. Mrs. Griffin began to solicit aid for them, and carried them through one winter by the a.s.sistance she was able to collect, and by what she gave from her own not over-full purse. Some land was now allotted to them, and by the utmost diligence they were enabled to provide almost entirely for themselves, till autumn; but meantime the Act of Emanc.i.p.ation in the District of Columbia had drawn thither some thousands of people of color from the adjacent states of Maryland and Virginia. All looked up to Mrs. Griffin as their special Providence. She was satisfied that it was better for them, as far as possible, to find places and work in the Northern States, than to remain there, where employment was precarious, and where the excessive number of workers had reduced the wages of such as could find employment. She accordingly commenced an extensive correspondence, to obtain from persons at the North in want of servants, orders for such as could be supplied from the colored people residing in the District of Columbia.

Having completely systematized the matter, she has been in the habit, for nearly two years past, of leaving Washington once or twice a week, with a company of colored persons, for whom she had obtained situations in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, or smaller cities, paying their fare, providing them with food on the journey, and at its termination until she could put them into the families who had engaged them, and then returning to make up another company. The cost of these expeditions she has provided almost entirely from her own means, her daughters who have imbibed their mother's spirit, helping as far as possible in this n.o.ble work. In the autumn of 1865 she found that notwithstanding all for whom she could provide situations, there were likely to be not less than twenty thousand colored persons, freedmen and their families, in a state of complete dest.i.tution before the 1st of December, and she published in the Washington and other papers, an appeal to the benevolent to help. The Freedmen's Bureau at first denied the truth of her statements, but further investigation convinced them that she was right, and they were wrong, and Congress was importuned for an appropriation for their necessities. Twenty-five thousand dollars were appropriated, and its distribution left to the Freedmen's Bureau.