Mother Angela, of the Holy Cross Sisters, was one of the most devoted nurses in any of the orders that served during the civil war. She was a woman of high birth and considerable refinement. She came from a well-known Pennsylvania Irish family—the Gillespies. It was from this family that James Gillespie Blaine was so named. She was a cousin of the illustrious man, and was also related to the Ewings and the Shermans. Her parents migrated from Pennsylvania to Illinois while she was quite young, and her education was received at the Academy of the Visitation, in Washington, D. C. Mother Angela always had a high regard for Blaine. She was intimately acquainted with the details of his early life and his home at Brownsville, Pa. To those in whom she placed great confidence she frequentlygave touching incidents of the young man’s early career, and on more than one occasion she repelled slanders which were no doubt implicitly believed by the public at large. She became connected with the Holy Cross Sisters many years before the war. When the first gun was fired at Sumter Mother Angela was in charge of a flourishing school at South Bend. When the need for nurses became pressing this was given up, the scholars returned to their homes, and the Sister teachers volunteered their services to those in charge of the hospitals. Mother Angela was sent out by the Very Rev. Father Sourin, Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, whose head house was at Notre Dame, Indiana.
The following is an extract from the Circular Letter issued October 21, 1861, by Father Sorin, who was the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in the United States:
“My Dear Daughters in Jesus Christ:“Among the distressing features of the times I am glad to convey you some consoling news, for, however much we deplore the distracted state of our country, we find a gratification in being able to assuage some of its sorrows....A most honorable call has been made on your community by the First Magistrate in our State, asking for twelve Sisters to go and attend the sick, the wounded and dying soldiers.... The call has been unhesitatingly responded to, and this afternoon six Sisters of Holy Cross started for Paducah. Six more start within a week.... They are all chosen from a large number of volunteers; and if we judge of their sentiments by the joy with which they have received their selection, we have reason to believe that they duly appreciate the honor and favor bestowed upon them.“It is well known that in the Crimean War the Sisters of Charity literally covered themselves with glory before men, and, doubtless, with merits before God. When the record of our present struggles will be handed down to posterity will it not be a source of joy for the Church to be able to show, in every rank of society, many a glorious name generously sacrificed for the rescue of the country?“But why should we be left out of the list? If the Standard of the Cross, under which we have enlisted, knows no enemies among men; if our objects, on the contrary, is to rally them all under the precious emblem of our salvation, our little army stands arrayed against the enemy of mankind, the spirit of darkness, and all the evils and the wounds which he has inflicted on humanity. Hence, wherever there is a pain to soothe, a pang to relieve, a bleeding heart or limb to treat or dress, there is a field for us to enter, under pain of deserting our noble banner.... What a joy it would bring to the apostolic heart of our venerated founder (Father Moreaux) to hear of this heroic act of charity undertaken by this little vanguard of his company in the New World! It is in his name I have blessed them, and they may rest assured that while they follow the fortunes of the battlefields of the nation, he, like Moses, will be praying for them on the mountain top. We, too, shall persevere with him in prayer in their behalf. In all our Houses there shall be offered for them a General Communion every Saturday, that they may fully discharge the important trust they have received.”
“My Dear Daughters in Jesus Christ:
“Among the distressing features of the times I am glad to convey you some consoling news, for, however much we deplore the distracted state of our country, we find a gratification in being able to assuage some of its sorrows....
A most honorable call has been made on your community by the First Magistrate in our State, asking for twelve Sisters to go and attend the sick, the wounded and dying soldiers.... The call has been unhesitatingly responded to, and this afternoon six Sisters of Holy Cross started for Paducah. Six more start within a week.... They are all chosen from a large number of volunteers; and if we judge of their sentiments by the joy with which they have received their selection, we have reason to believe that they duly appreciate the honor and favor bestowed upon them.
“It is well known that in the Crimean War the Sisters of Charity literally covered themselves with glory before men, and, doubtless, with merits before God. When the record of our present struggles will be handed down to posterity will it not be a source of joy for the Church to be able to show, in every rank of society, many a glorious name generously sacrificed for the rescue of the country?
“But why should we be left out of the list? If the Standard of the Cross, under which we have enlisted, knows no enemies among men; if our objects, on the contrary, is to rally them all under the precious emblem of our salvation, our little army stands arrayed against the enemy of mankind, the spirit of darkness, and all the evils and the wounds which he has inflicted on humanity. Hence, wherever there is a pain to soothe, a pang to relieve, a bleeding heart or limb to treat or dress, there is a field for us to enter, under pain of deserting our noble banner.... What a joy it would bring to the apostolic heart of our venerated founder (Father Moreaux) to hear of this heroic act of charity undertaken by this little vanguard of his company in the New World! It is in his name I have blessed them, and they may rest assured that while they follow the fortunes of the battlefields of the nation, he, like Moses, will be praying for them on the mountain top. We, too, shall persevere with him in prayer in their behalf. In all our Houses there shall be offered for them a General Communion every Saturday, that they may fully discharge the important trust they have received.”
Mother Angela met many of the great generals of the war, and they all united in declaring her a woman of marvelous executive ability. Besides this she had many other accomplishments of a high order. Although she was the Mother in charge, she gave her personal attention to many of the patients. On several historic occasions she waited upon Confederate and Union soldiers at the same time.“Johnny Reb,” as he was facetiously called, and the “Yank” would lie in cots side by side, with the peaceful face of Mother Angela between them. Often men lying helpless on their backs would get into heated disputes over the relative merits of the war, and but for their physical disability would have done each other violence. The Sisters alone possessed the power to quell these quarrels, and they did it with all the tact and diplomacy becoming their gentle natures.
The story of the first meeting between General Grant and Mother Angela comes from an eye-witness of that historic episode, and can be vouched for as strictly correct. Grant was just then beginning to develop the traits of a leader, which were to mark him later as the greatest captain of his time. His headquarters were in an old brick building that had formerly served as a bank in Cairo. Mother Angela came to this place to report for duty to General Grant. She was accompanied by the late Dr. Brinton, an honored physician of Philadelphia, and Rev. Louis A. Lambert, D. D., LL. D.22
LEE, JACKSON AND BEAUREGARD.
LEE, JACKSON AND BEAUREGARD.
Dr. Lambert, who was to act in the capacity of chaplain, escorted Mother Angela into Grant’s presence. The great Captain was seated at a desk behind the iron bars, which had evidently been formerly used by the cashier of the bank. He was writing with the air of a man who was absorbed in his task and unconscious of his surroundings.An ordinary cheap pipe was in his mouth, and every now and then he mechanically blew forth a cloud of smoke. The characteristics of the man so well-known in later years were just as pronounced then. The people all around him were plainly agitated with the thought of the great war that was about to rage in all its fury. He sat at his work calm, silent, and with an imperturbability of countenance that was sphinx-like. Dr. Brinton, who had been one of the first to suggest the Sisters, introduced Mother Angela to Grant. The General came out from behind the iron grating with his head bare, and, taking Mother Angela’s hand, gave it a hearty shake. The pipe he had been smoking was temporarily laid aside. There was a moment’s silence, and then Grant, looking at his visitor with a pleasant smile, said:
“I am glad to have you with us, very glad.”
There was a pause for a second, and then he added:
“If there is anything at all I can do for you I will be glad to do it. I thoroughly appreciate the value of your services, and I will give orders to see that you do not want for anything.”
After a few more minutes of general conversation, in which Dr. Brinton and Father Lambert joined, Mother Angela and the Sisters started for their mission at Mound City. In later years General Grant frequently expressed profound admiration for Mother Angela, not only as a nurse, but as a woman of unusual ability.
Grant about this period in his career was one of the most interesting characters of the war. It is curious to note the various estimates of his character. The following extract from a letter written from the “front” during theclosing months of the war furnishes a striking pen picture of the man:
“In his manners, dress and style of living Grant displays more republican simplicity than any other general officer in the army. In manner he is very unassuming and approachable, and his conversation is noticeable from its unpretending, plain and straightforward style. There is nothing didactic nor pedantic in his tone or language. His rhetoric is more remarkable for the compact structure than the elegance and finish of his sentences. He talks practically, and writes as he talks, and his language, written and oral, is distinguished by strong common sense.“He seldom indulges in figurative language; but when he does his comparisons betray his habits of close observation. He dresses in a careless, but by no means slovenly manner. Though his uniform conforms to army regulations in cut and trimmings, it is often like that of Sherman—worn threadbare. He never wears any article which attracts attention by its oddity, except, indeed, the three stars which indicate his rank. His wardrobe when campaigning is generally very scant, while his headquarters train is often the smallest in the army. For several months past he has been living in a log hut of unpretending dimensions on the James River, sleeping on a common camp-cot, and eating at a table common to all his staff, plainly furnished with good roast beef, pork and beans, ‘hard-tack’ and coffee.“It is related of the General that when the march to the rear of Vicksburg began he announced to his army the necessity of ‘moving light,’ i. e., without extra baggage. He set an example by sending to the rear all his baggage except a green briar-root pipe, a tooth-brush and a horn pocket-comb. The story of his appearance in the Senate chamber in February last is still fresh in the minds of the public. He had no sooner left the hall after payinghis respects to the Senators than one of the Democratic members rose and asked the consideration of the Senate upon what he termed the evident and gross mistake which had been made in appointing Grant a Lieutenant General, and declared it to be his opinion that ‘there was not a second lieutenant of the Home Guard of his State who did not “cut a bigger swell” than this man who had just left their presence.’”
“In his manners, dress and style of living Grant displays more republican simplicity than any other general officer in the army. In manner he is very unassuming and approachable, and his conversation is noticeable from its unpretending, plain and straightforward style. There is nothing didactic nor pedantic in his tone or language. His rhetoric is more remarkable for the compact structure than the elegance and finish of his sentences. He talks practically, and writes as he talks, and his language, written and oral, is distinguished by strong common sense.
“He seldom indulges in figurative language; but when he does his comparisons betray his habits of close observation. He dresses in a careless, but by no means slovenly manner. Though his uniform conforms to army regulations in cut and trimmings, it is often like that of Sherman—worn threadbare. He never wears any article which attracts attention by its oddity, except, indeed, the three stars which indicate his rank. His wardrobe when campaigning is generally very scant, while his headquarters train is often the smallest in the army. For several months past he has been living in a log hut of unpretending dimensions on the James River, sleeping on a common camp-cot, and eating at a table common to all his staff, plainly furnished with good roast beef, pork and beans, ‘hard-tack’ and coffee.
“It is related of the General that when the march to the rear of Vicksburg began he announced to his army the necessity of ‘moving light,’ i. e., without extra baggage. He set an example by sending to the rear all his baggage except a green briar-root pipe, a tooth-brush and a horn pocket-comb. The story of his appearance in the Senate chamber in February last is still fresh in the minds of the public. He had no sooner left the hall after payinghis respects to the Senators than one of the Democratic members rose and asked the consideration of the Senate upon what he termed the evident and gross mistake which had been made in appointing Grant a Lieutenant General, and declared it to be his opinion that ‘there was not a second lieutenant of the Home Guard of his State who did not “cut a bigger swell” than this man who had just left their presence.’”
Mother Angela’s party after leaving General Grant had quite an experience in reaching their destination. The wagon which had been detailed as their conveyance broke down when they were half way thither, and there was some difficulty in patching it up sufficiently to finish the journey. But it was done, and the Sisters eventually reached Mound City, and began their work of mercy in the hospital located there. Sister Ferdinand was a fellow laborer with Mother Angela at this time. Father Lambert, the chaplain, attended the Post Hospital at Mound City and said Mass at 4 o’clock in the morning for the benefit of Mother Angela and her Sisters.
There was one incident that was kept quiet and which did not become generally known until after the war. Small-pox was raging at the time, and one of the brave Sisters was stricken down. She was hastily stowed away in a garret of the hospital building and a special guard placed over her. She recovered, and after that devoted herself to nursing others with even more zeal than she had shown before she was stricken down. Ordinarily small-pox cases were sent to the pest house, but in this instance the tenderness of the Sisters would not permit them to part with their afflicted colleague. It was against the rules, to be sure, but who can blame the Sisters for this mercifulbreach of discipline? It is only proper to state that the case was so isolated that not one of the twelve hundred patients was affected even in the remotest degree. One who was in the hospital at this time says that he is not certain but that the Surgeon General knew of the hidden case.
There were between 1200 and 1400 patients in the hospital, and all received the kindest care and attention. Mother Angela served through all the war, winning extraordinary distinction for tact, diplomacy and faithfulness.
The official communication written by Commander Davis after a battle on White River, June 17, 1862, indicates that Mother Angela was not unknown to the authorities.
U. S. Flag Steamer Benton, Memphis, June 20, 1862.Hon. Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy.Sir:—The number of men on board the hospital boat Red Rover is forty-one. The account given me yesterday was incorrect. I shall still wait for further knowledge before presenting a final report of the casualties attending the capture of the St. Charles forts. The Department will be gratified to learn that the patients are, most of them, doing well. * * * Sister Angela, the Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Cross (some of whom are performing their offices of mercy at the Mound City Hospital), has kindly offered the services of the Sisters for the hospital boat of this squadron when needed. I have written to Commander Rennock to make arrangements for their coming.I have the honor to be, very respectfully your obedient servant,CHARLES H. DAVIS,Flag Officer Commanding Western Flotilla.
U. S. Flag Steamer Benton, Memphis, June 20, 1862.Hon. Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy.
Sir:—The number of men on board the hospital boat Red Rover is forty-one. The account given me yesterday was incorrect. I shall still wait for further knowledge before presenting a final report of the casualties attending the capture of the St. Charles forts. The Department will be gratified to learn that the patients are, most of them, doing well. * * * Sister Angela, the Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Cross (some of whom are performing their offices of mercy at the Mound City Hospital), has kindly offered the services of the Sisters for the hospital boat of this squadron when needed. I have written to Commander Rennock to make arrangements for their coming.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully your obedient servant,
CHARLES H. DAVIS,Flag Officer Commanding Western Flotilla.
The Catholic Mirror, under date of November 8, 1862, records the following:
“A fourth colony of these devoted Sisterhoods has set forth on its mission of mercy, to serve in the hospitals of Washington, as they already serve so faithfully at Memphis, Cairo and Mound City. The Hospital of St. Aloysius, erected in a week by Catholic charity, fired by the zeal of the dead Jesuit Fathers, call them to its succor; and they, fully responding to the holy fervor which built these hospitals from the very overflowings of love to God and of reverence for the tabernacle in which dwells the Holy of Holies, will fill up the measure of these by ministering to the wants of the sick and sorrowing and forlorn, the objects of His love who died on Calvary, and renders daily His sacrifice for their success, and the holy temple thus saved by piety from desecration.“Who has not heard of the Jesuit Fathers? Their fame has spread throughout the earth; and yet so silently they work, so sublimely concealed their burning zeal, that but for an occasion like the present, when the influence they possess over the human soul manifested itself by a simultaneous impulse that cannot be repressed, they for the most part live a hidden, unobtrusive life—a life which makes the surer the good they invariably effect—for near 400 years the devoted sons of St. Ignatius toiled like their founder in striving to hide from the world the individuals who achieved a good that will not be hidden; and it seems a sort of sacrilege to withdraw the veil that hides this good even partially from the world. When we think of what the Jesuits have done through long ages, our heart burns, our spirit fires, and in our heart of hearts perceive that men who do good in every age, without being tainted with the spirit of any age, demand from us reverence and not praise.“When, then, we heard of the last demonstration of zeal, of Catholic zeal, stirred up by the Jesuit Fathers, wefelt no extraordinary surprise, we manifested no extraordinary exultation; a tranquil happiness stole over us; we thanked God that St. Ignatius still lived in his sons, and that, great as was the work of building St. Aloysius Hospitals in six days, a far greater work, though a more hidden one, is being daily, hourly, performed by these devoted soldiers of the Church.“But, meantime, the hospital of St. Aloysius is a fact; in Washington, hospitals to form a refuge for the sick, measuring six hundred feet by twenty-six, are in actual existence, erected spontaneously by Catholic charity, and purposing to be watched over also by Catholic charity, for the Sisters of the Holy Cross are already on the way to take charge of such inmates as this unhappy war shall bring within its precincts.“May they prosper in their mission at Washington, as at Memphis, Mound City and at Cairo; may they bring balm to the wounded heart as they bandage the wounded limb; and may the blessings they bring to others react upon themselves to enable them to lead more and more fully the life of recollection every true religious covets, even while pursuing the apparently distracting occupations of attending the sick and wounded! In bringing to the bedside the comforts of a soul in constant and habitual communication with God, by the faithfulness in which are performed the religious exercises prescribed by the rule, a Sister of Holy Cross can scarcely fail to dispense treasures far more valuable than the gold and silver of the world.“How many are the souls aided in their passage to eternity! How many reclaimed from a life of sin! How many taught to bless the temporary suffering which brought them acquainted with the peace that passeth all understanding! The annals of these deeds are hidden now; but on the Day of Judgment they will stand forth and praise the religious, who, by her spirit of prayer, was enabled to perform these ‘miracles of the soul.’”
“A fourth colony of these devoted Sisterhoods has set forth on its mission of mercy, to serve in the hospitals of Washington, as they already serve so faithfully at Memphis, Cairo and Mound City. The Hospital of St. Aloysius, erected in a week by Catholic charity, fired by the zeal of the dead Jesuit Fathers, call them to its succor; and they, fully responding to the holy fervor which built these hospitals from the very overflowings of love to God and of reverence for the tabernacle in which dwells the Holy of Holies, will fill up the measure of these by ministering to the wants of the sick and sorrowing and forlorn, the objects of His love who died on Calvary, and renders daily His sacrifice for their success, and the holy temple thus saved by piety from desecration.
“Who has not heard of the Jesuit Fathers? Their fame has spread throughout the earth; and yet so silently they work, so sublimely concealed their burning zeal, that but for an occasion like the present, when the influence they possess over the human soul manifested itself by a simultaneous impulse that cannot be repressed, they for the most part live a hidden, unobtrusive life—a life which makes the surer the good they invariably effect—for near 400 years the devoted sons of St. Ignatius toiled like their founder in striving to hide from the world the individuals who achieved a good that will not be hidden; and it seems a sort of sacrilege to withdraw the veil that hides this good even partially from the world. When we think of what the Jesuits have done through long ages, our heart burns, our spirit fires, and in our heart of hearts perceive that men who do good in every age, without being tainted with the spirit of any age, demand from us reverence and not praise.
“When, then, we heard of the last demonstration of zeal, of Catholic zeal, stirred up by the Jesuit Fathers, wefelt no extraordinary surprise, we manifested no extraordinary exultation; a tranquil happiness stole over us; we thanked God that St. Ignatius still lived in his sons, and that, great as was the work of building St. Aloysius Hospitals in six days, a far greater work, though a more hidden one, is being daily, hourly, performed by these devoted soldiers of the Church.
“But, meantime, the hospital of St. Aloysius is a fact; in Washington, hospitals to form a refuge for the sick, measuring six hundred feet by twenty-six, are in actual existence, erected spontaneously by Catholic charity, and purposing to be watched over also by Catholic charity, for the Sisters of the Holy Cross are already on the way to take charge of such inmates as this unhappy war shall bring within its precincts.
“May they prosper in their mission at Washington, as at Memphis, Mound City and at Cairo; may they bring balm to the wounded heart as they bandage the wounded limb; and may the blessings they bring to others react upon themselves to enable them to lead more and more fully the life of recollection every true religious covets, even while pursuing the apparently distracting occupations of attending the sick and wounded! In bringing to the bedside the comforts of a soul in constant and habitual communication with God, by the faithfulness in which are performed the religious exercises prescribed by the rule, a Sister of Holy Cross can scarcely fail to dispense treasures far more valuable than the gold and silver of the world.
“How many are the souls aided in their passage to eternity! How many reclaimed from a life of sin! How many taught to bless the temporary suffering which brought them acquainted with the peace that passeth all understanding! The annals of these deeds are hidden now; but on the Day of Judgment they will stand forth and praise the religious, who, by her spirit of prayer, was enabled to perform these ‘miracles of the soul.’”
The following communication, signed “P,” and addressed to the editor of the New York Tablet, on April 12, 1862, is interesting, not only in particularizing the order in question, but in affording another glimpse of Mother Angela:
“In your issue of the 22d I find a notice of the military hospital at Mound City. There is a mistake in that article which I am sure you will willingly rectify. The Sisters who are in charge there are not the ‘Sisters of Charity;’ they are the ‘Sisters of the Holy Cross,’ from their Convent of St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s County, Indiana. Under the direction of their Superioress, Mother St. Angela, these pious Sisters have had for some time the charge of the hospitals at Cairo, Mound City and Paducah. Upon their arrival, about the beginning of October, all the other female nurses were dispensed with, and the Sisters assumed the entire control of the wards, each Sister having the care of one ward.“When it became known throughout the West that Mother Angela and her Sisters had assumed this arduous position, hundreds of her friends hastened to forward to her care large supplies of clothing and linen suitable for hospital purposes. She even made a journey to Chicago for the purpose of obtaining supplies, and right nobly did the citizens respond to her call. There are now over thirty Sisters there, who are almost exhausted by their incessant labors; they know no rest night or day. Fourteen hundred wounded men are hourly receiving at their hands such care as can only be bestowed by pious souls who look for their reward not on earth but in heaven.“It must be a great consolation to the relatives and friends of our gallant soldiers to know that they are attended on their beds of pain and suffering by such nurses. Wherever a Sister moves she has the prayers and blessings of the poor soldier, and the thanks and gratitude ofthe officers. Beside whatever bed death has laid his hand, there is seen a Sister seeking to alleviate the suffering of the patient and to prepare the parting soul for the judgment so soon to be pronounced upon it.”
“In your issue of the 22d I find a notice of the military hospital at Mound City. There is a mistake in that article which I am sure you will willingly rectify. The Sisters who are in charge there are not the ‘Sisters of Charity;’ they are the ‘Sisters of the Holy Cross,’ from their Convent of St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s County, Indiana. Under the direction of their Superioress, Mother St. Angela, these pious Sisters have had for some time the charge of the hospitals at Cairo, Mound City and Paducah. Upon their arrival, about the beginning of October, all the other female nurses were dispensed with, and the Sisters assumed the entire control of the wards, each Sister having the care of one ward.
“When it became known throughout the West that Mother Angela and her Sisters had assumed this arduous position, hundreds of her friends hastened to forward to her care large supplies of clothing and linen suitable for hospital purposes. She even made a journey to Chicago for the purpose of obtaining supplies, and right nobly did the citizens respond to her call. There are now over thirty Sisters there, who are almost exhausted by their incessant labors; they know no rest night or day. Fourteen hundred wounded men are hourly receiving at their hands such care as can only be bestowed by pious souls who look for their reward not on earth but in heaven.
“It must be a great consolation to the relatives and friends of our gallant soldiers to know that they are attended on their beds of pain and suffering by such nurses. Wherever a Sister moves she has the prayers and blessings of the poor soldier, and the thanks and gratitude ofthe officers. Beside whatever bed death has laid his hand, there is seen a Sister seeking to alleviate the suffering of the patient and to prepare the parting soul for the judgment so soon to be pronounced upon it.”
The following reference to the Holy Cross Sisters from the pen of Father Corby is apropos:
“Sixty Sisters of the Holy Cross went out under Mother Angela. These Sisters volunteered their services to nurse the sick and the wounded soldiers, hundreds of whom, moved to sentiments of purest piety by the words and example of these angel nurses, begged to be baptized in articulo mortis—at the point of death. The labors and self-sacrifice of the Sisters during the war need no praise here. The praise is on the lips of every surviving soldier who experienced their kind and careful ministration. Many a soldier now looks down from on high with complacency on the worthy Sisters who were instrumental in saving the soul when life could not be saved. Nor was it alone from the Order of the Sisters of the Holy Cross that Sister nurses engaged in the care of the sick and wounded soldiers. Many other orders made costly sacrifices to save life and to save souls, notably the noble Order of the Sisters of Charity. To members of this order I am personally indebted. When prostrate with camp fever, insensible for nearly three days, my life was entrusted to their care. Like guardian angels these Daughters of St. Vincent watched every symptom of the fever, and by their skill and care I was soon able to return to my post of duty.”23
“Sixty Sisters of the Holy Cross went out under Mother Angela. These Sisters volunteered their services to nurse the sick and the wounded soldiers, hundreds of whom, moved to sentiments of purest piety by the words and example of these angel nurses, begged to be baptized in articulo mortis—at the point of death. The labors and self-sacrifice of the Sisters during the war need no praise here. The praise is on the lips of every surviving soldier who experienced their kind and careful ministration. Many a soldier now looks down from on high with complacency on the worthy Sisters who were instrumental in saving the soul when life could not be saved. Nor was it alone from the Order of the Sisters of the Holy Cross that Sister nurses engaged in the care of the sick and wounded soldiers. Many other orders made costly sacrifices to save life and to save souls, notably the noble Order of the Sisters of Charity. To members of this order I am personally indebted. When prostrate with camp fever, insensible for nearly three days, my life was entrusted to their care. Like guardian angels these Daughters of St. Vincent watched every symptom of the fever, and by their skill and care I was soon able to return to my post of duty.”23
One of the interesting features of the charitable work of the war came to the notice of Mother Angela in the early part of 1864. It was a donation of $1000 from Pope Pius the IX for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers. Through Cardinal Barnabo the Pope expressed to BishopTimon, of Buffalo, his tender sympathy for the sufferings of the many wounded, and requested the Bishop to give, in the Pope’s name, $500 to aid in alleviating the suffering of the wounded soldiers in the Northern army, and the same amount for the same object for the Southern soldiers. Bishop Timon gave $500 to Mrs. Horatio Seymour, president of the Sanitary Commission, to aid our wounded soldiers, and $500 to Miss D. L. Dix, to be applied in procuring for wounded Southern prisoners in the hospitals any additional comforts which might be deemed useful.
The following incident concerning Mother Angela’s war experiences is from the pen of Eliza Allen Starr:
During the early days of the war and the hospital service we all know how inadequate were the supplies for the sick and wounded; how meagre the equipments for the hospital nurses. A poor, little circular stovepipe served the indefatigable Mother Angela on which to prepare with her own skillful hands the early cup of gruel for her patients, rising as four, or, if need were, at three in the morning to answer the first call of the sufferers; and the character of the stores provided was such as few could realize one year later. At this time the Commissary Board sent a visitor to the camp and hospital where Mother Angela and her Sisters were stationed. During all these months nothing could exceed the courtesy of the officers, who always shared any choice provisions which came to them with the Sisters, as they supposed, while the Sisters as scrupulously passed on to their patients everything which could tempt the sick appetite, sharing, in fact, only the rations served regularly to the hospital wards. When the Commissary visitor arrived he was duly escorted to thehospital, which excited his warmest approbation for its order, neatness, comfort of every sort; but as he was bowing himself out in the most complimentary manner from the presence of Mother Angela and her band of Sisters, she said to him: “But, Mr. ——, you must allow us to show you some hospitality. Pardon our lack of silver and porcelain, but take a cup of hospital tea!” “Thank you, thank you, Mother Angela, but I have taken dinner already with the officers, and need nothing.” “Allow me to insist!” and before another excuse could be urged a Sister appeared with a snow-white napkin and the tincup and spoon of the hospital and—the anything than fragrant beverage of hospital tea. “Sugar, Sister,” said the sweetly-ringing voice of the gentlewoman, Mother Angela, and before our Commissary visitor could wave off this fresh specimen of hospital luxury, Mother Angela had dumped into the tin cup what resembled the scrapings of the molasses barrel more than sugar. Our Commissary visitor was a gentleman from the toe of his boot to the crown of his head, and he drank the cup of tea, well stirred, to its dregs, without a grimace, bowing as he handed the empty tincup to the Sister, while Mother Angela rubbed her little hands with unmistakable glee, and the full merriment of laughing eyes, as she said: “I knew, Mr. ——, you would wish to taste of our hospital tea!” And the Commissary visitor vowed in his heart as he turned from the hospital door that the next train, on his arrival home, should take, as he said in his letter to Mother Angela, such stores to her own and to every hospital under his charge as a Christian man could accept without shame from the hand of any hospital nurse in the land.
There was another Sister Angela who was prominentduring the civil war, but who was not so conspicuous as her illustrious namesake. She is thus referred to in a recent work:24
“Sister Angela became a member of the Community (Visitation Sisters) about 1819. She was one of those characters who convey to the mind the image of a soul of spotless innocence. She celebrated her golden jubilee and lived for several years afterwards, retained to the last her full mental faculties and childlike simplicity. She was made Superioress of the foundation in Philadelphia. On the breaking up of the house there she was recalled to Georgetown. Then for twelve years at different times she served as Superioress of Georgetown Convent and governed with a gentle firmness and a lovely spirit of forebearance; enduring the many trials incidental to authority with the utmost patience.
“During the civil war her energy and wisdom shone forth especially. She was at that time most generous in trying to aid poor chaplains, and she showed a true zeal for souls in the advice she gave to soldiers who applied to her for help. Her charity was remembered, as the nuns of Georgetown had reason to realize not long ago, during the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, when one of the veterans called to see “Sister Angela,” not knowing she had been dead several years. The veteran gave as his reason for desiring to see her that the angelic Superioress had converted him. Whenever worn out with marching and laden with dust, regiments halted in front of the Convent during the war, a liberal lunch was served to the weary soldiers, and objects of piety sent out to those who wanted them by Sister Angela.”
Related to many eminent men of the century; her tranquil death in the convent in Indiana; her ability as a writer and an educator. An incident of the war told by her in a powerful and dramatic style. The original of a Holy Cross Sister portrayed in a poem.
Mother Angela, who performed such valiant service as the head of the Holy Cross Sisters, departed this life on March 4, 1887. Her death was so calm and peaceful that it seemed as though she were gliding into slumber rather than passing from life into eternity. “Mother Mary of St. Angela” was the name of this devoted woman, who was previously known to the world as Eliza Maria Gillespie.
As stated in the preceding chapter Mother Angela was of distinguished lineage. Her godfather, the elder Thomas Ewing, was one of the great Whigs and Secretary of State under President William Henry Harrison. James Gillespie Blaine, her first cousin, was the idol of his party, member of Congress, United State Senator, Secretary of State, and the Republican candidate for the Presidency.General William T. Sherman, another relative, ranked second only to Grant among the Union generals in the civil war. Phil. B. Ewing, her brother-in-law, won the reputation of an eminent jurist in Ohio. “Young Tom” Ewing distinguished himself in the Union army. Her only brother, Rev. N. H. Gillespie, was the first graduate of Notre Dame University, and afterwards became its vice president and editor of the “Ave Maria.”
Mother Angela was born in West Brownsville, Pa., February 21, 1824. Her parents lived in a large stone house. It was a double structure, and in the other half of it lived her uncle and aunt, the parents of James G. Blaine, who was born there six years later. Mr. Blaine’s mother and Mother Angela’s father were brother and sister, and the two children were reared together until the one was twelve and the other was six years of age. This childish association caused a sincere attachment, which lasted through life.
While receiving her education in the Academy of the Visitation at Washington the future Sister had many opportunities for mingling in fashionable Washington society. One of her chroniclers of that time says that she had the same personal magnetism that distinguished her relative, Mr. Blaine. At the age of twenty-seven, however, she abandoned the world, and after the usual preparation became a Sister of the Holy Cross. Her work during the war has already been outlined.
The death of Mother Angela came as a shock to those with whom she had been associated. She had been ill for a month, but all looked forward with confidence to her ultimate recovery. The Father General coincided with the physician in assigning the sad event to heart disease, probablybrought on, as he says, “by the death of Sister M. Loba, whom she loved tenderly, and whose funeral procession passed under her window four hours before.”
The funeral of Mother Angela took place at Notre Dame on Sunday morning, March 6, 1887, the mortal remains being borne from the halls where she had been Superior for thirty-four years.
Telegrams and letters of regret came from all sections of the country, and even from parts of Europe. Among the telegrams was the following from one of the kinsmen of the dead Sister:
Augusta, Maine, March 4, 1887.John G. Ewing:Your message is a sad one to me. Communicate my deepest sympathy to Aunt Mary and to your mother.JAMES G. BLAINE.
Augusta, Maine, March 4, 1887.
John G. Ewing:
Your message is a sad one to me. Communicate my deepest sympathy to Aunt Mary and to your mother.
JAMES G. BLAINE.
The relatives of the deceased religious who were present were: Her aged mother, Mrs. M. M. Phelan; her sister, Mrs. P. B. Ewing; Hon. P. B. Ewing, Lancaster, Ohio; Sr. Mary Agnes, Miss Mary R. Ewing, Miss Philomene Ewing, Mr. John G. Ewing, Mrs. N. H. Ewing, Edward S. Ewing, Mrs. Colonel Steele, Miss Marie Steele, Miss Florence Steele, Charles Steele, Master Sherman Steele, Mrs. John Blaine, Miss Louise Blaine, Miss Ella Blaine, Messrs. Walker and Emmons Blaine. Among the numerous friends in attendance at the funeral were Justice Daniel Scully, Colonel W. P. Rend, Mr. and Mrs. P. Cavanagh, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Sullivan, Miss Angela Dillon, Miss Eddy, Chicago; Mr. Jacob Wile, Mr. F. Wile, Mr. George Beale, La Porte, Ind.; Mr. and Mrs. P. O’Brien, Mr. and Mrs. L. G. Tong, Mr. and Mrs. Stanfield, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Baker, Dr. Cassidy, Dr. Calvert, Mrs. Lintener, Mr. Birdsell, South Bend,Ind.; Miss C. Gavan, Lafayette, Ind.; Mrs. Shephard, Omaha, Neb.; Mrs. Atkinson, Baltimore, Md.; Mrs. Coughlin, Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. L. Gregori, Miss F. Gregori, Professor James J. Edwards, Professor W. Hoynes, Notre Dame, Ind.; Mrs. Claffey, Notre Dame. Solemn Requiem Mass was sung by Rev. Father L’Etourneau, assisted by the Rev. Fathers Spillard and Zahm as deacon and subdeacon; Rev. Father Regan, acting as master of ceremonies. There were present in the sanctuary: Rt. Rev. Bishop Gilmour, D. D.; Very Rev. Father General Sorin, Very Rev. Father Granger, Very Rev. Father Kilroy, D. D.; Very Rev. Father Corby; Rev. Fathers Walsh, O’Connell, Hudson, Shortis and Saulnier.
The late Rt. Rev. Bishop Gilmour preached the funeral sermon, in which he outlined the life of a model religious. He said, among other things:
“It is too much to say that she around whose bier we are gathered to-day is a fair and generous example of what I have outlined so very imperfectly and so succinctly. Fair in her talents and her ambitions with what the world values most, she buries herself—where? In the silence of a religious life, in a corner, in an unseen position! When she came here, some thirty-seven years ago, there was to be found little of that which to-day might, perhaps, attract one seeking the religious life. She came here to labor, to struggle, to wrestle with hardships, to concentrate her exceptional talents and energies upon the one grand object of her life. She came in all fervor, animated solely with zeal for religion—devotion to her cause. And thirty-seven years of unfailing generosity tell the tale of her life.
“It is difficult to comprehend what has been done in those thirty-seven years. It is not easy to realize what adevotion, an ambition for God such as hers, might do. Unseen, unnoticed, unobtrusive the generosity; unfailing, unflagging the devotion with which God has been served and man has been blessed—such is the life of her who lies before us. We see the results of her labors, not merely in the material building she has erected, for that, in itself, is little, but in the moral seed that she has deeply planted here; that has been the salvation of many who have already gone to their reward. And amongst those who are living, how many there are whom she has moulded, attracted, inspired with high and religious ambitions; whom she has directed in the paths of life!
“How many through her influence have been brought back to God and made generous once more! She has lifted up the weak, and made stronger those who were strong; soothed the wounded, directed all to nobler and higher aims. It would be difficult to find a heart so entirely throbbing for God as hers; a foot so restless and untiring in doing good as hers; a brain so busy in devising works for the welfare of religion and her fellow-men. It is difficult for those who have not known her to realize the extent of her labors. It is not every person who can comprehend the depth of Mother Angela’s devotion to the cause of God. Many have seen it but few have understood it.... For many a long, long day this community will feel the gap that is made to-day by the loss of one who lies in that narrow, little coffin.... The kind Father General, in the days that are coming, will find how much he has lost in the generous, assisting hand now cold in death.... And you, young friends, will feel the loss of a tender and directing parent.... It is for us all to pray that God may bless her, as I am convinced He has.”
LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG.
LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG.
After the Bishop’s sermon the final absolution of the body was given and then the procession marched to the modest little cemetery and Mother Angela was laid to rest within a stone’s throw of where the greater part of her life work had been performed.
Mother Angela is the original of the Sister of the Holy Cross portrayed in the following poem:
I.The din of the battle has died away;The twilight has grown to a deeper gray;The moon rises pale through the mistly cloud,While the blood-stained rivulet moans aloud;And the beams are faint in the kindly stars,For hope shines no more from their golden bars.The leaves of the tremulous aspen sighAs the night winds, wailing, sweep mournfully by.The ambulance glides through the gloomy path,To heed the wreck of the War Demon’s wrath;And the Angel of Peace, from his home sublime,Weeps o’er man’s wretchedness, folly and crime.II.’Tis the hour of midnight. How lightly treadThe feet of the watcher, ’mid dying and dead.Lo! the sable veil and the saintly air,And the lofty calm of a beauty rare,Proclaim that watcher, the chosen bride,Of the world’s Redeemer—the CrucifiedThe stifled groan, the sharp cry of distressWith their burden of woe, through the hot air press,And the Sister of Holy Cross low doth bend;Her prayer with the pestilence breath to blend.O Sister of Holy Cross, why art thouThus won by the pallid and death-cold brow?III.He is not thy brother, yon prostrate form,Who moans there all bathed in his life-blood warm;And the veteran wounded—his locks so gray—He is not thy father; then, wherefore stay?All these are but strangers. Thou, too, art frail;Contagion is borne on the midnight gale.Ah! a veteran heart, and a nerve more strong,Unto scenes and to sights like these belong.O I see her bend with a gentler grace,And a holier light in her tranquil face,And sweet tears methinks from her mild eyes flowAs she bends o’er her crucifix fondly, low!IV.How reverent her kiss on those sacred feet!And almost I hear now her heart’s quick beat;And her low voice sways with a loving might,Like the key-note by heaven entoned to-night;“O ask me not wherefore my heart is boundTo scenes where but agony clusters around.O bid me not go from a place like this,For my labor is rest, and my tears are bliss!”One hand she laid on her throbbing breast,While the Holy Cross to her lips she pressed.“Nor a stronger nerve; nor a heart more sternCould enkindle the fire that here doth burn.V.“Ah! these are not strangers, for God hath died;And for each in His love shed His heart’s full tide;’Tis for His dear sake that with joy I bear,This breath of contagion; this noisome air.Ah! when I behold here the shattered limb—The crimson blood oozing, the eyesight dim;See the gore and the gashes; the death-sweat cold,It is my Redeemer that I behold;His wounds that I stanch; His brow that I lave;His form that I straighten and shroud for the grave.I faint not; I fear not, for faith is strongSince my love and my hope to the Cross belong.”VI.Then, then did my heart with her meaning thrill:My eyes from the fount of my soul did fill.For the sake of our loving and Crucified LordThe cordial she mingled; the wine she poured.Compassion she drinks at the fountain head;The Mother of Sorrows her soul hath led.How sacred the treasures she stores at Her feet;Her lesson makes mourning than joy more sweet.’Tis the Queen of Mercy bends down to blessThe wealth of her heavenly tenderness,And the Angel of Peace from his home of lightHas baffled the fiends in her mission to-night!
I.
The din of the battle has died away;The twilight has grown to a deeper gray;The moon rises pale through the mistly cloud,While the blood-stained rivulet moans aloud;And the beams are faint in the kindly stars,For hope shines no more from their golden bars.The leaves of the tremulous aspen sighAs the night winds, wailing, sweep mournfully by.The ambulance glides through the gloomy path,To heed the wreck of the War Demon’s wrath;And the Angel of Peace, from his home sublime,Weeps o’er man’s wretchedness, folly and crime.
II.
’Tis the hour of midnight. How lightly treadThe feet of the watcher, ’mid dying and dead.Lo! the sable veil and the saintly air,And the lofty calm of a beauty rare,Proclaim that watcher, the chosen bride,Of the world’s Redeemer—the CrucifiedThe stifled groan, the sharp cry of distressWith their burden of woe, through the hot air press,And the Sister of Holy Cross low doth bend;Her prayer with the pestilence breath to blend.O Sister of Holy Cross, why art thouThus won by the pallid and death-cold brow?
III.
He is not thy brother, yon prostrate form,Who moans there all bathed in his life-blood warm;And the veteran wounded—his locks so gray—He is not thy father; then, wherefore stay?All these are but strangers. Thou, too, art frail;Contagion is borne on the midnight gale.Ah! a veteran heart, and a nerve more strong,Unto scenes and to sights like these belong.O I see her bend with a gentler grace,And a holier light in her tranquil face,And sweet tears methinks from her mild eyes flowAs she bends o’er her crucifix fondly, low!
IV.
How reverent her kiss on those sacred feet!And almost I hear now her heart’s quick beat;And her low voice sways with a loving might,Like the key-note by heaven entoned to-night;“O ask me not wherefore my heart is boundTo scenes where but agony clusters around.O bid me not go from a place like this,For my labor is rest, and my tears are bliss!”One hand she laid on her throbbing breast,While the Holy Cross to her lips she pressed.“Nor a stronger nerve; nor a heart more sternCould enkindle the fire that here doth burn.
V.
“Ah! these are not strangers, for God hath died;And for each in His love shed His heart’s full tide;’Tis for His dear sake that with joy I bear,This breath of contagion; this noisome air.Ah! when I behold here the shattered limb—The crimson blood oozing, the eyesight dim;See the gore and the gashes; the death-sweat cold,It is my Redeemer that I behold;His wounds that I stanch; His brow that I lave;His form that I straighten and shroud for the grave.I faint not; I fear not, for faith is strongSince my love and my hope to the Cross belong.”
VI.
Then, then did my heart with her meaning thrill:My eyes from the fount of my soul did fill.For the sake of our loving and Crucified LordThe cordial she mingled; the wine she poured.Compassion she drinks at the fountain head;The Mother of Sorrows her soul hath led.How sacred the treasures she stores at Her feet;Her lesson makes mourning than joy more sweet.’Tis the Queen of Mercy bends down to blessThe wealth of her heavenly tenderness,And the Angel of Peace from his home of lightHas baffled the fiends in her mission to-night!
Mother Angela rarely spoke of her services in the war, and with characteristic modesty and humility frequently endeavored to give others the credit that belonged to herself. She was a writer with an unusual grace and charm of style. One of those who served with her during the war was Sister Mary Josephine. This devoted Sister died in 1886, and her death evoked the following dramatic story from the pen of Mother Angela. It was a true story, and one of her last contributions to the “Ave Maria.”
“Sister Josephine was one among the first of the seventy Sisters of the Holy Cross who, during the late civil war, served the sick and wounded soldiers in the military hospitals of Louisville, Paducah, Cairo, Mound City, Memphis and Washington city.“Those who knew this quiet, gentle religious only during the last twenty years of her life could scarcely realize what courage, even heroism, animated her during those years of the war spent in the hospitals. We give below one instance among many others.“In the summer of 1862 the Confederate Fort Charles, on White River, was attacked on land by a force under the command of Colonel Fitch, of Indiana, and from the water by gunboats commanded by Commodore Davis. In the midst of the battle the boilers of one of the gunboats exploded, frightfully scalding Captain Kelty and some fifty others. The sufferers, in their agony, leaped into the river, and as they did so a broadside from Fort Charles poured bullets and grapeshot into their parboiled flesh.“The battle ended with the capture of the fort, and the wounded of both sides were taken to Mound City Hospital—a block of some twenty-four unfinished warehouses and storerooms, that had been converted into a vast hospital—in which, after some of the great battles in the Mississippi Valley, as many as two thousand patients were treated by a staff of medical officers, and nursed by twenty-eightSisters, Sister Josephine being one of them. Colonel Fry, commander of the fort, supposed to be dangerously wounded, and Captain Kelty were of the number brought to Mound City after the surrender of Fort Charles.“The latter was a universal favorite of all the men and officers of the Western flotilla. His sad state—the scalded flesh falling from the bones, and pierced with bullets—excited them almost to frenzy. He was tenderly placed in a little cottage away from the main building, and Colonel Fry, with a few other sufferers, was put in a front room in the second story of the hospital, under the immediate care of Sister Josephine.“The next day the report spread like wildfire through the hospital, and among the one hundred soldiers detailed to guard it, that Captain Kelty was dying. The wildest excitement prevailed, and in the frenzy of the moment Colonel Fry was denounced as his murderer; it was declared that he had given the inhuman order to fire on the scalded men. Everyone firmly believed this. But it was not true. Colonel Fry was ignorant of the explosion when the order was given.“Sister Josephine, very pale, yet wonderfully composed, went to the Sister in charge of the hospital to say that all the wounded had just been removed from the room under her care except Colonel Fry. The soldiers detailed to guard the hospital, and the gunboat men, had built a rough scaffold in front of the two windows of the room, mounted it, with loaded guns, and loudly declared that they would stay there, and the moment they heard of Captain Kelty’s death they would shoot Colonel Fry. ‘And,’ continued Sister Josephine, ‘the doctor made me leave the room, saying that my life was in danger. He took the key from the door and gave it to “Dutch Johnny,” telling him that he had entire charge of the man within.’“Now, ‘Dutch Johnny’ was one of six brothers; five had been killed at Belmont; Johnny was so badly woundedand crippled in the same battle that he was useless for active service, and so left to help in the hospital. But one idea possessed him; in revenge for his brothers’ death he intended to kill five Confederates before he died.“In this fearful state of affairs the Sister in charge went to the Surgeon General of the staff, begging him to see that no murder be committed. Dr. Franklin answered that he was powerless to control events, and that the captain of the company guarding the hospital was absent.“‘Then,’ said the Sister, ‘I must call my twenty-seven Sisters from the sick; we will leave the hospital, and walk to Cairo.’ (A distance of three miles.)“In vain did the doctor represent to her the sad state of all the patients she was leaving; she would not consent to remain in a house where murder would soon be committed; except on one condition: that the doctor would give her the key of Colonel Fry’s room, and that the Sisters have the care and entire control of the patient.“‘But,’ expostulated the doctor, ‘it will be at the risk of your lives; for if Captain Kelty dies—and I see no hopes of his recovery—no power on earth can restrain those men from shooting Colonel Fry.’“‘Oh, doctor!’ she answered, ‘I have too much faith in the natural chivalry of every soldier—be he from North or South of Mason and Dixon’s line—to fear he would shoot a poor, wounded man while a Sister stood near him!’“Seeing the Sisters would leave if this request was not granted, the doctor sent for ‘Dutch Johnny,’ took the key from him and gave it to the Sister. The latter called for Sister Josephine, and both went in haste to the room of the wounded man.“As they turned the key and opened the door a fearful scene was before them. Colonel Fry lay in a cot: his arms, both broken, were strapped up with cords fastened to the ceiling; one broken leg was strapped to the bed; only his head seemed free. As he turned it, and glared fiercely,as he thought, upon another foe, he seemed like some wild animal at bay and goaded to madness. Before Sister Josephine had been forced to leave the room she had closed the windows and lowered the blinds; but her successor, ‘Dutch Johnny,’ had changed all this; he had rolled up the blinds, and threw up the lower sashes. And there, on the raised platform, not fifty feet from him, Colonel Fry could see the faces and hear the voices of the soldiers and gunboat men, shouting every few minutes for him to be ready to die, for they would shoot him as soon as they heard of Captain Kelty’s death.“Very quickly and gently did Sister Josephine speak to the wounded man, moistening his parched lips with a cooling drink, giving what relief she could to the poor, tortured body, and assuring him that she and the other Sister would not leave him; so he need not fear that the soldiers would fire while they remained.“When these men saw the Sisters in the room they begged them to leave, even threatened, but to no purpose; brave, noble Sister Josephine and her companion stood at their post all through that long afternoon, and far into the night; and they prayed, perhaps more earnestly than they ever prayed before, that Captain Kelty would not die; for, in spite of all their assuring words to Colonel Fry, they did not feel so very certain that their lives would be safe among frenzied men, bent on their taking revenge into their own hands.“In the meantime it became known that Captain Kelty was a Catholic—a convert—though for many years he had neglected his religious duties. A messenger was sent to Cairo to bring Father Welsh to the dying man. When he came Captain Kelty was in delirium, and the Father could give him only Extreme Unction. Soon after, about 9 o’clock, he sank into a quiet sleep. He awoke, perfectly conscious, near midnight, made his confession, received Holy Communion, and took some nourishment. The doctorsaid all danger was over, and a messenger ran in breathless haste to spread the glad tidings. The excited soldiers fired a few blank cartridges as a parting salvo, jumped from the scaffold, and were seen no more. The rest of the night good Sister Josephine took care of her patient, undisturbed by any serious fear that both might be sent into eternity before morning.“When the naval officers, who the night before had looked, as they feared, their last look on the living face of Captain Kelty, went up the next day from Cairo and found him out of danger, they laughed and cried with joy. In a whisper Captain Kelty asked them to be silent for a moment and listen to him. In a voice trembling with weakness he said:“‘While I thank these good doctors for all they have done, I must testify—and they will bear me out in what I say—it was not their skill nor any earthly power that brought me back from the brink of the grave, but the saving and life-giving Sacraments of the Catholic Church.’“Colonel Fry and Captain Kelty had long known each other. Both were naval officers, until at the beginning of the war Captain Fry left the service, and was made Colonel Fry in the Confederate Army.“As soon as Captain Kelty was well enough to learn what had passed, he declared Colonel Fry was guiltless of the barbarity of which he had been accused. And Sister Josephine was made the bearer to her patient of all the delicacies sent to Captain Kelty, and which he insisted on sharing with Colonel Fry.“As soon as Captain Kelty could travel he was taken to his home in Baltimore. For his bravery he was made Commodore, and placed in command at Norfolk; but he was maimed for life; his right hand and arm, all shriveled and wasted, hung lifeless by his side. When able to take such a journey alone, he went all the way back to Cairo to see again and thank those Sisters, who, he said, underGod, had saved his life in a double sense. He remained until his death a most fervent Catholic.“Colonel Fry, after many months of suffering, also recovered; he was paroled, and returned to his home in New Orleans. There he became a Catholic, often declaring that good Sister Josephine’s bravery and devotedness during that day and night of torture and agony, followed by months of long suffering, were eloquent sermons that he could not resist.“A few years after the close of the war he was one of the leaders of that rash band of adventurers who invaded Cuba. His fate is well known; with those under his command he was captured and executed. But it is not so well known that he profited by the days spent in prison, in instructing those with him; and many were converted to the holy faith that first came to him through Sister Josephine.“Twenty-three years to the very month passed away, when quietly and calmly, as in the discharge of hospital duties, this good Sister, strengthened by the Sacraments of the Church, literally fell asleep in Our Lord, a few days after the close of the annual retreat, at which she had assisted. Owing to the intense heat of the weather, it was deemed necessary to advance the hour of burial from 6 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock on the previous evening. Scarce ever was a procession so affecting; the Sisters—more than three hundred in number—all bearing lighted tapers, the Rev. Chaplains, and the venerable Father Sorin, Superior General, C. S. C., followed the remains of Sister Josephine through the beautiful grounds of St. Mary’s to the cemetery. The moon shone as brightly on her lifeless body as it had shone years ago through the open window on her brave, gentle form, when she saved from death or insanity the wounded prisoner.“Of the four persons most interested in that night of agony and torture in the vast military hospital on thebanks of the Ohio, but one now remains—Sister Josephine’s companion. May the three gone to eternity remember her before God.”The sole survivor of that dreadful episode and the historian of the event has also gone to her reward. The prayers of innumerable persons that have benefited by her charity and goodness ascend to the skies, coupled with the hope that Mother Angela will not forget those she has left behind.
“Sister Josephine was one among the first of the seventy Sisters of the Holy Cross who, during the late civil war, served the sick and wounded soldiers in the military hospitals of Louisville, Paducah, Cairo, Mound City, Memphis and Washington city.
“Those who knew this quiet, gentle religious only during the last twenty years of her life could scarcely realize what courage, even heroism, animated her during those years of the war spent in the hospitals. We give below one instance among many others.
“In the summer of 1862 the Confederate Fort Charles, on White River, was attacked on land by a force under the command of Colonel Fitch, of Indiana, and from the water by gunboats commanded by Commodore Davis. In the midst of the battle the boilers of one of the gunboats exploded, frightfully scalding Captain Kelty and some fifty others. The sufferers, in their agony, leaped into the river, and as they did so a broadside from Fort Charles poured bullets and grapeshot into their parboiled flesh.
“The battle ended with the capture of the fort, and the wounded of both sides were taken to Mound City Hospital—a block of some twenty-four unfinished warehouses and storerooms, that had been converted into a vast hospital—in which, after some of the great battles in the Mississippi Valley, as many as two thousand patients were treated by a staff of medical officers, and nursed by twenty-eightSisters, Sister Josephine being one of them. Colonel Fry, commander of the fort, supposed to be dangerously wounded, and Captain Kelty were of the number brought to Mound City after the surrender of Fort Charles.
“The latter was a universal favorite of all the men and officers of the Western flotilla. His sad state—the scalded flesh falling from the bones, and pierced with bullets—excited them almost to frenzy. He was tenderly placed in a little cottage away from the main building, and Colonel Fry, with a few other sufferers, was put in a front room in the second story of the hospital, under the immediate care of Sister Josephine.
“The next day the report spread like wildfire through the hospital, and among the one hundred soldiers detailed to guard it, that Captain Kelty was dying. The wildest excitement prevailed, and in the frenzy of the moment Colonel Fry was denounced as his murderer; it was declared that he had given the inhuman order to fire on the scalded men. Everyone firmly believed this. But it was not true. Colonel Fry was ignorant of the explosion when the order was given.
“Sister Josephine, very pale, yet wonderfully composed, went to the Sister in charge of the hospital to say that all the wounded had just been removed from the room under her care except Colonel Fry. The soldiers detailed to guard the hospital, and the gunboat men, had built a rough scaffold in front of the two windows of the room, mounted it, with loaded guns, and loudly declared that they would stay there, and the moment they heard of Captain Kelty’s death they would shoot Colonel Fry. ‘And,’ continued Sister Josephine, ‘the doctor made me leave the room, saying that my life was in danger. He took the key from the door and gave it to “Dutch Johnny,” telling him that he had entire charge of the man within.’
“Now, ‘Dutch Johnny’ was one of six brothers; five had been killed at Belmont; Johnny was so badly woundedand crippled in the same battle that he was useless for active service, and so left to help in the hospital. But one idea possessed him; in revenge for his brothers’ death he intended to kill five Confederates before he died.
“In this fearful state of affairs the Sister in charge went to the Surgeon General of the staff, begging him to see that no murder be committed. Dr. Franklin answered that he was powerless to control events, and that the captain of the company guarding the hospital was absent.
“‘Then,’ said the Sister, ‘I must call my twenty-seven Sisters from the sick; we will leave the hospital, and walk to Cairo.’ (A distance of three miles.)
“In vain did the doctor represent to her the sad state of all the patients she was leaving; she would not consent to remain in a house where murder would soon be committed; except on one condition: that the doctor would give her the key of Colonel Fry’s room, and that the Sisters have the care and entire control of the patient.
“‘But,’ expostulated the doctor, ‘it will be at the risk of your lives; for if Captain Kelty dies—and I see no hopes of his recovery—no power on earth can restrain those men from shooting Colonel Fry.’
“‘Oh, doctor!’ she answered, ‘I have too much faith in the natural chivalry of every soldier—be he from North or South of Mason and Dixon’s line—to fear he would shoot a poor, wounded man while a Sister stood near him!’
“Seeing the Sisters would leave if this request was not granted, the doctor sent for ‘Dutch Johnny,’ took the key from him and gave it to the Sister. The latter called for Sister Josephine, and both went in haste to the room of the wounded man.
“As they turned the key and opened the door a fearful scene was before them. Colonel Fry lay in a cot: his arms, both broken, were strapped up with cords fastened to the ceiling; one broken leg was strapped to the bed; only his head seemed free. As he turned it, and glared fiercely,as he thought, upon another foe, he seemed like some wild animal at bay and goaded to madness. Before Sister Josephine had been forced to leave the room she had closed the windows and lowered the blinds; but her successor, ‘Dutch Johnny,’ had changed all this; he had rolled up the blinds, and threw up the lower sashes. And there, on the raised platform, not fifty feet from him, Colonel Fry could see the faces and hear the voices of the soldiers and gunboat men, shouting every few minutes for him to be ready to die, for they would shoot him as soon as they heard of Captain Kelty’s death.
“Very quickly and gently did Sister Josephine speak to the wounded man, moistening his parched lips with a cooling drink, giving what relief she could to the poor, tortured body, and assuring him that she and the other Sister would not leave him; so he need not fear that the soldiers would fire while they remained.
“When these men saw the Sisters in the room they begged them to leave, even threatened, but to no purpose; brave, noble Sister Josephine and her companion stood at their post all through that long afternoon, and far into the night; and they prayed, perhaps more earnestly than they ever prayed before, that Captain Kelty would not die; for, in spite of all their assuring words to Colonel Fry, they did not feel so very certain that their lives would be safe among frenzied men, bent on their taking revenge into their own hands.
“In the meantime it became known that Captain Kelty was a Catholic—a convert—though for many years he had neglected his religious duties. A messenger was sent to Cairo to bring Father Welsh to the dying man. When he came Captain Kelty was in delirium, and the Father could give him only Extreme Unction. Soon after, about 9 o’clock, he sank into a quiet sleep. He awoke, perfectly conscious, near midnight, made his confession, received Holy Communion, and took some nourishment. The doctorsaid all danger was over, and a messenger ran in breathless haste to spread the glad tidings. The excited soldiers fired a few blank cartridges as a parting salvo, jumped from the scaffold, and were seen no more. The rest of the night good Sister Josephine took care of her patient, undisturbed by any serious fear that both might be sent into eternity before morning.
“When the naval officers, who the night before had looked, as they feared, their last look on the living face of Captain Kelty, went up the next day from Cairo and found him out of danger, they laughed and cried with joy. In a whisper Captain Kelty asked them to be silent for a moment and listen to him. In a voice trembling with weakness he said:
“‘While I thank these good doctors for all they have done, I must testify—and they will bear me out in what I say—it was not their skill nor any earthly power that brought me back from the brink of the grave, but the saving and life-giving Sacraments of the Catholic Church.’
“Colonel Fry and Captain Kelty had long known each other. Both were naval officers, until at the beginning of the war Captain Fry left the service, and was made Colonel Fry in the Confederate Army.
“As soon as Captain Kelty was well enough to learn what had passed, he declared Colonel Fry was guiltless of the barbarity of which he had been accused. And Sister Josephine was made the bearer to her patient of all the delicacies sent to Captain Kelty, and which he insisted on sharing with Colonel Fry.
“As soon as Captain Kelty could travel he was taken to his home in Baltimore. For his bravery he was made Commodore, and placed in command at Norfolk; but he was maimed for life; his right hand and arm, all shriveled and wasted, hung lifeless by his side. When able to take such a journey alone, he went all the way back to Cairo to see again and thank those Sisters, who, he said, underGod, had saved his life in a double sense. He remained until his death a most fervent Catholic.
“Colonel Fry, after many months of suffering, also recovered; he was paroled, and returned to his home in New Orleans. There he became a Catholic, often declaring that good Sister Josephine’s bravery and devotedness during that day and night of torture and agony, followed by months of long suffering, were eloquent sermons that he could not resist.
“A few years after the close of the war he was one of the leaders of that rash band of adventurers who invaded Cuba. His fate is well known; with those under his command he was captured and executed. But it is not so well known that he profited by the days spent in prison, in instructing those with him; and many were converted to the holy faith that first came to him through Sister Josephine.
“Twenty-three years to the very month passed away, when quietly and calmly, as in the discharge of hospital duties, this good Sister, strengthened by the Sacraments of the Church, literally fell asleep in Our Lord, a few days after the close of the annual retreat, at which she had assisted. Owing to the intense heat of the weather, it was deemed necessary to advance the hour of burial from 6 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock on the previous evening. Scarce ever was a procession so affecting; the Sisters—more than three hundred in number—all bearing lighted tapers, the Rev. Chaplains, and the venerable Father Sorin, Superior General, C. S. C., followed the remains of Sister Josephine through the beautiful grounds of St. Mary’s to the cemetery. The moon shone as brightly on her lifeless body as it had shone years ago through the open window on her brave, gentle form, when she saved from death or insanity the wounded prisoner.
“Of the four persons most interested in that night of agony and torture in the vast military hospital on thebanks of the Ohio, but one now remains—Sister Josephine’s companion. May the three gone to eternity remember her before God.”
The sole survivor of that dreadful episode and the historian of the event has also gone to her reward. The prayers of innumerable persons that have benefited by her charity and goodness ascend to the skies, coupled with the hope that Mother Angela will not forget those she has left behind.
Comment of Mary A. Livermore upon the work of Mother Angela at Mound City: “The world has known no nobler and more heroic women than those found in the ranks of the Catholic Sisterhoods.” A famous scout gives his impressions of the Sisters. Susan D. Messinger tells of the work of the Sisters at New Berne, N. C.