Angels of the battlefield : a history of the labors of the Catholic sisterhoods in the late Civil War / by George Barton.

  • Barton, George, 1866-1940.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Angels of the battlefield : a history of the labors of the Catholic sisterhoods in the late Civil War / by George Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    293/462 (page 259)
    “Soutliern sympathizers in Washington sent large supplies of provisions and delicacies for their Confederate friends. We took all they sent,’ said a veteran Sister, ‘but we saw that the boys in blue fared as well as their foes.’ This was holy simplicity. At the time the Sisters were engaged in their work of mercy in the hospitals and on the battlefields of the North some of their compauions who had left their side a few years before were under the shot and shell which were hurled from land and water when Grant besieged Vicksburg, and fear and famine stalked the Confederate camp and city. The Sisters fol- lowed the ill-fated army through all the hard fortunes of the struggle; nursed the sick, stanched the blood, bound up the wounds of those who fell on the battlefield, and spoke words of consolation and hope to the dying. ‘We can read in military annals how the dying sol- dier fancied a mother or a sister to be supporting his head as the black-robed nun bade him confide in the Saviour of Calvary, and poured refreshing drops on his lips parched and quivering in the throes of death. It was loyalty to the Divine Master that caused these women to serve on both sides of the line. “After the war the Vicksburg Community returned to their convent and found their latest golden opportunity in the South in the great yellow fever scourge of 1878, which spread sorrow and gloom over the land, until even hope was almost pariilyzed. Yes, when fear had dissolved all the ties Avhich hold society together; when succor could not be bought with gold; when the strongest natur- al affections vielded to the love of life, then a band of Sis- ters of Mercy, led by the same fearless heroines from Pittsburg who fifteen years before had seen duty on the