University of Virginia Library

KADY BROWNELL,
THE HEROINE OF NEWBERN.

ALL our revolutionary historians are eloquent in their
praises of the bold heroine of Monmouth, "Captain
Molly." They tell us how she was carrying water to the
men of Proctor's battery on that hot and bloody afternoon
in July, when a ball crushed in the skull of her husband,
just as he was ramming a charge into his field piece, and
he fell at her feet a bloody corpse. "Lie there, my darling,
till I avenge your death!" exclaimed Molly, and seizing the
rammer, she went on with the work which death had cut
short, while the men cheered her all along the line. All
through that afternoon, till night covered the landscape
and closed the battle, Molly stood by her gun, and made
good her husband's place, swabbing the piece, and forcing
home the successive charges with the vigor and coolness of
the bravest soldier. The next morning she was presented
to General Wayne, all soiled and bloody as she had fought;
and Washington gave her a commission as sergeant, and by
his recommendation her name was placed on the list of half-pay
officers for life.

The annals of our great war for the Union are not wanting
in similar instances where the wife of the soldier has

KADY BROWNELL
IN ARMY COSTUME.

Entered according to act of Congress A.D. 1866 by SS Scranton & Co. in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the U.States for the District of Connecticut.

Engd. by G.E. Perine & Co. N.Y.

Engraved Expressly for the Women of the War.

gone with her husband, experienced all the hardships of the
camp, stood in the line with sword at her side, carried the
colors into the thickest of the fight, and then, when the
bloody work was over, devoted herself, with the delicate
tenderness of her sex, to mitigating the horrors of the
battle-field.

Such was the brave young wife whose name stands at the
head of our sketch; and such were her courage, her bearing,
and her services on the plains of Manassas and at the battle
of Newbern. Her father was a Scotchman, and a soldier
in the British army. He was stationed far away on the
African coast, in Caffraria; and there, in the year 1842, in the
regimental barracks, and surrounded by the rude but kind
old soldiers, her father's companions in arms, little Kady
was born.

Accustomed to arms and soldiers from infancy, she
learned to love the camp; and it was not strange, years
later, when she had come to America and married a young
mechanic in Providence, that the recollections of the
camp fire in front of her father's tent, as well as the devotion
of a newly-married wife, and loyalty to the Union,
prompted her to follow her husband, stand beside him in
battle, and share all his hardships.

Her husband, Robert S. Brownell, was made orderly
sergeant of a company in the first Rhode Island infantry,
one of the earliest regiments of three months' men who
responded to the first call for troops, the day after national
colors were run down the flag-mast at Fort Sumter.

The first Rhode Island infantry was soon full to overflowing.
It had eleven full companies of a hundred each;

and as ten were enough for a complete organization, the
eleventh was formed into a company of carbineers or sharpshooters,
and the brave young wife of the orderly was
made the color-bearer of this company.

When the regiment went into camp in Maryland, early in
the summer of 1861, this Daughter of the Regiment was
resolved not to be a mere water-carrier, nor an ornamental
appendage. She would be effective against the enemy, as
well as a graceful figure on parade, and applied herself to
learn all the arts and accomplishments of the soldier.
When the company went out to practise daily at the target,
she carried her rifle, as well as the colors; and when her
turn came, the men seldom restricted her to the three shots
which were allowed to each. So pleased were they at her
skill and coolness with the weapon, that she was allowed as
many shots as she chose, and thus became one of the quickest
and most accurate marksmen in the regiment. Nor was
the sergeant's straight sword, which hung at her belt, worn
as an idle form. She practised daily with her husband and
his friends in camp, till she felt herself as familiar with its
uses as with the carbine.

When the regiment moved she sought no indulgences on
account of her sex, but marched in line beside her husband,
wearing her sword and carrying the flag.

The middle of July came, and the Union army was at
length moving southward from the Potomac, its face set
towards Richmond. She marched with her company, and
carried her flag. On the day of the general action she was
separated from her husband, the carbineers with whom she
was connected being deployed as skirmishers in the skirt of

pine woods on the left of the line. About one o'clock on
that eventful day the company was brought under fire. She
did not carry her carbine that day, but acted simply as
color-bearer. The men, according to skirmish tactics, were
taken out by fours, and advanced towards the enemy. She
remained in the line, guarding the colors, and thus giving a
definite point on which the men could rally, as the skirmish
deepened into a general engagement. There she stood,
unmoved and dauntless, under the withering heat, and amid
the roar, and blood, and dust of that terrible July day.
Shells went screaming over her with the howl of an
avenging demon, and the air was thick and hot with deadly
singing of the minie balls. About four o'clock, far away
on the right, where the roar had been loudest, a sudden
and marvellous change came over the scene. The Union
line was broken, and what was a few moments before a firm
and resolute army, worn and bleeding, but pressing to
victory, became a confused and panic-stricken rout.

The confusion now ran down the line, from right to left,
and the sharpshooters of the first Rhode Island, seeing the
battle lost and the enemy advancing, made the best retreat
they could in the direction of Centreville. But so rapidly
spread the panic, that they did not rally on their colors
and retreat in order. She knew her duty better, and
remained in position till the advancing batteries of the
enemy opened within a few hundred yards of where she
stood, and were pouring shells into the retreating mass.
Just then a soldier in a Pennsylvania regiment, who was
running past, seized her by the hand, and said, "Come, sis;
there's no use to stay here just to be killed; let's get into

the woods." She started down a slope with him towards a
pine thicket. They had run hardly twenty steps, when a
cannon ball struck him full on the head, and in an instant
he was sinking beside her, a shapeless and mutilated corpse.
His shattered skull rested a moment on her shoulder, and
streams of blood ran over her uniform.

She kept on to the woods, where she found some of the
company, and before long chanced upon the ambulance,
into which she jumped; but the balls were flying too thick
through the cover. She sprang out, and soon after found
a stray horse, on which she jumped, and rode to Centreville.
Here and at Arlington Heights, for more than thirty hours,
she was tortured by the most harassing stories about her
husband.

One had seen him fall dead. Another had helped him
into an ambulance, badly wounded. Another had carried
him to a hospital, and the enemy had fired the building, and
all within had perished. Then, again, she learned that his
dead body was left in the skirt of pine woods in front of
where she stood. So fully did she believe this at one time,
that she had mounted a horse, and was starting back from
Alexandria, in hope of getting through the lines and finding
him, when she was met by Colonel Burnside, who assured
her that Robert was unhurt, and she should see him in a
few hours.

The first Rhode Island was a three months regiment, and
its time expired on the 1st of August.

She returned with it to Providence, where she received a
regular discharge; but it was only to reënlist with her
husband in the fifth Rhode Island. The fall of 1861 was a

time of inaction in the army. McClellan had taken command,
and for months the great Union army, with a spirit
and intelligence never equalled in any military organization,
and abounding in zeal for "short, sharp, and decisive"
work, was month after month getting ready to move.
Meantime Burnside, who was a colonel at Bull Run, had
been made a brigadier, and placed in command of the
Burnside expedition, whose duty it was to penetrate the
country south of Richmond, and at the opportune moment
to advance on Richmond from that direction, while the
grand army should march upon it from the north.

The fifth Rhode Island was in his force. In January
Roanoke Island was taken, and the first blow struck at the
rebel power. Early in March he was in Neuse River, and
advancing on Newbern. In the organization of the regiment
Kady was not now a regular color-bearer, but acting in
the double capacity of nurse and daughter of the regiment.
When the force debarked, on the thirteenth, she
marched with the regiment fourteen miles, through the
mud of Neuse River bottom, and early the next morning
attired herself in the coast uniform, as it was called,
and was in readiness, and was earnest in the wish and
the hope that she might carry the regimental colors at
the head of the stormers when they should charge upon
the enemy's field works.

She begged the privilege, and it was finally granted her,
to go with them up to the time when the charge should be
ordered. Here, by her promptness and courage, she performed
an act which saved the lives of perhaps a score of
brave fellows, who were on the point of being sacrificed by

one of those blunders which cannot always be avoided
when so large a proportion of the officers of any force are
civilians, whose coolness is not equal to their courage.

As the various regiments were getting their positions,
the fifth Rhode Island was seen advancing from a belt of
wood, from a direction that was unexpected. They were
mistaken for a force of the rebels, and preparations instantly
made to open on it with both musketry and
artillery, when Kady ran out to the front, her colors in
hand, advanced to clear ground, and waved them till it
was apparent that the advancing force were friends. The
battle now opened in good earnest. Shot and shell were
flying thick, and many a brave man was clinching his
musket with nervous fingers, and looking at the bristling
line of bayonets and gun-barrels which they were about to
charge with anything but cheerful faces, when Kady again
begged to carry her colors into the charge. But the officers
did not see fit to grant her request, and she walked slowly
to the rear, and immediately devoted herself to the equally
sacred and no less important duty of caring for the wounded.

In a few moments word was brought that Robert had
fallen, and lay bleeding in the brick-yard. That was the
part of the line where the fifth Rhode Island had just
charged and carried the enemy's works. She ran immediately
to the spot, and found her husband lying there, his
thigh bone fearfully shattered with a minie ball; but, fortunately,
the main femoral artery had not been cut, so that his
life was not immediately in danger from bleeding.

She went out where the dead and wounded were lying
thick along the breastwork, to get blankets that would no

longer do them any good, in order to make her husband
and others more comfortable.

Here she saw several lying helpless in the mud and shallow
water of the yard. Two or three of them she helped
up, and they dragged themselves to dryer ground. Among
them was a rebel engineer, whose foot had been crushed by
the fragment of a shell. She showed him the same kindness
that she did the rest; and the treatment she received
in return was so unnatural and fiendish that we can hardly
explain it, except by believing that the hatred of the time
had driven from the hearts of some, at least, of the rebels,
all honorable and all Christian sentiments.

The rebel engineer had fallen in a pool of dirty water, and
was rapidly losing blood, and growing cold in consequence
of this and the water in which he lay.

She took him under his arms and dragged him back to
dry ground, arranged a blanket for him to lie on, and
another to cover him, and fixed a cartridge box, or something
similar, to support his head.

As soon as he had grown a little comfortable, and rallied
from the extreme pain, he rose up, and shaking his fist at
her, with a volley of horrible and obscene oaths, exclaimed,
"Ah, you d— Yankee —, if ever I get on my feet
again, if I don't blow the head off your shoulders, then
God d— me!" For an instant the blood of an insulted
woman, the daughter of a soldier, and the daughter of a
regiment, was in mutiny. She snatched a musket with
bayonet fixed, that lay close by, and an instant more his
profane and indecent tongue would have been hushed
forever. But, as she was plunging the bayonet at his

breast, a wounded Union soldier, who lay near, caught the
point of it in his hand; remonstrated against killing a
wounded enemy, no matter what he said; and in her heart
the woman triumphed, and she spared him, ingrate that
he was.

She returned to the house where Robert had been carried,
and spreading blankets under him, made him as comfortable
as he could be at a temporary hospital. The nature of his
wound was such that his critical time would come two or
three weeks later, when the shattered pieces of bone must
come out before the healing process could commence. All
she could do now was simply to keep the limb cool by
regular and constant applications of cold water.

From the middle of March to the last of April she
remained in Newbern, nursing her husband, who for some
time grew worse, and needed constant and skilful nursing
to save his life. When not over him, she was doing all she
could for other sufferers. Notwithstanding her experience
with the inhuman engineer, the wounded rebels found her
the best friend they had. Every day she contrived to save
a bucket of coffee and a pail of delicate soup, and would
take it over and give it out with her own hands to the
wounded in the rebel hospital. While she was thus waiting
on these helpless and almost deserted sufferers, she one day
saw two of the Newbern ladies, who had come in silks to
look at their wounded countrymen. One of them was
standing between two beds, in such a position as to obstruct
the narrow passage. Our heroine politely requested her
to let her pass, when she remarked to the other female
who came with her, "That's one of our women — isn't it?"

"No," was the sneering response, "she's a Yankee —,"
using a term which never defiles the lips of a lady. The
rebel surgeon very properly ordered her out of the house.

It is but justice, however, to say that in some of her
rebel acquaintances at Newbern human nature was not so
scandalized.

Colonel Avery, a rebel officer, soon after he was captured,
said something to her about carrying the wrong flag,
and that "the stars and bars" was the flag. "It won't be
the flag till after your head is cold," was her quick reply.
The colonel said something not so complimentary to her
judgment, when General Burnside, who was standing near,
told him to cease that language, as he was talking to a
woman. Immediately the colonel made the most ample
apologies, and expressed his admiration of her spirit and
courage, and afterwards insisted on her receiving from him
sundry Confederate notes in payment of her kindness to
the wounded among his men. There was one poor rebel,
who died of lockjaw from an amputated leg, whom she
really pitied. He said he "allus was agin the war —
never believed Jeff Davis and them would succeed no how,"
and talked about his poor wife and his seven children, who
would be left in poverty, and whom he would never see
again, in a way so natural and kindly that she forget all
about the brutal engineer and the insulting woman in silk,
and did all she could to make the poor old man comfortable.
He was fond of smoking, and in the terrible pain he
suffered, the narcotic effect of the tobacco was very soothing.
Kady used to light his pipe for him at the hospital
fire, and go and give it to him.

In April Robert could bear removal, and was made as
comfortable as possible on a cot on the steamship. Arriving
in New York, he lay a long time at the New England
Rooms; and his faithful wife, as tender as she is brave,
thought only of his life and his recovery. But it was
eighteen months before he touched ground, and then the
surgeons pronounced him unfit for active service; and as his
soldier days were over, Kady had no thought of anything
more but the plain duties of the loving wife and the
kind friend. The colors she so proudly carried she still
keeps, as well as her discharge, signed A. E. Burnside, and
the sergeant sword, with her name cut on the scabbard, and
sundry other trophies of the Newbern days. An excellent
rifle, which she captured, she gave to a soldier friend, who
carried it back to the front, and fought with it till the war
was ended.