University of Virginia Library

MARGARET E. BRECKINRIDGE.

IN the midst of the tedious and disheartening siege of
Vicksburg, when hundreds and thousands of our brave
boys in blue were floundering in the mud of the Sunflower
Swamp, and pneumonia and typhoid fever were
slaying more than fell by the bullet, two ladies were
standing on the deck of a steamer, in the rear of the beleaguered
city.

One was unusually slender in figure; and, in the fine,
strong lines of her nobly-modelled head, and the steady
brightness of her dark eye, it was easy to read the marks
of superior character, uncommonly fine natural abilities,
and that heroic self-forgetfulness, which, since the days
when the sand of the Roman amphitheatre was red with the
blood of saints, has decorated the annals of Christianity
with the long roll of holy martyrs. Even the devoted band
of women who had gone down to nurse the sick and suffering
soldiers in that dreary place, felt that she was, fatally
to her own life, foremost in her devotion, and was, all too
soon for those who loved her here, winning her celestial
crown.

One present chided her eagerness for hospital labor, and
said, "You must hold back; you are going beyond your
strength; you will die if you are not more prudent."

Instantly the slender form dilated, and the dark eye
glittered with the intense enthusiasm of her soul, as, with a
voice of impressive earnestness, she exclaimed, "Well,
what if I do! Shall men come here by tens of thousands,
and fight, and suffer, and die, and shall not some women be
willing to die to sustain and succor them?"

In a little more than a year from the time when Margaret
Breckinridge uttered those thrilling and memorable words,
she made good her utterances by her deeds; and the rich
young life, full of promise, polished with the finest culture,
and warm with beautiful affections, had been offered on the
altar of patriotic zeal.

The blood that this noble girl carried in her veins, and
the name she bore, were guarantees of a fine character.
Her grandfather was John Breckinridge, of Kentucky, who
in 1806 was taken from a high position in the national
Senate to fill the office of Attorney-General of the United
States, and died ere his faculties and his fame had reached
their meridian, soon after taking his seat in the cabinet of
Jefferson. His son, John Breckinridge, D. D., the father
of Margaret, while a student at Princeton, in 1815, gave up
the brilliant political career to which his great abilities and
the name of his father in a manner committed him, and
consecrating his talents to Christian virtue and the church,
became the Ajax of Orthodox Christianity in the southwest,
and afterwards a great light among the churches of
Baltimore and of New Jersey.

Mrs. Breckinridge was the daughter of the Rev. Dr.
Samuel Miller, who, though dead, yet speaketh to the
churches through those great theological writings, which,

with the productions of his colleague, Dr. Alexander, have
become classics in the American church. When Margaret
was six years old her mother died, and three years after,
her gifted father, so that her tutelage and education fell to
her grand-parents, at Princeton, in whose family she grew
up to womanhood, though making long visits to Kentucky;
and, after the marriage of her sister Mary, in 1852, having
her home mostly in the family of that brilliant and patriotic
martyr in the war, her brother-in-law, Colonel Peter A.
Porter, of Niagara, who fell before Richmond, in the summer
of 1864, leading his regiment in the deadly charges at
Cold Harbor.

With so much in her family history and surroundings to
breathe of patriotism, zeal, and devotion, it is not strange
that, from the outset of the war, Margaret Breckinridge
was possessed with the idea of becoming a hospital nurse
while the war lasted. To do what she could, and all that
she could, to aid in the fierce struggle against rebellion,
was the object ever before her eyes, and filling her heart.

But the delicacy of her health, and an unwillingness to
brave the kind dissuasion of all her friends, induced her to
remain in Princeton till the spring of 1862, when the vast
proportions and evident duration of the struggle became
apparent to all.

But during this first year she did all she could with her
pen, as well as her needles, to advance the common cause.
The Princeton Standard has several articles by Miss Breckinridge,
which compare favorably with the finest utterances
of that stirring time.

Though the lips of a girl were at the mouthpiece of the

clarion, it gave no uncertain or feeble note. Take the
following: —

"England has her standing army ready at her sovereign's
call, but England never saw what we have seen. She never
saw the hills and valleys start to life with armed men; and
from the eastern seaboard, the northern hills, the western
prairies, and the sunny plains and mountain sides which
rebellion thought to claim, saw the growing streams pour
inward to a common centre, leaving in their track the
deserted workshop, the silent wheel, the idle tool, and the
ungathered harvest. All was forgotten but the danger
threatening the country in which each man was a sovereign,
the city which belonged alike to all, and the rulers whom
the right of suffrage had proclaimed the people's choice.
Is not this as it should be? Surely they only who govern
themselves can fight heartily and bravely for the preservation
of that noble right of self-government.

"There is a legend of a holy man, to whom God spoke at
midnight, and said, `Rise, and write what I shall tell thee;'
but he answered, `Lord, I have no light.' And God said,
`Rise, and write as I bid thee, and I will give thee light.'
So he obeyed. His fingers sought the pen, and as he
touched it to the parchment, his hand glowed with light
that streamed from under it, and illumined all the chamber.
So it has been with us. It was the voice of God that
roused us to see the peril which menaced liberty and union.
It was only for the rescue of such liberty and such a Union
as ours that a nation could have been so roused; and therefore
from this very uprising come new light and strength;
for that Union must be worth our lives and fortunes the

possibility of whose destruction has called a nation to its
feet. Yes, good seceding brothers, the Union is worth all
that we can give; `there are many things dearer to a nation
than even blood and treasure;' and we must bring you
home like the prodigal, and restore to you all that you have
madly flung away, whatever it may cost us. You may hug
to your bosoms the narrow liberties and loose-twisted union
of your new Confederacy for a little while, but your waking
will come as surely as ours. O, if he who stirred the
people with his war-cry a hundred years ago, could come
back now, and, standing where he stood then, gaze upon
the ruins you have made, do you not think he would lift his
hand to Heaven once more, praying, `If this is liberty, O
give me death!'"

In April, 1862, Miss Breckinridge left her home in
Princeton for the West, and with the full intention of
devoting herself to the soldiers for the war.

Remaining some weeks in Baltimore, she there commenced
her hospital labors; and the letters she wrote from
that place show the hearty satisfaction she took in the
work, and the deep interest she felt in the individual cases
committed to her care.

Here she contracted measles from some of the wards
which she constantly visited, so that during this summer
her health, never firm, received a serious shock. But in
Lexington, Kentucky, where the summer and fall were
passed, she resumed her work in the hospitals of that
place.

Her pen, too, was busy, and she has left several incidents
of Jack Morgan's and Kirby Smith's invasions, that are

charmingly told, and throw much light on the real state of
things in Kentucky that summer. One is too good to be
omitted.

"On Tuesday, the 2d of September, Kirby Smith and
his body guard rode into Lexington, and took formal possession
of the town without the firing of a gun. `Lor,
massa,' said one of his negro attendants, `dis de easiest took
town we got yet.' Flushed with his success, he issued an
order for the observance of Jeff Davis's Thanksgiving Day,
and notified the different clergymen that their churches
must be opened. Perplexity sat upon reverend faces when
the day came. But two churches were opened, and in one
a secretly delighted pastor sat gazing at empty pews, and
in the other a dismayed congregation sat gazing at an empty
pulpit. At last they sent for General Smith to come and
officiate in person.

"He went with a great deal more reluctance than he did
into the first Bull Run battle, where his opportune arrival
gave Johnson the victory; and when he reached the pulpit
his embarrassment was not diminished to find them all
Presbyterians, while what religion he had was of the Episcopal
type. But he drew the prayer book from his pocket,
read most of the service wrong, and without being sustained
by any very prompt or hearty responses from the audience.
At length, dismissing his little flock of goats, he came out
of church a sadder and a wiser man, and found the good
people of Lexington crowding around a train of Union
ambulances, that were taking the wounded from the battle
at Richmond, Kentucky, on to Cincinnati, — bidding them
good by, filling their haversacks and canteens, and

whispering to them, `Every one of you, bring a regiment
with you when you come back.'

"He confessed that he was not prepared for such a
demonstration over Union soldiers, and such an utter lack
of interest in Jeff Davis's Thanksgiving Day.

"`Where does General Smith preach this morning?' said
a lovely Union lady to the sentinel at headquarters, the
next Sunday.

"`You are mistaken, ma'am,' replied the obtuse sentinel.
`General Smith isn't a preacher at all.'"

In the fall of 1862 Miss Breckinridge left Kentucky
to spend the winter in St. Louis with her brother, Judge
Breckinridge, whose house was her western home. Immediately
on her arrival she commenced her visits at the
hospitals in that city. After two days spent at Jefferson
Barracks, she says, "I shall never be satisfied till I get
right into a hospital to live till the war is over. If you
are constantly with the men, you have hundreds of opportunities
and moments of influence in which you can gain
their attention and their hearts, and do more good than in
any missionary field."

In December, 1862, Grant commenced the movements
that in July following gave Vicksburg to the Union arms
and opened the Mississippi from its source to its mouth.
Throughout this winter, from December to March, Miss
Breckinridge realized her wish, being constantly with the
men in the hospital, for she passed her whole time on the
transports or at the great hospitals at Young's Point and
at Helena, where five thousand died from disease, and there
were at one time twelve thousand sick.

Mrs. J. C. Hoge, of Chicago, one of her colaborers in
that field, has given, in a few paragraphs and incidents, a
fine picture of Miss Breckinridge as a hospital nurse: —

"It has been my privilege to know many devoted women
in our American hospitals; but I can truly say, no one has
impressed me as she did. Her fragile form, beaming face,
musical voice, and youthful appearance, were wonderfully
fascinating to the soldiers. Her transparent purity and
simple dignity awed them, and as I have visited them, from
cot to cot, I have heard, after she had passed, the outburst
of a soldier's enthusiastic gratitude again and again.

"`Ain't she an angel?' said a gray-haired veteran to me,
as I followed her on the steamer City of Alton, to assist
her in giving the boys their breakfast. `She never seems
to tire; she is always smiling, and don't seem to walk.
She flies all but. God bless her!'

"Said another, a fair boy of seventeen summers, as she
smoothed his hair, and told him, with glistening eyes, he
would soon see his mother and the old homestead, and be
won back to life and health, — `Ma'am, where do you come
from? How could such a lady as you are come way done
here to take care of us poor, sick, dirty boys?' Said she,
`I consider it an honor to wait on you, and wash off the
mud you've waded through for me.'

"Said another, `Lady, please write down your name, and
let me look at it, and take it home, and show my wife who
wrote my letters, and combed my hair, and fed me. I don't
believe you are like other people.'

"And then, as she passed on, they would fold their
hands, and say, `God bless her, and spare her life.' Thus

her days passed; and though God soon took her to himself,
her weeks of army labor might count as years for the usefulness
and the blessings with which they were crowded.

"In her tour of a week with me through the north-west
to visit the Aid Societies, her earnestness and whole-souled
devotion to the soldiers' interests overcame her timidity,
and she was induced to tell some interesting facts concerning
the sufferings of the soldiers and loyal people in the
border states. Her memory is fragrant now among these
simple-hearted, patriotic people. She stirred them up to
increased labor, and the mention of her name, and allusion
to her death, brings forth tears from those who only saw
and heard her once, but they loved her. She pleaded her
own cause eloquently when admonished to rest from hospital
work. She had counted the cost, and stood ready to
die, if need be, as the hero in the front ranks of battle.
Methinks the crown she now wears must be richly studded
with immortal souls, for in all her army work she preached
Christ, and him crucified."

The letters of Miss Breckinridge, written on board the
transports, from Helena, and St. Louis, are full of the most
touching accounts of sick and dying soldiers. The following
is, no doubt, one that she related with effect to the various
ladies' Aid Societies which she visited with Mrs. Hoge: —

"Soon after the capture of one of the rebel forts in the
west, a lady went into the hospital where the wounded had
been taken. She was much attracted by two young men,
lying side by side, all splintered and bandaged, so that
they could not move hand or foot, but so cheerful and
happy-looking, that she said, —

"`Why, boys, you look very bright to-day!'

"`O, yes,' they said, `we're all right now. We've been
turned this morning.'

"And she found that for six long weeks they had lain in
one position, and for the first time that morning had been
moved to the other side of their cot.

"`And were you,' she asked, `among those poor boys
who were left lying where you fell that bitter morning, till
you froze fast to the ground?' `Yes, ma'am,' they said, `we
were lying there two days. You know they had no time to
attend to us; they had to go and take the fort.' `And
didn't you think it was very cruel in them to leave you to
suffer so long?' `Why, no, ma'am; we wanted them to go
and take the fort.'

"`But, when they took it, you were in too much agony
to know or care for it?'

"`O, no, ma'am!' they answered, with flashing eyes, and
faces glowing with the recollections of that day; `there
were a whole lot of us wounded fellows on the hill-side,
watching to see if they would get the fort. When we saw
they had it, every one of us that had a whole arm waved
it in the air, and we hurrahed till the air rang again.'"

In a letter published in the Princeton Standard, and
describing a trip on a hospital transport from St. Louis to
Young's Point, and back to Memphis, she says, "There's
a soldier's song of which they are very fond, and which I
will copy for you some day, one verse of which often comes
back to me: —

"Indeed, it does — richly, abundantly, blessedly; and I
thank God that he has honored me by letting me do a little
and suffer a little for this grand old Union, and the dear,
brave fellows who are fighting for it.

"Just before we parted with our boat-load of sick at
Memphis, one of my convalescents, a fine, trustworthy fellow,
came to me with a little note, which he handed me
without a word. `Read it at your leisure,' he said, when I
asked him what it was. It contained a few honest, touching,
simple words of thanks, written in the name of all the
sick in my ward, and you may well imagine it is a greater
treasure to me than an autograph letter from the greatest
man on earth would be.

"I don't know that I have ever told you how much I am
amused by the curiosity of people as to how much salary I
get, and how often I am assailed with the question, `How
much do you get a month?' At first I was indignant; now
I laugh over it."

In March her health was found too much impaired to
allow her to make any more trips on the transports; but
in St. Louis she continued to visit the hospitals, and labor
among the refugees and freedmen. She was busy also
with her pen, and in sewing and knitting for the soldiers.
The natural wondering as to who might wear the socks
upon which her fingers were occupied, she has expressed
in the following graceful lines, published at the time in the
Princeton Standard: —

She remained in St. Louis until about the middle of
May, when she visited Chicago, and made those visits to
the various Aid Societies alluded to in the letter of Mrs.
Hoge. She then proceeded to Niagara, her health steadily
declining, and passed the summer, fall, and winter at
Princeton, the sea-side, and Philadelphia, cherishing all the
time the hope that she would be able to resume her work

in hospitals very soon; but she only saw these successive
hopes end in disappointment, like receding phantoms
before the traveller in Arabia.

She received no permanent benefit from anything. The
subtle miasmatic poison of the Mississippi swamps lurked
in her system, and was slowly bringing her to the grave.
Yet in the spring of 1864, while at Philadelphia, she was
in frequent attendance at the Episcopal Hospital, and
begged of the surgeons to allow her to go with them in
their round of the surgical wards, that she might become
more skilled and useful to wounded men.

A Christian friend and co-laborer has furnished the following
beautiful account of her labors here, in a letter
written after Miss Breckinridge's death, and directed to
one of her near relatives: —

"Besides her desire to acquire experience in surgical
cases, she expressed an earnest wish to do what she could
for the spiritual welfare of the patients in our hospital,
hoping in the time spent there to acquire more facility in
speaking for Christ.

"She came to the hospital early in May, 1864, lovely in
form and feature, full of animation and enthusiasm, overflowing
with sympathy and tenderness. In her presence
there was always sunshine, and her bright spirit tinged and
influenced all about her. Immediately she began to interest
herself in the patients, spending an hour or two in the morning,
following the surgical nurse, who instructed her in the
best mode of bandaging and treating the various wounds.
She was not satisfied with seeing this, but often washed and
dressed the wounds with her own hands, saying to me,

with her bright smile, `I shall be able to do this for the
soldiers when I get back to the army.' The patients could
not understand this, and would often expostulate, and say,
`O, no, miss! that is not for the likes of you to be doing;'
but she would playfully insist, and have her way.

"Her attention in the wards was constant. With her
little Testament in her hand, she went from one bedside to
another, a ministering angel to all there, cheering the
desponding, encouraging the timid and doubtful. While
I write I have been interrupted by a visit from an old
colored woman, who was in the hospital last spring. I
asked her if she remembered Miss Breckinridge. She
looked surprised at the question, and said, `Yes, indeed; I
never could forget her. She was so good to old Sidney.
Why, she never went to her bed without looking in on me
to see how I was getting on. O, I never saw her like.
She used to sing to me, too. Now she is singing Jesus'
praise in heaven. She was my lady!'

"At twilight it was her custom to sing hymns in the ward,
and long after she had left us, her sweet voice was spoken
of as a blessing lost by the sick and suffering. A universal
favorite with officers, nurses, patients, and lady visitors,
many a tear was shed when the intelligence of her death
reached us."

In June, just as she was expecting and preparing to go
out to Virginia, to resume her army labors, and while
suffering from a severe attack of erysipelas, there came the
appalling news that her beloved brother-in-law, Colonel
Porter, had been killed at Cold Harbor. The blow fell
upon her with overwhelming force. There was one wild

cry of agony, — one hour of unmitigated agony, — and then
a saintly submission to the will of her heavenly Father.

"I saw her last," says Mrs. Hoge, "in Philadelphia, in
June, 1864. The frail tenement of her soaring spirit was
tottering; the fastenings were being removed surely, but
noiselessly. Her great grief was that she was laid aside
from her work just, as she said, when she was learning to
do it so much better.

"Her great desire to recover was, that she might labor till
war was over. None of us realized that she was so near
the final rest. Her Christ-like self-abnegation and devotion
sealed her frequent exhortations to the patients that she
visited, as long as her health permitted. God grant the
beautiful, inspiring lesson of her life and death may not be
lost to us, her fellow-workers who survive."

After the great blow of Colonel Porter's death, she for a
time abandoned her efforts to resume army labor, saying,
quietly, "I can do more good at Niagara than anywhere
else just now."

After a little rest in Baltimore, she accompanied the sad
family party to Niagara, and apparently bore the journey
with comfort and safety; but the night after her arrival at
the house of her cousin, Miss Porter, she became alarmingly
ill, and lay down never to rise again.

The inroads of disease soon reduced that intellectual
vivacity and earnestness which characterized her talk and
the productions of her pen while strength remained. Five
weeks her life hung trembling in the balance; and if unwearied
attentions and practised skill could have averted
the stroke of death, so fair a light had not been quenched.

But that could not be; and, on the 27th of July, the
blessed vision, of which she had often caught glimpses,
became for her a grand and permanent reality.

Beside the ashes of her beloved sister and brother, the
vast Niagara, roaring its sublime monotone as her dirge,
sleeps now the fragile casket of this "gem of purest ray
serene;" and her voice, no longer now uttering hymns of
Christian cheer beside the cots of dying soldiers, chimes
with that chorus that John heard in the Apocalypse, saying,
"Blessing, and honor, and power, forever and ever, be unto
Him that washed us, and made our robes white in the blood
of the Lamb."