University of Virginia Library

MRS. ISABELLA FOGG.

WHEN the boom of the great guns in Charleston
harbor, in the spring of 1861, went rolling across
the continent, their echo penetrated to the border town of
Calais, in Maine, on the extreme eastern verge of the Union,
and there summoned men from their ships, and lumber mills,
and farms, to the heroic duty of sustaining the government,
threatened by half a continent in arms against it.

Nor did that summons reach the ears of men only. The
lady whose name is written above felt that she was called,
also, to go out, to leave the quiet and seclusion of her
home, and do all that a woman may do to sustain the
hands and the hearts of those who had the great battle of
freedom to fight.

In the spring of 1861 the family duties by which she
was bound seemed to make it impracticable for her to leave
at once. But in July, Bull Run, with its disastrous issue,
ran like a mingled cry of agony and of shame over the
land, and the demand of April was repeated in a tone
sterner and more imperative than before.

About this time changes occurred in the family of Mrs.
Fogg, which seemed to release her from pressing obligations
to remain at home; and her schoolboy son, like ten
thousand others in those arousing times, followed the

twofold impulse of loyalty and youthful enthusiasm, and
exchanged the playground for the camp, and his grammar
for Scott's Tactics.

When her son enlisted, Mrs. Fogg thought her duty no
longer obscure, and offered her services, without compensation,
to the governor and surgeon-general of the state, and
under their direction spent several weeks in preparing and
collecting sanitary and hospital stores.

Early in the fall of 1861 she went out with one of the
Maine regiments, and proceeded with it to Annapolis,
where she remained several months, acting at first as the
nurse of those who fell sick in the regiment, and afterwards
was connected with the General Hospital. When the
coast expedition, under General Sherman, was organized,
she was of course very desirous of going with the regiment.
But this was not found practicable. A duty less romantic,
but equally important, was now brought home to her, and
right nobly did she discharge it. The spotted fever
appeared in the post hospital, and as one or more fell
victims to it daily, much alarm existed, and it was difficult
to obtain nurses for the sufferers. In this exigency
Mrs. Fogg and another lady volunteered their services, and
for week after week, all day, and often for a considerable
part of the night, were on duty in the fever ward, constant
in their devotion to the patients, and indifferent to the
danger of infection.

This duty lasted till the spring of 1862, when those campaigns
against the enemy were inaugurated and carried to
a consummation by which the first serious and eventually
fatal blows were inflicted on the defiant monster of Treason.

Early in May came the first bloodshed on the peninsula.
The mutilated heroes of Williamsburg were brought in —
one great, bloody cargo of suffering humanity — to the
northern hospitals, on the Elm City; and a shudder of
horror and agony ran over the nation. We began to see
the fearful price by which the Union was to be redeemed.
Mrs. Fogg was now more anxious than ever to be constantly
and actively employed in labors to assuage sufferings
so immense as were likely to be the price of captured
Richmond. Hastening to Washington, she placed herself
under the direction of the Sanitary Commission, and when
the Elm City returned she went, in company with several
other ladies, and some gentlemen of the Christian and
Sanitary Commissions, to labor on the hospital transports
in the York and James Rivers. These transport labors are
described elsewhere, in the rehearsal of the labors and sacrifices
of Miss Bradley, Miss Ethridge, Mrs. Harris, and
Miss Hall.

On the last day of May came the bloody field of Fair
Oaks, after which there was a broad and unbroken stream
of the wounded and the sick pouring steadily to the
rear from the active and warlike front, along the Chickahominy
and around Richmond. The charge of these
removals was in the hands of Dr. Swinburne, who,
observing the skill and activity of Mrs. Fogg in attending
those who were brought on the cars to the White
House, asked her if she would be willing to go up to the
front and labor. The application was made to Mrs. Fogg
threugh Mr. Knapp, of the Sanitary Commission, and her
prompt reply was, "Mr. Knapp, that is just where I would
like to go."

A branch of the Sanitary Commission was accordingly
established at Savage Station, two miles from the front;
and, during the long, hot days of June, Mrs. Fogg was
here laboring throughout the day, protecting herself from
sunstroke by a wet towel, worn in her hat, distributing
cooling drinks, food, and stimulants to the sick, as they
arrived in long trains from Fair Oaks, and as they were
collected from the different parts of the great army. Just
before the campaign culminated in the seven days' fight, her
son came down to Savage Station, and gave a moving
account of the sufferings of his comrades at the extreme
front, where he was stationed. The next morning found
Mrs. Fogg in an ambulance, loaded with supplies for the
sick, making her way through the Chickahominy Swamp,
to where Keyes was posted, on the extreme left, and within
sight of the spires of the rebel capital.

On reaching the camp of the sixth Maine, which was in
Hancock's brigade of Smith's division, she found from sixty
to seventy brave fellows, who, though sick, had refused to
be sent to the brigade hospital, partly from the soldier's dislike
of all hospitals as long as he can stand, but mainly
because they hoped to be well enough to march through the
streets of Richmond, which they confidently expected that
great army, then having nearly one hundred and twenty
thousand men fit for duty, would enter in a few days.

Here, protected from the burning midsummer sun and
the malarious night air by nothing better than little shelter
and "dog" tents, they were languishing with typhoid fever
and chronic diarrhœa; their bed the earth, their fare salt
pork and "hard-tack." The medical officers of the regiment

were neither unskilled nor inattentive. Her labors for that
day were wholly for these brave sufferers, dispensing the
stores which she had brought, cooking palatable food,
quenching the fever thirst, cheering the sinking heart with
kind and sympathetic words. Their smiling or tearful
gratitude was a reward and a stimulus which dispelled
fatigue, and made her heedless of the occasional shot or
shell that went screaming over the lines.

Returning in the evening to the station, she consulted
with the agents of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions
as to the possibility of bringing constant relief to such
cases as she had just been attending. But the day following
all such plans were cut short by the rapid and
disastrous culmination of the campaign. The battle of
Gaines's Mill had been fought, the rebel army being concentrated
on the north side of the Chickahominy, and
McClellan's force divided by the stream. The north bank
of the stream was lost, his communications cut: it only
remained for McClellan to force his way across to the
James River, and establish there a new base of operations.

Innumerable woes and horrors of war now crowded about
Savage Station. The country was full of sick, and wounded,
and stragglers. The roar of the artillery grew louder as it
advanced. Trains of sick and wounded, which had been
started for White House, were coming back. It was announced
that Jackson had cut the communications of the
army, and that Savage Station, with its thousands of helpless
sick and wounded, must be abandoned, and all that
could must take up their line of march for James River.

Through all these fearful scenes and agonizing fears,

while the very existence of the army seemed to be threatened,
and ignorant whether her son might not be at that
moment stiff on the battle-field, or stretched on an amputation
table, Mrs. Fogg continued her labor for the sick till
the last moment, and then retreated with the rest to Harrison's
Landing. On the way she was able, by giving out
from her sanitary supplies in the ambulance, to earn the
blessing of many who were ready to perish.

Her special duty at the landing was assigned her by Dr.
Letterman — the charge of preparing food for amputation
cases, who must, for a time at least, have only the simplest
diet. Occasionally, as opportunity offered, she would
take an ambulance and go out through the regiments, distributing
stores furnished by the Sanitary Commission to
the soldiers in their tents or in the trenches, only sorry
that her supplies were not twenty-fold more abundant.

These labors were continued through July and a part of
August, till the hospitals were broken up, and the army
began to return to the Potomac. She then went in the
steamer Spaulding, with a load of wounded, to Philadelphia,
and after seeing the last of the peninsula sufferers
comfortable in an amply-furnished hospital, she returned
to Maine for a little rest, having been absent then just
one year.

Little repose, however, took this unwearied worker for
the soldier. In Portland she waited on the mayor, and
obtained letters from him and prominent citizens to the
governor of the state, who listened with interest to all her
plans and explanations, and wrote her a long reply, embodying
his views as to measures of sanitary relief to be

taken by the state. The result was the appointment of
a state agent in the person of Colonel Hathaway.

With supplies collected through her efforts, and in company
with Colonel Hathaway and another co-laborer, — one
of the most esteemed ladies of Portland, — she started
again for Washington, on the 4th of October, the primary
object being to supply pressing demands in the Maine regiments,
but with no such exclusive charity as passes unnoticed
the needy soldiers wherever they may be found.

Wide indeed, and white for harvest, did she find the
field of sanitary labor. The wrecks of the campaign, whose
only feature that was not wholly disastrous was the bloody
field of Antietam, were strewn widely over Maryland,
filling the ill-supplied hospitals, crowding the deserted
cabins, and packed beneath shelter-tents. At no time
during the war was there so much suffering that might
have been saved by an effective sanitary system as in the
fall of 1862. During October and November Mrs. Fogg
labored incessantly at numerous hospitals, her efforts being
fully appreciated and seconded by the medical officers. Following
the flag, she advanced with the army into Virginia,
and as the winter promised to be one of great activity, her
labors were especially directed to supplying the Maine boys
with clothing suitable for winter and a winter campaign.

In December she penetrated to the front, and every facility
was afforded her by General Hooker, in whose corps
she found most of the Maine soldiers. A few days after
she witnessed that brave but unavailing attempt under
Burnside, and immediately found abundant work in the
hospitals that were established after the battle, and in the

great camps of sick and convalescents which were scattered
all the way from the Rappahannock to the Potomac.

Let us from her diary select the labors of a single day,
and remember that such trips were repeated daily almost
throughout that winter: —

"Started with ambulance filled with necessary stores of
all kinds, such as bread, soft crackers, canned chicken,
oysters, dried fruit, preserves, condensed milk, dried fish,
pickles, butter, eggs, white sugar, green tea, cocoa, broma,
apples, oranges, lemons, cordials, wines, woollen underwear,
towels, quilts, feather pillows, all invaluable among so
many sufferers so far from home and its comforts. My
first visit was directed to those regiments where the wants
were most pressing; but my special mission was to those
who languished under bare shelter tents, they being entirely
dependent upon their rations, and seldom or never reached
by sanitary and hospital stores. In company with the surgeons,
who always welcomed us, we made the tour of the
camp, going from tent to tent, finding from one to three in
each of those miserable quarters, suffering from camp diseases
of every form, distributing our stores at the surgeons'
suggestion. We left reading matter generally in each tent.
Then we would hasten away to the General Hospital, and
pass the latter part of the day in reading the Bible to some
dying soldier, or write out his words of final and touching
farewell to the loved ones at home, then bathe fevered
brows, moisten with water and refresh with cordials mouths
parched with fever, and, adjusting pillows under aching
heads, bid our patients farewell. Weary, but glad at heart
for having it in our power to do so much for our boys, we

sought our tents, which scarce protected us from snow and
rain; but we were happy in a sense of duty discharged, and
in enjoying the grateful love of our sacrificing heroes."

This routine of noble and most useful labor was now and
then interrupted by a visit to Washington, where Mrs.
Fogg went to receive and forward to the camps along the
Rappahannock and Acquia Creek, the sanitary stores which
were being regularly shipped from Portland and other
places in Maine.

But labors and exposures like these could hardly be continued
through that gloomy winter without interruption
from disease; and early in March Mrs. Fogg was prostrated
with a severe attack of pneumonia, by which her sanitary
labors were interrupted for several weeks, until the sun
and winds of April had dried the deep mud of a Virginia
winter, and General Hooker advanced across the river to
establish his lines at Chancellorsville. At the time of the
great battle which followed, Mrs. Fogg and the lady who
had accompanied her from Portland spent five days and
nights of almost incessant work at the United States Ford,
feeding and reviving the wounded as they came pouring
from the field, as they were too much exhausted to proceed
without some refreshment.

About daylight on Monday morning, the 4th of May, she
and her companion, exhausted by their labors, and vigils,
and excitement, crept to an unoccupied corner of a low
attic, to obtain an hour of sleep, when a terrific storm of
shells and round shot came smashing through the roof.
The enemy had, during the night, pushed forward a battery,
and opened upon their position at daylight. A terrible

scene of confusion and excitement now followed. The
screaming and hissing messengers of death were falling
thick and fast all around, and piercing the little hospital
crowded with the wounded. All who could walk or crawl
were leaving for the rear. As she passed one heroic young
soldier, she remarked, "You have been left, poor boy."
He looked up with a calm smile, and replied, "Don't call
me poor; I have laid one arm on the altar of my country,
and am ready to sacrifice the other also." A soldier, whose
wounds she had just dressed, was this moment killed by a
shell which burst immediately over their heads.

As this sudden attack became known, some general officers,
who knew the importance of the sanitary stores at
this hospital, took active steps for their defence, and the
hostile battery was silenced or withdrawn.

Two weeks later, General Lee sent a flag of truce, and
offered protection to such detachments as might be sent
within his lines to bring away some fifteen hundred
wounded.

A train of ambulances was accordingly started, and Mrs.
Fogg took all her sanitary stores, which were the only supplies
on the spot and available, and established a temporary
Rest, or way side hospital, on the north bank of the river,
near the ford, where fires were made, and large quantities
of palatable food prepared and given to the sufferers in
each ambulance as it reached the bank. For five days the
train of ambulances was active in these removals, and
numerous lives were saved by the refreshment thus timely
administered in the middle of the agonizing journey from
the rebel lines to the Union hospitals.

The sufferings and labors of Chancellorsville were quickly
followed by the glorious but bloody days at Gettysburg.

Mrs. Fogg left her stores to be forwarded as soon as
might be, and she pressed to the scene of action, arriving
in Gettysburg on the 4th of July.

As there was a lack of sanitary stores and of food of
all kinds, she took a team and made an extensive circuit
among the farmers, collecting from them all that she could.
The Baltimore fire company also placed at her disposal a
large amount, which they had brought forward, and she
labored for some ten days or two weeks with her accustomed
zeal and patience among that great host of sufferers,
estimated by General Meade, when all that were left on
the field from both armies are included, at nearly twenty-two
thousand men.

But the corps of workers was soon found to be proportionably
large. Nurses, matrons, lady superintendents,
special cooks, and every class of persons who can ameliorate
suffering and make themselves useful at such a time,
came in great numbers from the adjacent cities; and Mrs.
Fogg was convinced that she could be of more service by
following the flag, and keeping with the heroic men whose
stubborn courage had won that all-important battle.

During the fall of 1863 she was at Warrenton, Culpeper,
Bristoe Station, Rappahannock Station, Kelly's
Ford, and Mine Run, and bestowed the same attention on
the sick and wounded that she had the year before on
nearly the same ground.

During the winter of 1864 she again visited Maine, and
the legislature of that state, much to their credit, voted a

handsome sum of money to be appropriated and placed at
her disposal for disbursal, according to her knowledge and
judgment of the wants of the soldiers. Hurrying back to
the front, she saw those great movements inaugurated by
the new commander of the army of the Potomac, and of all
the forces of the United States, which, after a series of
battles unparalleled in obstinacy and extent, at last broke
the rebel force, and closed the war.

Then followed that ever-memorable second week of May,
with hard fighting for seven consecutive days, and Grant
"determined to fight it out on that line, if it took all summer."
Twelve thousand wounded were reported at Rappahannock
Station and at Fredericksburg. Leaving her son
sick at Alexandria, Mrs. Fogg drove to Fredericksburg,
taking Miss Dix in her ambulance, and found that old, warblasted
city one great hospital. In all her experience she
had seen nothing so terrible.

"It was indescribable," she writes, "in its enormous
woes, a sight demanding the tears and prayers of the universe
— the awful price of a nation's existence." Laboring
here in the manner described above for two or three
weeks, she passed on with the army to Front Royal, and
thence to the James, crossing it on the great pontoon
bridge. Hospitals were now established at City Point,
and as the summer advanced, and the army appeared to
be stationary around Petersburg, and the hospitals well
supplied and easy of access, she sought a scene of duty
more arduous. Returning north to Boston, and then to
Calais, she was successfully engaged in organizing new and
more extensive plans of usefulness, when there came the

terrible news that her son, who had gone back to his regiment
(from which he had been for a time detailed to drive
his mother's ambulance) and been with Sheridan in the
battle of Cedar Run, had been mortally wounded.

The anxieties of the mother now triumphed over the
thoughts of philanthropy, and she flew to Martinsburg, in
Virginia, to make inquiries for her boy. She was about to
leave the place and press forward to the scene of the recent
action, when she happened to meet a delegate of the Christian
Commission, who to her inquiries was enabled to reply
that her son had been in Martinsburg, that he had suffered
amputation of his leg, survived the operation, been carefully
attended, and forwarded to a hospital in Baltimore.
She reached that city in a few hours, greatly exhausted by
the long journey and the deep anxiety, but found her boy
doing well. She attended him for two weeks, when she
was herself prostrated, and remained sick more than a
month. Recovering her health, in November she went to
Washington, and reported to the Christian Commission.
As there was no longer the same demand as before for the
class of labor in which she had been so persistent and successful,
she reported to Mrs. Wittenmeyer, who, as special
agent of the Christian Commission, had charge of the
special diet kitchens in a great number of hospitals. By
her she was assigned to duty in Louisville, Kentucky.

While laboring here on a hospital boat, in January,
1865, she stepped through an unseen opening in the deck,
and received very serious and permanent injuries from
the fall.

Unable to return to the state for whose brave patriots

she had labored so long and so successfully, the close of
the war found her a permanent invalid among strangers.
But this affliction was as nothing in her estimation. Her
son was a cripple for life. She would never enjoy health
again. But, to use the language of her diary, she is daily
solaced and penetrated with deep gratitude to God that
he so long preserved her in health and strength, to witness
the triumph of the right, and the dawn of peace, and
the days when the patriot, no longer languishing in camp
nor agonizing on the field, will not suffer for what woman,
in her tenderness, can do for him.