 | MRS. JOHN HARRIS. Women of the war : |  |
MRS. JOHN HARRIS.
AT the very outset of the war, before the blood had
commenced to flow in the long fratricidal strife, a
group of ladies in Philadelphia met and organized a system
of relief for the sufferings and privations which they knew
must follow in the train of war.
They were mostly members of the church of Rev. Dr.
Boardman, and had frequently coöperated in charitable
labors for the destitute or ignorant of their own community
or in pagan lands.
Mrs. Joel Jones was made the president of this association,
and Mrs. Stephen Colwell was its treasurer. Its
secretary was one of those delicate, fragile, and feeble-looking
ladies who are apparently condemned to lives of patient
suffering and inactivity by constitutional defect of physical
vigor. She was known merely as a lady of warm personal
piety, and excellent but mild and unobtrusive sense.
Charitable and beneficent she had been in her quiet, daily
life; but any aspirations that she may have had to wide,
national, and laborious activity, were apparently quenched
in the demands for passive endurance which almost constant
illness made upon her. A heroine of Christian
patience she might become, one would say; one of the uncounted
sisterhood of silent pain, whose sighs are reckoned
who stood beside the mute Wrestler in Gethsemane. Yet
she it was, this pallid and low-voiced lady, who, when the
brazen trumpet of war rang across the continent, glided
from her sick chamber, and entered upon a self-imposed
and self-directed career of Christian and sanitary labors,
more extended, more arduous, and more potent for good,
than any other that can be found in American annals.
If there were any such vain decorations of human approbation
as a crown, or a wreath, or a star for her, who in
our late war has done the most, and labored the longest,
who visited the greatest number of hospitals, prayed with
the greatest number of suffering and dying soldiers, penetrated
nearest to the front, and underwent the greatest
amount of fatigue and exposure for the soldier, — that
crown or that star would be rightfully given to Mrs. John
Harris, of Philadelphia.
Yet not one in all the noble sisterhood is more indifferent
than she to all human applause. What she did was not to
be seen or praised of men. It was other than the crown
that human fingers can weave her that she sought, —
"The perfect witness of all-judging Jove."
Very soon after the organization of the Ladies' Aid
Society, Mrs. Harris saw that work at the front and in
hospitals was imperatively demanded.
After the first battle of Manassas, hospitals were created
in Washington and along the Potomac. These rapidly increased,
both in the number of their patients and in the
amount of suffering and want they contained, as the
Her first visits to the front were immediately after
the first bloodshed, and though no heavy battles were
fought in Virginia till the following summer, when we
remember that over two hundred thousand men were suddenly
transferred from civil to military life, it will not
appear strange that there were full hospitals all along the
Potomac for miles above and below Washington. At that
time there was no one in America who could be said to
have a full practical knowledge of military surgery and
hygiene. The European systems needed important modifications
before they could be successfully applied to our
army and our people. In the mean time, as the ponderous
machinery was becoming adjusted, Mrs. Harris devoted
herself to alleviating suffering as she found it, and where
she found it, bringing to the work the clear practical sense
of a person perfectly familiar with housekeeping in all
its details.
Before the army moved in the spring of 1862, Mrs.
Harris had visited more than a hundred hospitals, making
donations of such articles as she had received from the
society at home, and suggesting various simple but effective
arrangements for the preparation and distribution of food
for the sick. When the army moved out to Manassas in
March, and soon after was transferred to the Peninsula,
her exertions and exposures were made to correspond with
those of the men.
When she entered upon these labors she seems to have
been inspired by twofold motives, both alike blessed. Her
sympathies embraced all the wants of suffering, dying men;
story of her labors by a thousand death-beds, on the field,
in hospital tents, in shelter tents, in transports, or in lodges
for the refugees, we are at a loss which most to admire in
Mrs. Harris — the practical good sense with which she
labored for the physical comfort of sufferers, or the abounding
Christian zeal and love with which she always strove to
make sacred impressions on the minds of those she met;
the saintly spirit in which she knelt by the dying, and whispered
words of celestial consolation into ears that were
growing deaf to all human voices.
To how many she thus ministered, and with what
blessed results, no human records can possibly inform
us. Hundreds, if they ever testify of her kindness,
and of the supreme consolations received from her lips,
will speak of her in the upper kingdom, and on the
peaceful shore.
And how many, if they could speak from the rude
soldier graves where they were buried, would say the last
they knew was the touch of her soft hand on their clammy
forehead, her low voice at their ear whispering of the
Lamb that was slain for them, the sacrifice that atones for
all, the blood that washes away sin!
But her name is cherished and linked with the most
sacred and touching memories, on many a far-off hill-side,
and in many a lonely cottage; for from her pen came the
last record that ever reached them of the hero boy who was
wounded on the Chickahominy, or at Manassas or Antietam,
and died in a hospital; of the dying patriot, who, with
glazing eye and shortening breath, begged of her to take
lock of his hair, and send them to her.
Fortunately the records of these labors of patriotic zeal
and Christian love are more numerous and in better preservation
than those of many who were her fellow-laborers.
As the secretary of the Ladies' Aid Society, she wrote
constantly and very full letters to its president in Philadelphia;
and, in compiling their semi-annual reports, these
ladies very wisely published copious selections from Mrs.
Harris's admirable productions, and thus imparted, to what
would otherwise have been a mere business pamphlet,
touching interest and lasting value.
The first that we hear of Mrs. Harris, in these reports, is
at Fairfax Seminary, early in the spring of 1862, before
the enemy had moved down to the Peninsula, and when a
battle was supposed to be imminent at or near Manassas
Junction. She took with her to the general hospitals, in
and near Alexandria, a large number of boxes sent to the
Ladies' Aid Society, and was engaged for some time in a
careful and judicious distribution of their contents. At one
place she found two hundred poor fellows, who had been
thrown into an unfinished hospital, some of them lying
around on piles of shavings, and some stretched on the
work-benches. They made few complaints, however; but
they did think some improvement might be made in
their tea, and Mrs. Harris pushed her way to the cook-room,
to see if she could make a useful suggestion. Talking
the matter over with the cook, she found the plant was
not in fault, nor the water; but all the pot he had for his
two hundred men was a new cast-iron caldron, in which he
each mess waiting its turn. Mrs. Harris at once went out,
and without troubling anybody with a requisition, succeeded
in getting, for three dollars, a very good boiler, which had
originally cost ten. "You would all say I could not have
used three dollars more wisely, could you have heard the
poor fellows tell how much improved their tea was."
But the Potomac ceased, for a few months, to be the
principal theatre of the strife; and we find Mrs. Harris, in
May, laboring in the hospitals at Fortress Monroe, full of
those who had sickened on the Peninsula, in the first
month of picket and trench duty before Yorktown, and
the wounded of both armies at Williamsburg. On the
21st of May, she writes, —
"Mrs. D. in the Chesapeake and Miss S. in the Hygeia
Hospitals are noble women. I cannot speak of all their
worth, nor can I describe the state of things here. No
language can give the faintest idea of the scenes of suffering
and deadly anguish through which we are passing.
My dear friend, say to the ladies, that no sacrifice they can
make would be felt as such could they look upon the pains,
the groans, the dying strife, of hundreds of the brave fellows
whom we saw embark but two months since at Alexandria,
then full of buoyancy, and eager for the conflict
which was to vindicate the honor of our flag, and cover
their names with glory. Could you have visited with me,
on Saturday, the largest ward of the Hygeia Hospital, your
whole being would have thrilled with anguish. Friend and
foe are crowded together without distinction — all suffering.
The first one approached had been wounded in the thigh
made of the broken bones in the arm. Surgeons had been
probing the diseased portions, not heeding the shrieks of
the sufferer, whom I found covered with cold sweat, and
nearing the dark valley; indeed, the mists of the valley
were settling over him. When the gracious words, `Come
unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will
give you rest,' were spoken, the suffering one looked up,
and exclaimed, `Rest, rest! O, where, where?' `In the
bosom of Jesus, if you will but lay your sins on him, and
your suffering, throbbing heart close to his, you will be
filled with rest in all the fulness of its meaning.' He tried
to stay his faith on the `Rock;' but very soon the unseen
closed him in, and left us vainly endeavoring to follow the
departing soul.
"Next him sat a boy from Carolina, who had been shot
through the body, and could not lie down. The poor fellow
was soliloquizing, in low, tremulous tones, his eyes shut,
thus: `This poor boy was in the battle of Bull Run; left
his mother on the 12th of April; she prayed for him, and
almost broke her heart weeping. He wrote to his mother
that he was safe and well. And then he got along, seeing
a good many hard times, till the battle of Williamsburg.
There a ball went through his body, and poor mother will
never see her boy again. What a pity — yes, a mighty
pity —.' I listened for a time with a bursting heart, and
then took his hand, and said, `Shall I be your mother, and
comfort you?' `Yes,' he said, in a childish way (he was
only nineteen), `I'll try and think she is here.' After a
short talk, in which Jesus was held up to the dying boy as
mother `a very long letter, sending a lock of my hair; but
you needn't take the hair now; say everything to comfort
her; but,' he added, `I want her to know how her poor boy
suffers; yes, I do that, she would feel so for me.' He lingered
till Monday; and, after a painful operation, sank
away most unexpectedly, and when I got there was in the
dead-house. So I went into that dismal place, full of
corpses, and cut a lock from the dead boy's head, and enclosed
it to the mother, adding some words of comfort for
the sorrow-stricken. He had received a religious training,
and told me to tell his mother he would meet her in
heaven.
"Next him was a young man from Massachusetts — a face
full of gentleness, but wearing a painful, anxious expression.
He was not quite certain that he was on the right foundation,
and shrank from death."
Next him lay a young Alabamian. He was evidently
past all surgical aid, and Mrs. Harris could only do as she
had with his fellow-sufferer from Carolina — pray with him,
and whisper consolatory words of Christ, and take a lock
of his hair to send to his mother, with some account of how
and where her boy had died. Her letters were often interrupted
by calls to come to this dying man, or that suffering
boy; yet all this time her practical labors were not
suspended.
She had with her ten boxes, five of which she appropriated
to the Chesapeake and five to the Williamsburg
Hospital, and wrote very earnestly to Philadelphia for
eggs, butter, port wine, crackers, green tea, bandages,
imaginable shape and form, are in demand. Oil silk
greatly, very greatly needed."
A few days later, in June, about the time the battle of Fair
Oaks was fought, we find Mrs. Harris on the Vanderbilt,
which had just been loaded with seven hundred wounded
from that field. Many of them had eaten nothing for three
or four days, and the first cry that met her cars was for tea
and bread. Making her way into the cook-room, she took
hold with her own experienced hands; and she tells us how
glad she felt when the great boiler was heating with three
pounds of tea in it, and she had five or six gallons of gruel
bubbling for the boys. Meantime she bought and cut up
twenty-five loaves of bread, spreading jelly between the
slices, and soon had tea passed around in buckets. Then she
made her way into the hold, and gave the sick some pickles,
which they said did them more good than all the medicine.
Wine she added to the gruel, and it was relished "you cannot
tell how much." One poor wounded boy she speaks of, exhausted
with the loss of blood and long fasting, who looked
up, after taking the first nourishment he could swallow
since the battle of Saturday, then four days, and exclaimed,
with face radiant with gratitude and pleasure, "O, that is
life to me; I feel as if twenty years were given me
to live."
Laboring thus all day, she was overtaken by a shower
when going back to the Hygeia Hospital, and reached her
room with every garment saturated, where she lay down
"aching in every bone, with heart and head throbbing,
unwilling to cease work while so much was to be done, but
that fell upon her ear being groans from the operating room.
On the afternoon of the next day (or the next but one),
she describes the scenes on board another vessel, in like
manner freighted with suffering.
"The afternoon," she writes, "found us on board the
Louisiana, where fearful sights met us. The whole day
had been spent in operating. In one pile lay seventeen
arms, hands, feet, and legs. A large proportion of the
wounded had undergone mutilation in some important
member. Many must die. Four lay with their faces covered,
dying or dead. Many had not had their wounds
dressed since the battle, and were in a sad state already.
One brave fellow, from Maine, had lost both legs, and bore
up with wonderful firmness. Upon my saying to him, You
have suffered much for your country; we cannot thank you
enough," he replied, `O, well, you hadn't ought to thank
me. I went of my own accord, in a glorious cause. God
bless McClellan.'
"And here let me say, the young lady, Miss B., whom I
brought with me, spent the whole of Friday night on board
the Louisiana, dressing and caring for the wounded. When
I left the boat, at eleven o'clock at night, I was obliged to
wash all my skirts, being drabbled in the mingled blood of
Federal and Confederate soldiers, which covered many portions
of the floor. I was obliged to kneel between them to
wash their faces. This is war."
During the latter part of June Mrs. Harris continued
these arduous labors nearer the front. Much of the time
she was on Dudley Farm and at Savage's Station, so near the
was at work. The style of labor here was much the same
as on the ships. At one time, as she was passing a house,
the sentinel told her there was a captain of a Maine regiment
very sick within.
She describes the scene thus: "We went in, no door
obstructing, and there, upon a stretcher, in a corner of
the room, opening directly upon the road, lay an elegantlooking
youth, struggling with the last great enemy. His
mind was wandering, and as we approached him, he exclaimed,
`Is it not cruel to keep me here, when my mother
and sister, whom I have not seen for a year, are in the next
room? They might let me go in.' Only for an instant did
he seem to have a glimpse of the real, when he drew two
rings from his finger, placed there by the loved ones,
handed them to an attendant, saying, `Carry them home.'
Then he was amid battle scenes, shouting, `Deploy to the
left! keep out of that ambuscade! Now go, my braves!
Double quick! Strike for the flag! On, on!' he shouted,
tossing up both his arms; `you'll win the day.' As we
looked on the beautiful face and manly form, thus wrestling
with the strong enemy, and thought of the mother and
sister in their distant home, surrounded by every luxury
wealth could purchase, worlds seemed too cheap to give to
have him with them.
"Having fought through three battles, he was not willing
to admit that he was sick till the vital currents ebbed out,
and he was actually dying. To the last he talked of his
men; and now was no time to speak of the spirit-land.
When I whispered a verse of Scripture in his ear, he smiled
He was a graduate of Waterville College, and twenty of
his company were graduates of the same college. An only
son, his mother and sister doted on him; but the mandate
had gone forth, and there he lay, unconscious, in the grasp
of a monster that would never relax till he had done his
work."
Mrs. Harris was at Savage's Station and Seven Pines
while the fight was raging. Here, in the primary hospitals,
and under the trees in the rear of the carnage, she took
part in scenes, and assumed duties, which not often fall to
her sex. Now she was soothing patients under the hands
of the operator; now preparing the minds of "great,
noble-looking men, officers and privates," to submit to the
amputation of an arm or a leg. Her woman's heart was
much moved for a captain from Massachusetts, who pleaded
very hard for his leg. "O, my wife and children," he would
say (and he had seven), "it will kill them to see me so mutilated."
But it was of no avail. The ball had shattered his
knee-joint, and amputation was unavoidable. So the chloroform
was pressed to his mouth, and he was taken insensible
to the operating table.
Her opinion of some army chaplains, notwithstanding
her earnest piety, does not seem to have been very high.
It was the night after the battle of Seven Pines; and she
had just seated herself, after a most exhausting day, to a
cup of tea, "when a great, healthy man, there to look after
the sick and wounded, and a chaplain, too, came to me,
saying, `They have just brought in a soldier, with a leg
blown off; he is in a horrible condition; can't you wash
sacred office yourself?' when the thought the man that acts
so would not be tender, checked me, and soon the duty was
over; but I knew I `had done it for his burial.' So a grave
was dug, and we gave him back to earth, but not till I had
cut away a lock of his hair for his Massachusetts mother."
During the first days of July these labors continued, and
grew more tragical, before it was known in how tolerable a
condition the army was brought to Harrison's Landing.
When she reached that place — carried from the Landing to
a wagon on a sailor's back, through mud knee-deep — the
welcome she received from the crowds of poor, war-worn
soldiers, who crowded the banks, was a reward for all her
hardships.
Among the sick and wounded at Harrison's Landing and
the hospitals along James River and at Fortress Monroe,
Mrs. Harris labored through the months of July and
August, with the same earnest devotion, the same mixture
of Christian zeal with practical and physical kindness, that
characterized her service elsewhere.
In August, her attention was directed principally to
raising the spirits and health of the great number of
the partially sick, who needed only rest, cheerful words,
and palatable food. Ovens were built, and bread for
whole regiments mixed and moulded, and baked by her
directions. Pickles and jellies were brought from Philadelphia
in large quantities, and distributed with the daily
ration. Shirts, handkerchiefs, and socks were given out.
On the 20th August, she wrote from Fortress Monroe
that she had been busy as possible getting a new hospital
nothing to feed them with but the stores of the Ladies'
Aid Society. In two days this number was swelled to
fourteen hundred, mostly convalescents. Very opportunely,
as she observed, she received sixty packages from
New York and Massachusetts.
During the last two weeks of August, she distributed
one hundred baskets, seventy-two barrels, five bags, and
five boxes of onions; eight barrels of apples, eight of
potatoes, three of beets, three of squashes; eighteen
bushels of tomatoes; five barrels of pickles, one of molasses;
two kegs of butter, six of dried rusk and crackers;
eighty pounds of cheese, and large quantities of clothing,
towels, farina, wine, milk, and cocoa.
Early in September these sanitary labors were again, for
nearly two months, suspended, and her time was almost
wholly occupied in the care of the dying and wounded, in
the swiftly-following and bloody engagements that commenced
with Jackson's advance up the Shenandoah Valley,
and ended with Lee's defeat at Antietam.
The following extract, from a letter written just after
Antietam, is a picture of her labors, and the sights and
sufferings through which she moved during that battle
autumn: —
"Night was closing in upon us — the rain falling fast;
the sharpshooters were threatening all who ventured near
our wounded and dying on the battle-ground; a line of
battle in view, artillery in motion, litters and ambulances
going in all directions; wounded picking their way, now
lying down to rest, some before they were out of the range
severest wounds in these places of imagined safety; add to
this, marching and countermarching of troops; bearers of
despatches hurrying to and fro; eager, anxious inquirers
after the killed and wounded; and the groans of the poor
sufferers under the surgeons' hands, — and you may form
some faint idea of our position on that eventful evening.
Reaching a hospital but a few removes from the cornfield in
which the deadliest of the strife was waged, I found the
ground literally covered with the dead and wounded —
barns, hayricks, outhouses of every description, all full.
Here and there a knot of men, with a dim light near, told
of amputations; whilst the shrieks and groans of the
poor fellows, lying all around, made our hearts almost to
stand still. The rain fell upon their upturned faces, but it
was not noticed; bodily pain and mental anguish — for
many were brought to meet the king of terrors face to
face, and would have given worlds to evade his cold
touch — rendered them indifferent to their surroundings.
Most of the sufferers were from General Meagher's Irish
brigade, and were louder in their demonstrations of feeling
than are the Germans, or our own native born. We could
do little that night but distribute wine and tea, and speak
comforting words. We were called to pray with a dying
Christian; and I feel the grasp of his hand yet, as we knelt
around in the rain, in the dark night, with only the glimmering
lights around the operating tables, and looked up to the
Father of our Lord and Saviour for his mercy and grace to
fall upon the dying man, and all his comrades clustering
round us needing dying grace. Then we sang, `There is rest
sound stopped the shrieks and groans of the brave men.
They listened. They all seemed comforted. It was then
midnight, or near it. Before the next sun threw its rays in
upon these twelve hundred wounded soldiers, the darkness
of death had settled upon eleven sons, husbands, and fathers,
whose hearts had throbbed healthfully with loving thoughts
of home and country but a few hours before. We remained
at this hospital until the evening of the 19th; we had slept a
few hours on the straw upon which our soldiers had lain,
and upon which their life-blood had been poured out. We
prepared tea, bread and butter, milk punch, and egg-nog;
furnished rags, lint, and bandages, as needed, and then
came on to French's Division Hospital, where were one
thousand of our wounded, and a number of Confederates.
The first night we slept in our ambulance; no room in the
small house, the only dwelling near, could be procured.
The next day was the Sabbath. The sun shone brightly;
the bees and the birds were joyous and busy; a beautiful
landscape spread out before us, and we knew the Lord of
the Sabbath looked down upon us. But, with all these
above and around us, we could see only our suffering, uncomplaining
soldiers, mutilated, bleeding, dying. Almost
every hour I witnessed the going out of some young life.
No words can describe the wonderful endurance: not a
murmur, not a word of complaint or regret. Many such
expressions as the following have been heard: `Yes, I have
struck my last blow for my country; whether I have served
my country well others may judge. I know I love her
more than life.' The lip quivered with emotion, and the
this, and must meet eternity. I have thought too little of
the future. I had a praying mother. O that I might meet
her!' Another, a mere youth, with full, round face and
mild blue eyes, said, `Hold my hand till I die. I am
trying to think of my Saviour; but think of my mother and
father; their hearts will break.' Another, in reply to the
remark, `Well, my brother, you have fought a good fight;
we thank you for what you have done and suffered for us;
and now we want to talk to you about One who suffered
and died for you and for us, eighteen hundred and sixty-two
years ago, and now lives to intercede for us. He is
near us now, and knows all your wants. Shall we ask him
to abide with you, for the day is closing?' Putting his
hand (he had but one) to his eyes — `It is growing dark;
can it be death?' For a time emotion was too big for utterance;
but, recovering himself, he said, `I came into the
army to die if need be, but did not think it would come so
soon — my first battle. O, my wife and children! O
God, have mercy upon them!' As we left him, his earnest
`Mother, come soon again,' fell upon my heart. When
next seen, I turned from him with sorrow inexpressible.
The straightened, defined form, covered over with a
blanket, told of three orphaned children and a stricken
widow. The love of home, and thoughtful care of mothers,
sisters, and fathers, are manifested most touchingly, especially
by our New England soldiers: perhaps this may be true
of all from rural districts, in the several states. The loss
of a strong arm or leg is a mother's loss. `Who will
support her if I am disabled? Who will cut her wood and
on the part of a young boy, who sickened and died on
his way to Poolesville the last month. He was extremely
delicate, almost childish in appearance and expression.
When told that he must be very quiet, that his physician
thought he should have rested at Washington, and not come
on with his regiment, he replied, `Yes, I thought I ought to
stay there; I felt awful bad and weak like; but it seemed so
much like giving up.' Then he burst into tears, and his
delicate frame quivered with emotion, as he added, `My
mother is weakly, and is trying to educate my little brother
and sister, and I helped her; and now that I must die,
what will she do?' After a time he grew calm, and said,
`I will try and leave her where she said she left me all the
time — in the arms of our heavenly Father. If I die, he can
and will take care of her and her children.' All this was
said with many interruptions, for he was very weak. He
languished a few days, and slept in Jesus. This is not an
uncommon experience.
"Passing over the battle-ground of the 9th, such sights as
might cause the general pulse of life to stand still met our
eyes.
"Stretched out in every direction, as far as the eye could
reach, were the dead and dying. Much the larger proportion
must have died instantly — their positions, some with
ramrod in hand to load, others with gun in hand as if about
to aim, others still having just discharged their murderous
load. Some were struck in the act of eating. One poor
fellow still held a potato in his grasp. Another clutched
a piece of tobacco; others held their canteens as if to
upon a fence, having been killed in the act of leaping it.
How my heart sickens at the recollection of the appearance
of these men, who had left their homes in all the pride of
manly beauty.
"When they kissed their loved ones, and bade farewell,
a gush of pride, mixed with the sadness of the parting,
may have swelled the hearts of mothers, wives, and sisters,
as they gazed upon the manly forms, in their bright, new
uniforms, and for a time the perils of the soldier may have
been forgotten. Now, how changed! Begrimed with
dust, heads and bodies bloated and blackened, a spectacle
of sickening horror, objects of loathing, the worm already
preying upon them!"
Other letters, written in October, give full accounts of
the deaths of various soldiers, whose devotion and excellence
of character had interested Mrs. Harris, whose
sufferings were soothed by her gentle and Christian consolations,
and who finally died in full faith, glad to have
suffered so much for their country, and hopeful when the
summons of release reached them.
These letters of Mrs. Harris from the Peninsula and the
Potomac, in 1862, were published and extensively read in
the loyal communities of the North, and had a great effect
in increasing her usefulness, and that of the society of
which she was secretary. (She displayed remarkable fitness
for hospital and sanitary labors. Her usefulness in
the trying duties she fulfilled was abundantly evinced by
the testimony of surgeons, officers, and soldiers, in the field
and in the hospitals; and now very large supplies were sent
through the rooms of the Ladies' Aid Society of Philadelphia.
During the period from October, 1862, to May, 1863,
although but one great battle took place in Virginia, Mrs.
Harris continued her hospital labors with unabated zeal and
devotion. At no time in the long struggle was sanitary
service more needed; for the winter of 1862-3 was in this
war what that of 1777-8 was to the Continental army
under Washington. The troops had been worn down by
the unexampled fatigues of the fall campaign, and when
the cold weather set in, sickness multiplied at a rate so
alarming, as to threaten, at one time, the very organization
of the army.
Between thirty and forty thousand men were in the sick
and convalescent camps, that extended from the Rappahannock
to the Potomac. Thirty thousand more lay in the
military hospitals in and around Washington. Mrs. Harris
was laboring, during the month of November, to direct the
attention of government to the destitution and suffering in
these convalescent camps; and finally Congress was aroused
to action, and some slow and inadequate remedies were
applied. Writing on the subject, in December, she says,
"I am at present exercised in mind and body to a fearful
degree. Think of the cold weather of the past week, and
of hundreds of our boys, many of whom we had nursed at
Bolivar and Smoketown, who came here to join their regiments,
being thrown into this camp to suffer and die. So
it has been. Fifteen of those in whom I was interested have
died — shall I write it? — of starvation and exposure, within
three weeks, and that under the shadow of our Capitol."
Early in January the command of the army passed into
the hands of General Hooker, and by degrees a better
spirit was infused into the whole Union force. But there
was much suffering during the winter from cold and sickness.
Picket duty was very heavy, and the sick at all times
abundant. Mrs. Harris was for many weeks established
at the Lacey House, where her self-imposed duties were
onerous and varied.
She procured a stove, some corn-meal and ground ginger,
and with wine and crackers prepared, every day, and
often twice in a day, a large supply of hot ginger panada
for the pickets as they came in from the line of the Rappahannock.
The boys were extremely fond of this preparation,
and were drawn up in line in front of her headquarters,
each receiving in his tin cup, from her own
hands often, the wholesome and stimulating preparation.
It will never be known how many a poor fellow, coming
in from his post, where he had stood for the weary hours of
an inclement night in the mud and sleet of a Virginia winter,
was saved from pneumonia by this simple expedient.
The following picture of Sabbath morning life at the
Lacey House will illustrate the manner in which her time
was spent during that winter and spring: —
"Could you have looked in upon us at breakfast time
this day of sacred rest, your eye would have fallen on
scenes and groupings all out of harmony with its holy uses.
One cooking-stove pushed to its utmost capacity, groaning
beneath the weight of gruel, coffee, and tea, around it clustered
soldiers, shivering, drenched to the skin, here and
there a poor fellow coiled upon the floor, too full of pain and
as closely as possible, were others, whose expressions of
thanks told how grateful the simple repast was — bread,
stewed fruit, and coffee. All alike were wet and cold,
having been exposed throughout the night to the driving
snow and rain, the most uncomfortable one of the season.
Two poor boys groan under the pressure of pain; they are
carried to the chamber, their wet stockings removed, feet
bathed with camphor, spice tea given them, and an ambulance
sent for. Now we return to our room of all-work. The
vapor from the clothing of the soldiers, mingled with the
steam from the coffee and gruel, condenses on my glasses;
the eye waters, too, and the lungs are oppressed with the
heavy atmosphere, and for a moment I am ready to give
up; but only for a moment. Suddenly the word `halt' is
heard, and an instant after such a chorus of coughs smites
upon our ears, and each one seems to say, `What thy hand
findeth to do, do it with all thy might.' Seventy-two of
our defenders stood there in the raw March wind, in
need of something to keep the powers of life in action.
Thoroughly wet, icicles on their blankets after a sleepless
night, a march of from three to five miles before them,
sinking every step over shoe-top in mud and slush, — could
you have seen the eager pressing forward, tin cup in hand,
to secure the coveted portion, simple as it was, you would
feel that God's own day was honored."
These labors were continued till late in April, when
the advance across the river commenced. Sometimes Mrs.
Harris acted as apothecary, sometimes as physician, constantly
as nurse and Christian friend.
The preparation of the ginger panada, or "bully soup,"
as the soldiers called it, was kept up as long as the north
bank of the river was picketed. She continued to visit
those who were very sick, and especially all she heard of
who could not recover, and labored, in her simple and
direct way, to fit them, if possible, for the great change.
Letters, full and graphic, descriptive of all these scenes
and labors, were constantly forwarded to the Ladies' Aid
Society, and, when published and extensively circulated,
aroused a wide-spread sympathy for the heroic sufferers,
and admiration for the no less heroic laborers in the army
hospitals and at the front.
Early in May came the battle of Chancellorsville, and
for a few weeks the letters of Mrs. Harris were less frequent,
so completely was her time absorbed by the constant
and painful demands upon her to act as nurse and Christian
comforter to the ten thousand wounded in that fearful
series of engagements.
The extent and degree of that suffering is best understood
from an extract from a letter of May 18.
"After seeing Mrs. B. and Mrs. L. off, we filled
two ambulances with bread and butter, prepared stewed
fruit, egg-nog, lemons, oranges, cheese, shirts, drawers,
stockings, and handkerchiefs, and went out to meet a train
of ambulances bearing the wounded from United States
Ford. Reaching Stoneman's Station, where we expected
to meet the train, we learned we were a half hour too late,
but could overtake them; so we pressed forward, and found
ourselves in the rear of a long procession of one hundred
and two ambulances. The road being narrow, steep, and
follow, feeling every jolt and jar for our poor suffering
ones, whose wounds had just reached that point when the
slightest motion is agony.
"When this sad procession halted near the hospital of the
sixth army corps, we prepared to minister to the sufferers.
Some gentlemen of the Christian Commission were there to
assist us. No pen can describe the scene. Most of these
sufferers had been wounded on the 3d instant.
"Amputations and dressings had been hurriedly gone
over, and then much neglected, necessarily so, for the rebel
surgeons had more than enough to occupy them in the care
of their own wounded. You know we left most of our
wounded on the right in their hands.
"By day and by night I see their poor mutilated limbs,
red with inflammation, bones protruding, worms rioting as
they were held over the sides of the ambulance to catch the
cooling breeze! Those anguished faces — what untold suffering
they bespoke! Many a lip quivered, and eye filled
with tears, when approached with words of sympathy; and
not a few told how they had prayed for death to end their
sufferings, as they were dashed from side to side, often
rolling, in their helplessness, over each other, as they were
driven those twenty weary miles. We came to one poor
fellow with a ball in his breast. His companion, who was
utterly helpless, having been wounded in both arms, had
rolled on him, and was thrown off only by a lurch of the
ambulance. When we carried him some egg-nog, he
drank it eagerly, and asked to be raised up, stopping at
intervals to recover breath; but before his turn came to
and his wife and five children left to plead with
God the promises made to the fatherless and widow.
"We have sent large amounts of hospital supplies to
Mrs. Husband and Mrs. McKay, in the third corps. Miss
Dix asked me to attend to the distribution of a half barrel
of eggs and some oranges, and they were divided between
these ladies, who are both admirable women.
"For six mornings we have prepared five gallons of
custard, using six dozen eggs, and about eight gallons of
pudding. The surgeons tell us to give as much wholesome,
nutritious food to the wounded as they will eat.
You may judge how completely our time is filled up. Our
evening meetings are now so largely attended that we have
been obliged to resort to the main building. They are
temporarily disturbed, at nine o'clock, by the cry, `Fall in,
third relief,' when the heavy tread of men, the clatter of
swords, and the rustle of the old relief taking their places
are heard. We find it difficult to close these services, so
full of enjoyment are they to the soldiers."
These religious meetings were continued for three
months, and were very numerously attended. Mrs. Harris
assumed the whole responsibility, occasionally calling upon
clergymen and others, whom she knew, to lead the devotions
of the audience. Her hospital labors continued, as
described above, after the battles of the Peninsula and
Antietam, with occasional flying trips to Washington and
other points in the vicinity, to look up and forward the
boxes of the Ladies' Aid Society. Late in June and on
the first days of July, we find her, now in Harrisburg and
as to where the struggle, that all knew to be impending,
must take place, yet ready, with her sanitary stores, to
commence labors at once.
On the 3d of July she was in Washington, and besought
of the government, with tears, permission to carry forward
to Gettysburg a car-load of supplies, but was advised that
it was unsafe to go to the front. Taking some chloroform
and stimulants, she left Baltimore on the 4th, and penetrated
as near as possible to the scene of the conflict,
ministering as much as in her power to the stream of
wounded that filled the cars, and was now rapidly swelling
with each arrival from Gettysburg. Hundreds of the soldiers
greeted her, she says, with the kindest expressions.
On the 9th she writes from Gettysburg these few hurried
words: —
"Am full of work and sorrow. The appearance of
things here beggars all description. Our dead lie unburied,
and our wounded neglected. Numbers have been
drowned by the sudden rising of the waters in the creek
bottoms, and thousands of them are still naked and starving.
God pity us! — pity us!"
On the day following she gives a fuller account, saying
she has been on the field of blood since the 4th, and has
seen suffering of the most fearful character.
On the 12th Mrs. Harris and another lady, finding supplies
in great abundance at Gettysburg, and a large number
of assistants arriving daily, concluded that they could do
more good by following the advance of General Meade,
and attending to the fresh cases of the wounded and sick.
the other with food and clothing, they followed the army in
its rapid marches for nearly a month. Severe skirmishing
was in progress much of the time, and great numbers were
taken sick. At Warrenton the inhabitants refused them
their kitchens, and they prepared food for the sick soldiers
in the street, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked in
barns, by the wayside, in churches, in cars, wherever they
could find the suffering soldiers.
Her letters, during this month of labor, were neither long
nor frequent. Yet she says it was a real trial to her to be so
summary when so many moving incidents pressed upon her
mind, and tingled at the tips of her fingers.
In August we find her again at Warrenton, giving out
supplies for four hospitals recently opened there, and instructing
the doctors and surgeons in the homely science of
preparing farina, corn starch, and panada for the sick.
She says there was hardly a family at Warrenton but
mourned one dead at Gettysburg. The extreme heat, and
long-protracted and heavy service, had produced great
prostration in many who were not suffering from acute
disease. The water, too, was in some places very impure.
She sent to Philadelphia for a large number of empty
phials, and filling these with such stimulants as the doctors
advised, left them at the head of each of the suffering soldiers,
thus saving many lives, and alleviating much misery.
Early in September she found herself one evening so
exhausted by labor, travel, discomfort, and the extreme
heat, that she was for a little time fixed in the determination
to seek health and repose among the mountain breezes
being somewhat restored by sleep, she was actively
forming plans for further labors of relief and comfort for
"the brave boys." After breakfasting on a piece of army
bread, and some jelly, eaten with a rusty knife and an old
tin tea-spoon, she heard that some cavalrymen, the sixth
Michigan, were not far distant, and greatly in need of aid.
After much difficulty and delay in crossing a swollen creek,
she was hailed with joy by all who knew the humane nature
of her errand. She found sixty sick men, wholly without
attendance or food. The surgeon in charge had been prostrated
with camp fever — the hospital steward and the cook
were both sick. They had camped in a low, marshy place;
and, as the men were exhausted by long marches, irregular
meals, and sleepless nights, they yielded in great numbers
to the miasm of the swamp, and the glare of the sun, unbroken
by any friendly shade. They had eaten nothing for
several days but a few mouldy pieces of hard-tack, and
drank black coffee, boiled in their tin cups.
Mrs. Harris drives up to where a little camp kettle is
hanging over a low fire, and finds the whole cooking equipment
of these sixty or seventy sick men consists of a small
sheet-iron stove, a small tea-kettle, two tin pans holding a
gallon each, one small water-bucket, a few spoons, and a
broken earthen dish.
She collects all the canteens belonging to the men, and
sends them with the bucket to the spring, replenishes the
fire, gets the bag of farina from the ambulance, as also the
sugar, dried rusk, nutmegs, brandy, butter, milk, and
flavoring extracts. When the water was brought she filled
up the vessels and sent them for more.
Then the horse-bucket, from the ambulance, was cleaned,
and partly filled with dried rusk, a few spoonfuls of butter,
a half bottle of brandy, four nutmegs, and boiling water
poured over the whole, and the panada was made.
While this was being distributed, and, as there were but a
few tin cups, but few could be supplied at a time, the
largest kettleful of farina was boiling.
Then she adds, "If you could have seen the tears and
heard the thanks of these sick braves, you would not
wonder that I remain here day after day."
Soon after this, Mrs. Harris returned home for a few days
of rest; but on the 24th September we find her at Culpepper,
spending her days in preparing food for the sick,
of which she says there were not less than four hundred in
the four hospitals. Remaining a few days at this post of
duty, she returned to Philadelphia early in October; and,
after advising with the officers of the society, it is decided
that she is to go west of the mountains, and labor for the
lives and comfort of the thousands and tens of thousands
whose hopes, health, and happiness had been crushed under
the iron wheel of war.
Two great armies had marched and countermarched, for
nearly a year, through the counties of Tennessee that are
adjacent to the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. Rosecrans,
after his great battle of Stone River, had pressed
upon his antagonist, and partly by force, but mainly by
stratagem, had driven him out of Middle Tennessee, and
thrown him across the river of that name, into Northern
Georgia.
There, on the 19th and 20th of September, a long and
Mountain, and in the valley of the Chickamauga below, for
possession of the roads leading to Chattanooga. The Union
force was overpowered, and driven back to Chattanooga,
taking a considerable part of their wounded with them,
but leaving many in the enemy's hands.
Communication with the rear was greatly interrupted.
Supplies could not be forwarded, and horses and mules
were dying by the hundred every day in the mountain
passes, all the way from Tullahoma to Chattanooga.
Refugees, of all ages and both sexes, and every shade of
color and degree of intelligence, were crowded into Nashville,
and the various towns along the road to Chattanooga.
Most of these wretched people were poor and destitute to
the last degree.
The Ladies' Aid Society, of which Mrs. Harris was secretary,
was not confined in its operations to one army, or
one class of sufferers. A noiseless channel for the distribution
of genuine charities, its principle of action from
the time it was organized, in April, 1861, till the Proclamation
of Peace, was to relieve any suffering, in any part
of the land, that arose out of the state of war, and in this
noble mission to "sow beside all waters." A signal of distress
in any quarter, whether from a provost guard at a
fort, the captive in his prison, the soldier on the field, the
mutilated but patient hero in the hospital, the refugee
from starvation and death, the Cherokee in his devastated
fields, the freedman in his destitution, even the bleeding
rebel solder, alike called forth the sympathies and
shared the bounties of this association.
As transportation was slow and difficult, the Ladies' Aid
Society could not forward to the sufferers in Tennessee those
supplies which they had so freely sent to the Potomac army;
and when Mrs. Harris left for Nashville, in the middle of
October, she was supplied with money from the treasury
of the society, and a few boxes of the most portable sanitary
articles, to be used according to her discretion. In two
days after her arrival she commenced her labors of love
among the Union refugees — that large class of the miserably
poor who had migrated from the pine barrens of North
Carolina, and settled on the mountain sides and in the
obscure caves of the Alleghany and Cumberland ranges.
In the days of peace and comparative plenty, these people
were poor. But when the whirlwind of war swept through
their secluded valleys; when the once united and harmonious
communities were divided into bitter factions; —
To the heart of the lone hills;
When the spear in conflict shakes,
And the strong lance, shivering, breaks;"
man, and their condition became truly pitiable.
"It is a very dark picture," writes Mrs. Harris, "made up
of miserable looking women and old men, with naked children
of all ages. Many come here to die, no provision
being made for them other than the food and shelter
afforded by government. After herding together indiscriminately
in some dirty wareroom, or unfinished, unfurnished
tenement, in ill-ventilated apartments, they become
typhus fever. It comes in the form of a chill, followed by
fever; and this is followed by jabbering idiocy, with no
great suffering, except to sympathizers. The mind of the
sick one is filled with old home scenes; ghastly smiles,
more saddening by far than tears, play over wan and haggard
faces; the patient sinks, in a few days fills a government
coffin, and is carried to a nameless grave. Going
into a long, dark room, on the ground floor, in an unfinished
mammoth hotel, now used as barracks, we found in
the foreground some half dozen women with a crowd of
children, crouching around a smoking stove; the women in
tattered, dirty garments, their vacant, listless expression
seeming to say, `We are only poor white trash.' The
children, dressed in hospital shirts, — no other garments, —
would have looked comical had their poor little faces been
hid; these were so unlike careless childhood that we could
only look and wonder if any that surrounded our Saviour
when he took them in his arms and blessed them were like
these. In the background were beds, so close as scarcely
to admit a passage between them. On one of the beds lay
a sick old man, moaning; still farther on, a young woman
in the last stage of rapid consumption. Two of these
homeless sick had that morning found homes from which
they will never be driven. The wretched inmates told us
they were `right smart better off then than they had
been.' They made no complaints."
Among these unhappy people Mrs. Harris labored for
more than a month. She watched with the sick, and
prayed with those about to die. She assembled them in
the open air, and engaged some Christian speaker to hold
before them the model of Him who knows our sorrows, and
is acquainted with all human griefs; who was himself homeless,
and had not where to lay his head. Not confining
her labors to the refugees, Mrs. Harris visited various
hospitals in Nashville, and was able to do a great deal for
the comfort of those who were about to be sent forward to
Louisville, on their way homeward.
In November we find her in Louisville, communicating
with the towns in the North-Western States, and collecting
the materials for a general thanksgiving dinner in Nashville.
Having obtained large supplies for this purpose, she
did not stay to see the soldiers enjoy their luxuries, but
pressed forward with relief to the suffering and starving
in Bridgeport and Chattanooga. Two weeks later she
wrote from Chattanooga, where her labors for the wounded
were similar to those for the Potomac army, of which a full
recital has been given; but she saw more horror, and agony,
and death, during her three months here, than she had ever
seen in her whole experience in the east.
"As I write, an ambulance passes, bearing the remains
of four heroes of the late battles; all of them full of hope
when I came here, and, though wounded, talking only of
victory; one telling how vexed he felt when the bullet
struck him, half way up the hill; another rejoicing that
he got to the top; another, that he grasped the flag, and
held it aloft nearly at the top — is sure the old stars and
stripes saw the top, if he didn't. And so they talked, for
days, only of their country's triumph; but a change passed
they were carried from their comrades, and put in tents,
lest the poison might be communicated to their wounded
fellow-sufferers. There, in the `gangrene ward," the glory
of battle and victory faded away, as the fatal disease bore
them nearer and nearer to the great eternity that shuts
out all sounds of war.
"Then the fearful misgivings that took the place of the
hopes of earthly glory were deeply engraven on their poor,
wan faces, and began to be whispered in the ears of Christian
sympathy. No words can describe the condition of
our hospitals here, and of the whole country. Think of
Golgotha, the Valley of Hinnom, and all the dark places
of the earth, and you may arrive at some conception of it."
Just as Mrs. Harris was entering systematically into
measures of sanitary relief similar to those she had so
admirably conducted on the battle-fields of Virginia, the
long series of labors, exposures, and anxieties worked their
natural effect upon her constitution, and for two weeks she
was very sick. For a time, even, her life was despaired
of; but while so much was to be done for those crowded
hospitals, she could not give up her hold on life, and God,
in his mercy, restored her to health, and gave her back, to
be an unspeakable blessing and comfort to those who suffered
in hope, and to those who languished without hope.
Early in January she resumed her labors and her correspondence
with the society, saying, in reference to her
sickness, only these words: "I feel almost ashamed to
consume your time with any account of it, the suffering all
around me is of such an intense character."
During the months of January and February, 1864, she
labored incessantly in the great hospitals of Chattanooga,
still crowded with the wounded of two terrific battles. In
January she was rejoiced when the transportation was such
as to allow all the well men to be comfortably clothed and
fed. The railroad was not opened till the middle of the
month. The battle of Chickamauga had been fought
four months before. In recapitulating the events of that
time, she writes, "My experiences, since I reached Chattanooga,
have been among the most painful of the three
past eventful years. In looking back, amazement seizes
me, and the attempt to rehearse them seems futile. War,
famine, and pestilence have made up the warp and woof of
our soldier life. As I entered one of the hospitals, early in
December, and asked, `Well, friends, how are you getting
along?' the response came from many a cot, `We are starving.'
A surgeon remarked to me, in a careless tone, `A
great many of our men have starved to death, but they did
not know it.' He was mistaken."
As spring opened, active operations were about to be
resumed at Chattanooga. It was the commencement of
Sherman's last magnificent campaign. Mrs. Harris accordingly
returned to Nashville in March, and for two months
continued her labors among the unhappy class for whom
she had done so much in the fall.
As the Union arms became victorious in Northern Georgia,
a great number of refugees from these counties came
pouring northward, and stopped at Nashville.
The following picture of sights and groups, among which
Mrs. Harris's daily life at Nashville was passed, illustrates
kindliness of her ministration: —
"As I entered a house on the Murfreesboro' Pike, a few
miles out of Nashville, which showed signs of former elegance,
but was now occupied by twelve refugee families, I
was met by a ragged little child, who said, `That's our
room; my aunt is there. I reckon she's dying.' Upon
a bed lay a woman whose breathing told of the deathstruggle.
Stooping over the fire were the mother and
sisters, in silent grief. They had been driven from comfortable
homes in Dade County, Georgia, because their
husbands were loyal, and had months before entered the
Union army. After untold sufferings, they found themselves
among strangers, miserably lodged, and worse fed.
All of them had been sick. Two children had died; and
now the daughter, a mother, too, was dying. None of
them could read. I stooped over the dying woman, and
repeated a part of the fourteenth chapter of John. She
turned her dying eyes on me, and with a look of glad
surprise, exclaimed, `That's my home; Jesus is there, and
he is here. I have had a power of trouble, and been
pestered mightily; but it was worth it all to feel how
good Jesus is.'"
After her return from these protracted and depressing
labors in the West, the health of Mrs. Harris was so utterly
wasted, that not even the inspiration of an heroic purpose
or the promptings of holy zeal could sustain her in labors
equal to those she had undergone. But when the life-blood
of the army of the Potomac was poured out at so fearful a
rate in the great campaign of 1864, she went down to Fredericksburg,
and labored with her customary earnestness and efficiency.
Early in the spring of 1865 she went into the department
of Virginia and North Carolina, and was in the latter state
when Sherman brought his veteran army around in that
gigantic curve to the rear of the rebel stronghold, and the
closing scenes of the long tragedy were rapidly hurried
across the arena. Almost her last acts of kindness to soldiers
were bestowed upon the wretched victims of malignity
that had staggered alive out of the infamous prison pens at
Andersonville and Salisbury.
It was not until the army corps were disbanded and
the primary hospitals broken up, not until the bloody
stretchers were rolled up and stowed away with the bandages
and lint, to gather dust in dim corners of government
storehouses, that Mrs. Harris could regard her mission
ended and her occupation gone. With returning and
established peace she has glided back to the life of quiet
duty and patient endurance, from which, four years before,
she had emerged, her health feebler than before, suffering
constantly from the effects of a sunstroke, received while
laboring on the field at Savage's Station. But if the
approving testimony of conscience is any reward; if ever
mercy is twice blessed, enriching the receiver and the giver
alike; if the affectionate admiration of the thousands who
saw her labors, and were benefited by them, is precious,
— this admiration, this blessing, this reward, she has, to
alleviate the weariness of her sick chamber, and to brighten
the pathway along which she moves to the heavenly
approval.
| MRS. JOHN HARRIS. Women of the war : | |