 | MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND. Women of the war : |  |
MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND.
THE personal history and character of many, of both
sexes, who distinguished themselves during our war,
have proved that loyalty and unselfish patriotism are frequently
hereditary. Devotion and loyalty to country are
as often seen transmitted from sire to son as the height of
the figure or the color of the hair. In a great number of
instances the heroes and heroines of the war for the Union
prove to be the direct descendants of those who distinguished
themselves by their zeal, their courage, or their
public spirit, in the war of the Revolution.
This remark applies with peculiar force to the person
whose name stands at the head of this sketch. One of the
many hundreds whom she nursed and blessed during her
long career as a hospital matron and nurse, in speaking of
the thorough and unostentatious heartiness of her work,
said the soldiers could account for such unselfishness only
from the fact that she is the granddaughter of Robert
Morris, of revolutionary fame.
Many, like Mrs. Husband, have looked upon a noble
lineage as only a circumstance that committed them to
lives of uncommon labor for the public, and constant self-sacrifice,
as proving that the blood of which they are
justly proud has not grown ignoble while the republic
development.
In the noble group of patriotic nurses who moved about
on their blessed errands among the great throng of bleeding
heroes on the hills of Gettysburg, the granddaughter
of Robert Morris and the granddaughter of President
Dwight worked side by side.
Supplies collected by the descendants of General Philip
Schuyler and of Benjamin Franklin were forwarded at the
same time from different cities. When the little army of
Washington had marked its path over the frozen roads to
its winter quarters by blood from the naked feet of our
revolutionary sires, the grandmother of Mrs. Husband
labored untiringly in public for their relief.
Feeling that she was in a manner committed to a life of
patriotic self-sacrifice by the example of her ancestors, and
prompted by the natural kindness of her heart and the
loyalty of her soul, Mrs. Husband was one of the earliest
to devote herself to the good of the soldier.
In 1861 she was the librarian and a tri-weekly visitor of
the hospital at the corner of Twenty-second and Wood
Streets, in Philadelphia. The character and excellence of
that work are fully described in the memoir of Mrs. Mary
Brady, who at the same time was engaged in a similar work
in the great hospital in West Philadelphia.
In the summer of 1862 our national affairs assumed a
darker phase than ever before, and the demands of a bleeding
and endangered country were brought home as earnestly
to the self-sacrificing spirit of women as to the courage and
patriotism of men. About the first of July, Dr. Hexon
bring away a load of the sick from Harrison's Landing,
and Mrs. Husband went with him. From this time till
the close of the war, and the disbanding of the regiments,
in June, 1865, — a period of three years, — Mrs. Husband
was constantly in service, and, for a larger portion of the
time, laboriously occupied in a great number of different
hospitals, working very quietly, not for the praise of men,
but for the love of God, and in earnest sympathy with
suffering patriotism.
She made three trips to Harrison's Landing, and labored
in the manner elsewhere fully described in an account of
the hospital transport service. In the latter part of August
she took temporary charge of the National Hospital at
Baltimore, while the matron, who was sick, was recovering,
and saw its wards filled and overflowing with the groaning
and mutilated results of the second battle of Bull Run, and
the fights of Chantilly and South Mountain. After two or
three weeks thus spent in scenes of horror and agony,
striving by constant labors to assuage a part of such immense
suffering, and to rob the amputation-room of some
of its terrors, the matron whose place she was filling resumed
her former duties, and Mrs. Husband proceeded at
once to Smoketown Hospital, where some of the sufferers
from the great field of Antietam were collected. Here she
remained two months, and labored, not in any position
of command or superiority, but doing the very things that
others had left undone, and given over to some utterly
unselfish and truly noble character, like Mrs. Husband.
The actual sufferers, who were in the wards which she
bedsides, and heard her voice speaking cheer to the desponding,
or reading the words of the Saviour to those
who had only his arm beneath them, all human skill
having failed them, they can give the most appropriate and
valuable testimonials as to the character and spirit of her
work, and the deep impression it made on those who were
so fortunate as to enjoy her attentions. The following is
what a Massachusetts soldier says of her: —
"I arrived at the Smoketown General Hospital on the
day the army moved into Virginia under McClellan for the
last time. The larger part of the hospital was just established,
and a great number of the sick of the army were
sent there that day and night.
"When I saw Mrs. Husband for the first time, I was impressed
by the very capable manner in which she labored.
All the patients that could speak were loud in her praises,
and those who were too sick to talk looked their gratitude
and appreciation. For weeks and months she labored from
an early hour in the morning till late at night, going from
tent to tent, with always a cheerful word for all, never
losing for a moment that perfect evenness of temper, and
that admirable knowledge of the wants of the sick, with
which only a woman is endowed. It was my good fortune
to witness on her part several acts of heroism, one of which
I will mention.
"A New York soldier, a mere boy, sick with fever, was
discovered also to have diphtheria in its most malignant
form. He was at once removed to a tent, put up for the
purpose, in a distant part of the grove, away from all
fearing the disease, neglected him. Knowing this, Mrs.
Husband took charge of the patient, staying every moment
that could be spared from the rest of the sick, for several
days and nights, tenderly caring for him like a saint,
reading to him from the Testament, and taking his dying
message for his mother, that `she must not mourn for
him, for he was willing and ready to die.'
"Hundreds of men, scattered all over the states, will
always remember and revere her. In her labors she
always sought such places as were farthest from ready
help, and where they would be of the most use, never
seeming to care for her own comfort, disregarding the requirements
of her own health, never leaving her self-imposed
duties till sickness and exhaustion drove her
home for rest and quiet, and while so resting, preparing
supplies to be taken to the army as soon as she was again
able to resume her duties."
Another of the Antietam sufferers, who was so fortunate
as to be under Mrs. Husband's care, expresses his admiration
and gratitude in the lines transcribed below. What
star or badge, given by a monarch to a subject, what order
of nobility, is so true and rich a testimonial of personal
worth as letters like these!
"I was sick with the typhoid fever in the fall of 1862.
As soon as I could be moved I was taken to the Antietam
Field Hospital, where I met Mrs. Husband. Before I was
taken to the hospital I was insane for a week, so that when
I arrived there I was so completely exhausted, so near my
grave, that I have only an indistinct recollection of much
I was removed to another hospital. I was confined to my
bed nearly all the time I was under her care, so that I had
no opportunity of knowing much personally with regard to
her, outside of my own tent. As I owe my recovery to
her exertions, I am happy to be able to testify to her nevertiring
zeal in the care of the sick and wounded soldiers,
thousands of whom would, I know, gladly acknowledge the
kindness they met while under her care. She always
seemed to me to be happy only when engaged in alleviating
the sufferings of the soldiers, over whom she watched with
all the tenderness and love of a mother, many of whom
called her by no other name. Her presence always seemed
to bring sunshine even to the most disheartened. Her face
always wore a smile so sweet that I forgot my pain when in
her presence. She had ever a kind word for every one,
and was always pleased to lend a listening ear and a
sympathizing heart to the thousand and one little troubles
and complaints which the sick man's brain continually
conjures up. She seemed to consider the soldiers as her
children, and I know not how a mother could watch over
her own sons with more tender solicitude. She never
appeared to think of herself — her thoughts all centred
on the sick or wounded soldier. I have known her, on
many a winter's night, when the storms were raging, to
go around two or three times to the bedsides of those
whose lives seemed hanging by a thread, to watch the
progress of the disease, and see that no sleepy nurse had
neglected to properly care for them. She has told me
many times of sleepless nights she has passed, thinking of
hour to hour. She was only too happy to be of service to
any one in trouble. When the army was encamped at Brandy
Station, in the winter of 1863-'64, she was the matron of a
division hospital, and when not engaged in the care of the
sick, she used to visit the various guard-houses in the corps
(the third), and interest herself in the cases of those confined
there, many of them unjustly, for the soldiers well
know there is but little justice in a military court-martial.
I visited her frequently, and on one of those occasions I
learned the following. She found a soldier sentenced to be
shot. Satisfied, from what she could learn concerning his
case, that he was innocent of the charges brought against
him, she set herself to work to save his life. Failing to
make any impression at brigade, division, and corps headquarters,
she, nothing daunted, carried her case to army
headquarters, where she met only with a repulse, even
from the kind-hearted Meade. Not yet discouraged, she
resolved to make one more attempt, determined to save
that young man's life. She went to Washington, and
finally carried her point. This is but one instance of many
similar acts; but I cannot recollect the facts of others with
sufficient accuracy to mention them."
The winter of 1862-'63 was to our army what the winter
at Valley Forge was to Washington's army: It was a time of
uncertainty and disaster, of suffering and deep anxiety. Active
operations were kept up by Burnside, though with no
fortunate results, till January. So much exposure and hard
service, and the bloody conflict of Fredericksburg, threw
upon the hands of the nurses a large number of sick and
of the Rappahannock. Here Mrs. Husband went, and
labored constantly all winter. She took charge, as matron
or lady superintendent, of the General Hospital of the
third division in General Sykes's corps.
One very important use of such a person as Mrs. Husband
at a field hospital is the moral cheer, the hopefulness
and refinement, that her presence inspires. After the
patient is able to leave his bed, a long interval occurs
before his health is confirmed so as to render him fit for
the field. During this time he is naturally low in spirits,
unoccupied, and liable to fall a prey to melancholy, and
become permanently demoralized. This is particularly the
case in an army like ours, where every man thinks for himself,
and the mistake or incompetence of a commanding
general is understood and commented on over every camp
fire, in every hospital, and by every soldier, from the
major-general to the drummer boy. The great demand at
such a time is for wholesome and suitable amusement.
Mrs. Husband was unusually apt and skilful in meeting
the want.
At all times, and in the whole of her hospital experience,
she was attentive to her convalescents, as well as to the
very sick, and to those who must die. She fitted up her
tent or her office with books and pictures, so as to make it
cheerful and home-like. She had facilities for innocent
games, writing materials, and amusing books, so that the
soldier forgot about himself and the home for which he
had so constantly longed. In the enjoyment of the hour
he gained strength, and was soon fit to take up his sword
or musket.
Spring came at length, and Hooker moved across the
river, while everybody connected with hospitals had enough
to do in taking care of the eight thousand wounded at
Chancellorsville. This labor continued throughout the
month of May and for a part of June, and was very
arduous. Nearly two thousand of our wounded had been
left on the field, in the hands of the enemy, who, having
eight or ten thousand himself to care for, neglected ours.
When these poor fellows were brought in, under a flag of
truce, from the 18th to the 21st of May, the accumulation
of misery and suffering was such as was hardly equalled
during the whole war. Some died in the ambulances.
Others could be seen tearing off the dressing of their
wounds, and holding the mutilated stumps over the side
of the conveyance, to assuage the burning pain by the contact
of fresh air. Mortification and gangrene were common.
But medical and sanitary supplies were quite abundant.
The organization was excellent, and before many weeks the
groves on the hill-sides, above Potomac Creek, began to
look cheerful, to resound with the familiar songs of the
camp, and the talk of cheerful and hopeful convalescents.
Her duties here were principally in the field hospital of the
third division, third corps, where she labored with the
constancy, devotion, and kindness which distinguished her
service everywhere. By the middle of June these hospitals
were all broken up, and the whole army was in eager pursuit
of Lee, who was now in the full tide of his invasion,
scouring the fields of Pennsylvania, and threatening the
national capital and the border cities. For a few days
Mrs. Husband lingered in the hospitals of Alexandria and
were now culminating daily to the grand national tragedy,
which, on the first days of July, made Gettysburg one
of the great names in American history, one of the great
names in the annals of the world.
On the 4th she was on the bloody field, and labored constantly
till all the field hospitals were broken up, and the
more serious cases were removed to the cities near by, or
to the General Hospital, which was established near the
town, and which was in operation till in December, when
the last ambulance of mutilated men started for Pittsburg.
She remained at home for a few weeks after all the worst
cases were made comfortable, but returned to the General
Hospital in response to numerous and urgent letters from
"her boys" who were there, and longed for her kindly
presence and cheerful voice.
In the fall of 1863 her attention was aroused by a very
painful and alarming instance occurring in the circle of her
most intimate associates, to the gross and terrible injustice
that may be done by courts martial acting with undue haste,
and having their mandates promptly executed.
From that time till the war ended, Mrs. Husband had no
equal in the noble corps of volunteer army workers in that
peculiar and difficult line of usefulness.
Of fine presence, accustomed from girlhood to the quiet,
but polished and impressive manners of the best circles of
Philadelphia, and with much practical familiarity with the
forms and documents of legal proceeding, she had important
advantages in her favor. Case after case came to
her knowledge of young men who had been found guilty
that would have made their sentence, if executed, a palpable
murder. She undertook these cases, one after another,
going to the various brigade, division, corps, and department
commanders, and, if unsuccessful here, seeking and
gaining an interview with the secretary of war, and finally,
having the ear of that great, patient, kind-hearted president,
who was never too tired, never too busy, and never
too firmly resolved to be unable to give a full and thoughtful
hearing to any woman begging him to spare life.
Once, and only once, she was met with a little coldness
on the part of the executive. In her disinterested zeal,
she had undertaken several cases at the same time, and
having all the proofs and affidavits in file, awaited her turn
to speak with Mr. Lincoln. She began by mentioning the
first case on her docket. Mr. Lincoln glanced at the package
in her hand, and asked if all those papers were suits for
pardon. She said they were. He replied that it was too
much of a good thing, and denied her a hearing. But,
changing her tactics, and approaching him differently, she
drew his attention to each case, and in most of them
secured the exercise of his clemency.
Whenever she went to the army, one of the first places
to which she sought access was the guard-house. The
condition of many she found there awaiting sentence, or
awaiting trial, was sometimes most pitiful. They had,
perhaps, been arrested months before, when the weather
was hot, and summer clothing appropriate; now they were
shivering on the damp ground, without a fire, and clothed
with perhaps a thin cotton shirt, under a ragged and threadbare
shivering, whom she had known in Philadelphia. He was
under sentence of death for desertion, and would have been
taken out and shot upon his coffin within a few days, unless
some one had become interested in his case. She at once
sought an interview with the corps commander, and asked
him, before that boy was executed, to talk with him for five
minutes, and see whether he had any clear knowledge of
the duty of a soldier, or what constitutes desertion. The
general did so, and in three or four questions to the unfortunate
youth found him of such mental capacity that
execution would have been a judicial murder, and at once
ordered his release.
By acts like this, repeated again and again during the
three years of her army life, she did much to relieve the
iron severity of martial law, and literally drew upon her
head the blessings of many who were ready to perish.
In the month of December, 1863, about the time of
Meade's campaign of Mine Run, Mrs. Husband went down
to Brandy Station, where the principal hospitals were situated,
and there labored, with untiring assiduity, until April,
1864, when, by General Grant's order, all females were
removed from the army. Here she saw a great variety of
service, some of which was exceedingly laborious, and connected
with great hardships.
In her correspondence with the Ladies' Aid Society, from
whom she received constant supplies, we find numerous
interesting paragraphs.
February 15, 1864, she writes, "It is very difficult for
me to write; my tent is most uncomfortable. For two
morning early was very pleasant, but I had not more than
commenced writing, when a wind springs up, my tent fills
with smoke and ashes, and fairly drives me out. Wind
increases. I venture back, and find my smoke-pipe down,
and smoke unendurable. After vain efforts to keep it in
place, I remove the fire, open and air the tent, and again
essay to write; but it is a perfect hurricane: tin cups, nutmeg
graters, clothing, and papers are driven about, and the
tent threatens to follow suit; so I forsake it again, and go to
take some tapioca jelly — which I made, fortunately, when
my fire would burn — to a sick lieutenant, one of General
Carr's staff, who is threatened with diphtheria. I had intended
it for two regimental hospitals, but cannot reach
them to-day."
Again, on February 18, she writes, "An hour since I
was seated comfortably in my tent, writing you a full
account of visits I have been paying regimental hospitals,
when I heard a cry, and I saw through my tent a bright
light. I rushed out to behold the adjoining one in flames.
Mine was smoking as the ropes were cut, and it lowered,
trunk, bed, &c., removed, and everything scattered. I
believe that nothing is lost; but my papers, letters, journal,
and memoranda were blowing about."
A few days later she writes, "I have been much interested
in G. B., in the fourteenth New Jersey Hospital. My
attention was called to him by the surgeon, who told me
he was sinking rapidly from chronic diarrhœa and depression
of spirits, in consequence of his arrest for desertion.
He was brought from the guard-house to the hospital. I
chaplain besought me to try for furlough or discharge for
him, as nothing but the hope of reaching home could save
him. They had been to some of the authorities unsuccessfully,
and feared the immediate effect when he should be
told that they could give him no hope. I formed my
plans; visited him, and cheered him so much that there
was a visible improvement next morning, when I walked a
mile and a half to tell him all was going on well, and in
train. The poor boy's eyes brightened. Said he, `How
can I ever pay you? How can I ever thank you?'"
March 3, she writes, "I will give you an account of
to-day's work, and each day is much the same. Rise at
six o'clock; make my fire; whilst dressing, boil chocolate,
make tea. My toast for the patients is brought me from
the kitchen; I butter and soften it; poach eggs for some,
and stew potatoes for the rest; arrange on plates, and send
to the wards. Make milk punch and egg-nog, a tapioca
pudding, corn starch, and blanc-mange; visit each patient,
the surgeon, and kitchen; give directions for beef tea,
soup, &c.; stew tomatoes on my own stove; mash and
prepare potatoes for dinner. Afternoon, go to the station
to market; buy oysters, eggs, and butter; stop at headquarters
and see medical director of division about a cow
which was promised us, — hope we may get it; returned
and amused and entertained a couple of convalescents in my
tent for an hour; then buttered toast, soaked crackers, and
arranged the plates to suit the cases, with peaches, jelly,
and corn starch; visited the wards; found R., our most
dangerous case, suffering; heated whiskey, and applied
for him to his family, and finish my day's work by writing
to you, stopping now and then to stir fruit which I am
stewing. Day before yesterday I visited the first division
guard-house. Some new ones have been brought in —
thirty-two there in all — most of them in want of stockings.
I distributed some, and will see them again in a few
days. How the poor fellows gathered around me, glad to
receive a few words of sympathy!"
March 5. "Poor R. is gone to a better world. He was
a Christian, and leaves neither wife nor parent to mourn
him."
The heart that prompts such labor as this, day after day,
for months, can have no common interest in the suffering
soldier, and deserves all the aid she could have in her self-denying
work, and all the praise that such large-hearted
charity so abundantly merits.
The order of Grant expelling all females from the army
lines was issued on the 15th of April, and Mrs. Husband
enjoyed a brief visit to her home in Philadelphia.
Two weeks after, Grant advanced across the Rappahannock
and the Rapidan, and from the 5th to the 12th of
May had hard fighting every day on some part of his line,
and most of the time what amounted to a general engagement.
His force was large, but it suffered fearful losses.
It was during those battles of the Wilderness that John
Sedgwick, that soldier, true and brave, met his fate, and
somewhere in those gloomy and intricate pine forests, that
the noble old hero and patriot General Wadsworth fell,
and was buried by stranger hands in an unknown grave.
behalf of the great number of wounded, that made the
war-worn old town of Fredericksburg one great hospital.
As she went forward to labor there, she met the funeral
cortége that was bringing the body of Sedgwick to the rear.
Remaining there till about the first of June, she went
around to the Peninsula, where her army labors began two
years before, and, touching at Port Royal, went on, and
was actively engaged in the great hospitals established at
White House and City Point.
At White House she had charge of the low diet for the
whole of the sixth corps, which had suffered very heavily
in the battle of Cold Harbor. At City Point she was for
some time in charge of the diet of the second division of
Hancock's corps, and made a visit to the front, to the Third
Corps Hospital, where the boys, who had so many of them
been under her care when sick, gave her a hearty welcome.
At City Point she eventually resumed her old and favorite
line of usefulness, and took wards to visit. At times,
between three and four hundred patients lay, for hour after
hour, on their narrow cots, awaiting, as the one bright event
of each weary day, her arrival at their bedside, in her
regular and blessed round of mercy. She modified her
dress so as to move without inconvenience up the narrow
alleys that divided the rows of cots, and made herself a
great apron, with a row of deep pockets, which were
several times each day filled as she made her round.
Almost every patient received some little thing or other
from those deep and roomy receptacles. For one she had
an apple, for another a newspaper, for another a pair of
handkerchief, and smiles, pleasant words, and hopefulness
everywhere.
One of the soldiers, who lay very sick, and felt his hopes
rise whenever she approached his cot in her daily rounds,
thus describes her service, and the effect of her visits: —
"I can never forget her kindness to me. Her untiring
devotion to the sick and wounded soldier won the hearts of
all. She was indeed a mother to us. Night and day she
was always at her post, ever ready to relieve the sufferings
of our brave boys.
"I have no doubt she saved the lives of many by her
skill in dressing wounds, and her unceasing attention. No
wife or mother could have been more devoted. The daily
visit of that good woman to our tent was the one pleasant
feature of my hospital life. She was always cheerful, and
had a kind word for us all. Few women sacrificed so much
for the good cause as Mrs. Husband did in leaving her
family and home, and undergoing all the hardships of a
camp life."
This life in the hospitals was continued till May, 1865,
when, Richmond having been evacuated, and Lee captured,
the hospitals grew thin, and began to be dismantled, and
the heroines as well as the heroes of the war could receive
honorable discharges.
In the early part of May, as the army came through
Richmond, on its way to Washington and home, Mrs.
Husband went up from City Point with a quantity of
supplies which had been sent to hospitals, but which fortunately
were no longer needed there. Stopping at Manchester,
she had the pleasure of distributing, with her own hands,
the bounties which a generous people had sent her, to
the foot-sore, weary, and voracious boys of Hancock's
corps.
On the 6th, in Richmond, she had the supreme satisfaction
of seeing almost the whole army, with whom she had
labored so constantly from its organization, march in
triumph through the rebel capital.
Nor was she an obscure witness of the grand pageant.
The soldiers of the second, third, and sixth army corps
were almost as familiar with her face and figure as they
were with Hancock or Sickles, or Meade himself. As the
regiments passed the window where she stood, the boys
would pass the word down the line, "There's Mother Husband!"
And cheer after cheer, and shout after shout,
ascended from the ranks of stalwart and brawny fellows,
beside whose hospital cots her form had so often stood.
It was an ovation in which she might justly feel a genuine
and honest pride.
That popularity was not the reflection of another's fame.
It was an outburst of unfeigned gratitude and real admiration,
which so many of them had long felt for a noble and
accomplished woman, whose patriotism and humanity alone
had impelled her, for year after year, to follow up the march
of our armies, on her ministry of love; to devote herself
to the welfare of suffering patriots with as much tenderness
as though they had been in fact all her boys; to know
nothing of home and its sacred comforts as long as one
lonely or desponding soldier was languishing in a hospital
ward.
Touched with this involuntary tribute, and full of generous
admiration for those who had suffered so much and
accomplished so much, she was determined that they should
not disperse and be disbanded without having had, in
health and in victory, some taste of luxuries which had
been long richly deserved. Going home to Philadelphia,
she sent word to her friends, — those same friends who had
kept a cornucopia of comforts for soldiers at her side all
through the war, — and she soon had abundant supplies of
all kinds prepared. Mrs. Husband took them to Washington,
and found her soldier boys at Bailey's Cross-Roads.
Six successive days she took an ambulance, loaded with
bounties and comforts of every sort, over to the encampment,
and gave them out to the returning heroes. These
closing acts of rejoicing, and of generous appreciation,
consumed the greater part of the month of May, and were
the last that she could do for soldiers in the field.
The warm personal relations that grew up between the
soldiers and their benefactress, and the frequency with
which her acts and virtues were mentioned over the camp
fires of the army of the Potomac, have caused her to be
extensively known and honored as the soldier's friend.
Her cabinet abounds in trophies, rings, bullets, shells,
guns, swords, pistols, mementos, pictures, photographs,
and keepsakes, presented by her grateful army patients;
and now, if any of the boys in blue fall sick, or in any
way become helpless or distressed in the city of her home,
she is at once thought of and referred to. No case of real
merit and genuine distress ever comes to her in vain.
Judicious, as well as generous, her friends rely upon her
opened.
But, above all, she has the supreme and all-sufficient
approval of her own spirit; the rich memories of those
years crowded with great events in which she took a part;
great battles which she witnessed, and great crowds of
suffering men to whom she brought relief and comfort,
when she was the almoner of the generous gifts of the
large circle of home workers, who ever followed her with
their prayers and their sympathies; when she constantly
delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow-creatures,
and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and
unpretending methods, and daily thanked her Creator for
being permitted to do good.
| MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND. Women of the war : | |