 | MISS JANE BOSWELL MOORE. Women of the war : |  |
MISS JANE BOSWELL MOORE.
SOME who gave themselves to the toils and excitements
of army life, and did much for the relief of suffering in
camp and hospital, were incited by the recollection of
brilliant achievements and shining record of ancestors and
kinsmen who figured conspicuously in the revolution and
in the old English wars. This was especially true of a
young lady of Baltimore, Miss Jane Boswell Moore, who
commenced her army labors in the early part of the war,
and continued them, with but brief interruptions from sickness,
until midsummer of 1865, after the capture of Richmond.
Her grandfather was a colonel under Wellington in the
early part of his splendid military career, when he
Clashed with his fiery few and won."
and distinguished themselves. Colonel Andrew Boyd, a
maternal kinsman, was an officer who served with repute in
the war of the revolution. These family honors and traditions
had so wrought upon a temperament naturally enthusiastic,
that when our civil war began to mutter its
thunders, and to rock the nation with the shock of arms,
her self-imposed labors, by zeal and devotion, by courage
in danger, and by patience in hardships, that she was not
unworthy of the martial blood she inherited. The first
service she performed was developed in the loyal press of
the city to which she belonged, in a series of pungent and
unanswerable rebukes to treason. When she entered upon
her duties in the sanitary field of the war, her mother
became her inseparable companion, and the story of their
experiences, most of which is from their own lips, will be
found in the words which follow: —
"Who can do justice to the heroism and endurance of our
soldiers in this war? The patriotism of a true private
seems to excel all others — it is so pure, so free from
hope or expectation of gain or renown, so unselfish and
real. Of the tens of thousands who have fallen, unknown,
save to a few dear ones of the home circle, it may be truthfully
be said, Their only record is on high, and in the eyes
of Him to whom all thoughts and motives are open, surely
no sight can be more pleasing, than the steady performance
of noble, faithful deeds, without thought of, or reference to,
earthly reward. No noble or heroic action can ever be
without its measure of influence: to rescue, then, a few of
these from forgetfulness, is no unworthy endeavor.
It is not often I allow myself to dwell on the fearful
realities of the past, as they now rise before me; — from
the first hospital, or barracks thrown open in Baltimore,
after the battles of Bull Run and Williamsburg, to the
closing scenes of the great struggle. A simple incident
led us to one of these, — even as we heard convalescing
our sympathy cheered them, and after a determined struggle
our visits were constant. How little my mother or self
then thought of the scenes awaiting us! Among returned
prisoners at McKim's, we saw Samuel E. Smith, a Pennsylvania
lad, the fragrant memorial of whose early death has
since gone forth to many thousands of souls. By the light
of a dimly-rising moon we rode over the burial trenches
of Antietam to Smoketown Hospital, through whose scattered
grove of trees the roaring of the December wind
sounded like the notes of some great funeral organ. Our
tent was daily visited by an ever coming and going throng
of the maimed and sick. How humble their thanks for
paper, ink, books, and little delicacies made us! We had
no more welcome guest than the then boy-hero, James O.
Ladd, of Massachusetts, whose right arm was gone. `But
O,' said he with gathering tears, `it can't be that my days
of helping the cause are over. I want to do more, O, so
much more!' What a history was that of this gifted
youth, who has been in the service ever since passing
six months in southern prisons! A picture of desolate
grandeur was Harper's Ferry, with its rude hospitals, its
dead on the hill-side, whose march was over, and its tens
of thousands of the living thronging every winding path
on their way to Fredericksburg, Martinsburg, and Cumberland,
in whose old mill, on a wild March evening, we
watched the failing breath of Dutton, a New York soldier,
dying away from `an ever-loving and almost forsaken
mother'; from Grafton and Wheeling to the old ruined
town of Winchester, by whose desolate churches so many
Hospital then (under General Milroy) crowded with fever
patients.
We hurried away from here to the wounded of Chancellorsville,
those of a single corps covering a large plain at
Brook Station. Our tents (for store-room, kitchen, and
sleeping) were in a secluded ravine, overhung with laurel.
We had sad music — the bands on the hill-side with their
mournful `dead march,' by open graves, and the plaintive
cry of the whippoorwill, when our busy day was done.
The hurried falling back, and Gettysburg with all its horrors,
among whose dead and dying we passed a month, and
then found ourselves encamped along the Rappahannock.
In the midst of spring's early blossoms we watched Sigel's
march up the valley, visiting his forces just before they
left Winchester, with stationery, pickles, &c., and hurried
back over deserted roads, with our precious mail-bags
bearing thirteen hundred letters, many of them the last
messages to friends, and a large flag intrusted to us, and
recaptured from the rebels, who took it from us at the time
of Milroy's disaster. A deserted cabin formed our next
quarters at Point of Rocks, close to the swamps of the
Appomattox, where we saw the opening bombardment of
Petersburg. The New Hampshire youth, Leonard Wiggan,
fell asleep here as the guns were firing, with whispered
words of his widowed mother, the shade of green trees,
and the babbling brook at home.
"How distinctly memory recalls the night of his death —
the doors, windows, and walls of our rude dwelling shook
and rattled so under every gun, that we willingly left it,
the exploding shells. We then made Leonard the lemonade
he had enjoyed so much, for the last time. Before the
morning broke, he heard the guns no more. His prayer,
`Lord, take me home from all my sufferings,' was answered.
"Half an hour after they were wounded, many of the victims
of the fatal mine explosion were under our care, for,
by a special order from General Grant, we were allowed
to remove to the `front,' something over a mile and
a half from Petersburg. Our tent, which stood in the
midst of a group of pines, was shaded with boughs, and the
earth strewn with a carpet of pine needles, the dull, monotonous,
awful sound of continued musketry firing being ever
in our ears. The soul sickens with the horror of the scenes
in those woods on and after July 30. What noble letters
those brave crippled colored soldiers dictated, through
us, to friends they were never to see!
"Amid the booming of guns from the neighboring battlefield
of Cedar Creek, on an October morning, we entered
our little room on Braddock Street, Winchester. How
many times were the barrels and boxes of that crowded
spot replenished by the Sanitary and Christian Commissions
during the six long, busy months of labor among
the regimental hospitals, as well as in the snowy tents of
Sheridan, covering so many suffering and dying souls!
"O, the sad heart-rending letters written nightly to kindred
far away, by that blazing fire of Virginia rails.
Twenty messengers sometimes in a day, some to stricken
parents, telling of the death of a first or youngest born;
some wife would learn from another that strangers cared
others tidings of safety were gladly sent. That long, cold
winter, with its varied and constant cares, passed away, and
with tearful eyes, on a Sabbath morning in spring, we heard
the church windows rattle amid the booming of great guns,
and rejoiced, though in an enemy's country, that victory
long delayed was ours. But the brave men who had earned
it for us were weary; so we passed under Fort Drewry's now
silent guns, with our stores, into Richmond, for ten weeks'
labor among worn-out troops. This seemed the hardest of
all our campaigns; but the end was near: we saw it when the
several armies passed through that city, bearing the tattered
remnants of what had once been banners, intrusted to them
by a redeemed people. Many were so worn out that we
found it harder to cheer them than during the war. Are
you weary, reader, even of the hasty record of these campaigns?
Think, then, of the debt we owe to those who endured
them for us. . . . Among the wounded at Brook
Station, were many who were mere boys. I remember the
names of three from far-off states, William Lauer, Hugh McDonald,
and Edward Goodman. They had lost limbs, and I
shall never forget their simple, childish joy, when I put
aside their coarse hospital fare, and gave them instead, on
their tin plates, soft crackers, butter, and nourishing food.
They were too shy to speak but little. Hugh wiped his
moist eyes with his one remaining hand. Edward was a
little German boy. On my way to a dying soldier who
thought I could make him tea, and custard, such as he had
had at home, a nurse ran out to ask me to stop on my return
at his tent, where a little boy, who had lost a leg,
some delicacy, when he remarked, with great earnestness,
`It is not for the things you bring, though they are very
nice, that I want to see you; but the sight of your face
does me so much good! and here I haven't seen you in four
days!' A burst of laughter greeted this speech, and I was
obliged to explain that my absence had been through no
neglect, but from the fact that there were hundreds in that
corps to whom my visits were exceedingly desirable; but
from that time, whenever it was at all possible, I went in
and for a few minutes let him look at me, which he always
did steadily, and with an expression of sincere childish
satisfaction. The last time I saw him was on the morning
of that hurried abandonment of Acquia Creek, as I distributed
lemons, boiled eggs, and other articles among those
waiting removal. He lay on a stretcher in the sun, by the
rude freight cars, and I trembled, as I filled his canteen,
for the poor maimed member, after its secondary amputation,
having that rough ride in prospect. `Are you going
with us?' he asked. `No,' I replied, `we shall not leave
until all the wounded are away.' `Will you come and see
me in Washington?' `I am afraid not; there will probably
be another battle, and other poor boys will need me.'
"On carrying to Dalton his daily meal, I found on the
next cot an Ohio lad of nineteen, whose leg had been amputated
the day before. He had not eaten anything all day,
but took some crackers, fruit, and a cup of tea, and then
told me he had two lemons in his knapsack, which he was
afraid would spoil, as he could get no one to make him
some lemonade. I made him a tin cup full, and heard him
me a letter from home. `Isn't it a nice long one? Father
wrote a bit, and then mother; and then they were afraid it
wasn't enough, and they wrote more.' And a noble letter
it was, — every line of the four foolscap pages telling of
yearning love, of sharp pain smothered for his sake; the
mother's heart longing to have him with her, to show him
how he should be nursed and cared for; but the father bade
him be of good cheer; it would be strange if they would
not look after him, and he would much rather have him
crippled as he was, than have the taint of coward or copperhead
on his name. I told Albert's soldier scribe to tell
his mother a southern woman, who detested treason, and
who knew better than many its cost, had charge of him, and
would do all in her power for him. `I've just been having
him tell her so,' was his pleased reply.
"Late at night our room in Taylor Hospital was closed,
and amid the sound of nailing coffins in the next room, we
sought sleep. But a constant hollow cough was heard from
the opposite side, and one day a pale, consumptive boy
handed us a handkerchief to hem, saying he had bought it,
and `paid money for it.' It was his cough we had heard;
he was the only son of a poor widow in West Virginia.
When we asked him if he would not like to die at home,
his sad face assumed an almost hopeless expression, as he
said, `his mother would be the proudest woman in West
Virginia if she could only see her boy; but he had no hope
of it.' We said nothing to raise his hopes, for we well
knew the character of the surgeon of his regiment, since
gone to give account for much cruelty; but we lost no time
was almost as great as our own. In the evening I
carried him the news, with his supper, filling his haversack
with good things. He could hardly credit me, and was so
weak that it seemed doubtful how he would travel the five
miles from the railroad station to his home. `Somebody
will give you a lift,' I said as cheerily as I could; `just tell
them your story.' How long he lived I never knew.
"Not the least distressing sight, after a great battle, is
that of friends in search of the wounded and fallen. Ofttimes
the claims of those suffering are so great that the
dead can scarcely be thought of. One evening a poor
widow, with five little children at home dependent on her
earnings as a seamstress, came from Philadelphia to look
for her eldest boy on the field of Gettysburg. She had
heard he was dead, but could not believe it. On reaching
the hospital she was told he was in one of the tents. `O,'
she said, `how my heart beat for joy! but when I went in,
they told me he was dead.' He had written to her that
nothing would induce him to miss this battle, as on it
depended the fate of Pennsylvania, and perhaps the whole
country. During the last day's battle he raised his head
from behind a stone wall to fire, and being shot through the
head, was instantly killed. `O,' said the poor mother,
`if I could only know he was prepared!' She could be
resigned to it all, she said, if her boy's body could go with
her, and be buried where she could see his grave. And in
perfect trust, she handed me fifteen dollars, — all she had, —
and begged me to tell her what to do. I had not a minute
to spare, save early in the morning; but I made diligent
his grave. Then we went together to the man who removed
and prepared bodies for transportation. It was clear her
money would amount to little. I said so while I was thinking
what to do, and she fearfully caught at the words,
assuring me she would sew at government tents and bags,
any length of time after her return, to make it up. `Such
an idea never entered my mind,' I replied; `I was only
thinking what was best to do. We will arrange it some
way.' So I told her story to the grave-digger, whose wife
at once gave her her board in their humble house, while
her husband reduced his charges. Then we walked to
Adams express office, passing a great pile of rusty muskets
lately gathered from the battle-field. I could hardly get
her away from these. `I wonder if my boy's is there,' she
said sadly; and then, as she entered the express office,
where her feelings overcame her, `It was through it,' she
said, `my boy used to send me his little bit of money!'
Only the beginning, thought I, of sad memories to haunt
her after-life. Here I pleaded her case again, not doubting
the result, as every facility possible had been afforded me
during the war from the company. Transportation tickets
to Baltimore were next procured, and I hurriedly wrote, in
the office of the provost, a note to a friend who would pass
her the rest of the way. Then she rode in the ambulance
as far as it went on her way to search for the grave, and I
promised to see her again in the evening. The excitement
was then over; she had found the grave, and though unable
to see her boy, a lock of his hair had been cut for her, and
all was ready for her to leave on the morrow, a gentleman
But words failed her when she tried to express her gratiude;
she could only pour out blessings.
"As I moved in the midst of the appalling scenes on the
day of the mine explosion at Petersburg, I heard many
groans and prayers. One just brought from the `table,'
was saying, with all the fervor of a departing soul, `I shall
never see my home again; but, Lord, don't you forget me.'
Colored citizens of Baltimore cried to us to give them `only
one cracker,' and our hearts melted when the appeal was
enforced by their directing attention to the stump of an amputated
arm or leg. The distress of one poor boy was
great; yet he eagerly questioned all whom he saw as to the
result of the battle. No one seemed able to soothe him; he
mentioned the names of the boys in his regiment, and his
great concern for them; then his eyes filled with tears, and
he wept, unmindful of his own wound. I went to him, and
told him how fearful I was that he would injure himself by
excitement, which could do no good. `Were we to give
way to our feelings at such a time, what would become of
us, or those around us? It is an awful day to us all; we
can only trust in God. Now I want to do all I can to help
these poor boys, and to do so I must be very calm; I know
you will help me.' He smiled amid his tears, saying, `I
haven't seen a lady for months, and it does seem sweet to see
one in this awful place.'
"When, in a drenching rain, we visited Haxall's Landing,
on James River, with barrels of pickles for Sheridan's weary
raiders, the brave and chivalrous Colonel Preston, of the first
Vermont cavalry, tin cup in hand, dealt them out to his
I feel that I cannot do too much for soldiers.' And then
he proposed, and they all gave, three hearty cheers for their
friends in Baltimore. But a short time after, riding in the
cars, I saw chronicled in the morning paper the heavy loss
of the first Vermont, and the death of the noble colonel,
leading a charge at Coal Harbor. The same kind interest
was shown by the brave Colonel Thoburn of the first West
Virginia, on our somewhat perilous trip to Romney, and
long afterwards, at the close of a weary day in Winchester,
we saw his coffin borne through with tearful eyes.
"In ward twenty of Sheridan Hospital lay a soldier
named Powers, who had a wife and six children in Connecticut.
His wound was through the body. When I first
saw him, he was weak and faint, emaciated almost to a
skeleton, and so feeble and tremulous, that he could not
raise a cup to his lips without assistance. His eyes were
unnaturally bright; but his nurse, a kind, intelligent man,
thought, with the best of food and care, he might yet be
saved. `But,' said he, `where is he to get them?' His
physician was a Scotchman, always grateful for attention
paid his patients; and from that day I took this one under
my especial care, driving daily to his tent with wine, milk
punch, egg-nog, canned chicken, butter, jelly, tea, pickles,
&c., varying his fare as often as possible, and his improvement
fairly astonished us. At first it was a little jelly he
craved, and that tasted `so good' to him; but by and by he
relished stronger food. For thirty years, we were told,
Shenandoah Valley had not seen such a winter. Even in
February the snow was a foot deep, and the cold was
Powers's clothes were cotton, and thin at that. But thanks
to kind hearts somewhere, I was able to furnish him with a
warm woollen outfit; and as I handed him each garment, he
looked up earnestly, saying, `Now, are you sure I am not
taking too much from you?' I told him he must thank
others for them, and that I only fulfilled my duty in giving
them. One day the surgeon in charge passed through, and
seeing him, exclaimed, `Why, man, I thought you were
dead long ago?' And so he would have been, but for those
donations of friends intrusted to us. When I asked him to
inscribe a line in my note-book by way of remembrance, he
replied, `I am too weak to hold the pen firmly; but write
for me, and let it be, "You took me from death!"'
What true Irish eloquence was that! His physician wrote
under it, `I fully indorse the above, and also thank you for
your unwearying kindness. C. M. M'Laurie.'
"In the same hospital was Isaac Price, of the fifteenth
Virginia, a soldier of thirty-eight years of age, with a wife
and nine children, the eldest of whom, a lad of nineteen,
was in the tenth Virginia. But the greatest of calamities
had fallen upon him. Both his arms had been amputated;
yet he was cheerful and patient, always greeting us with a
smile. On the receipt of a bag of clothing at Christmas,
he dictated a letter in reply from his home in Bealington,
Barbour County, West Virginia. Nor was his the only case.
After the battle of Antietam, in the hospitals of Frederick,
we talked with Arias H. Young, a lad of seventeen, from
Wisconsin, and Daniel Fuller, from Pennsylvania, both of
whom were thus terribly stricken.
"In the hospital at Point of Rocks, on the Appomattox,
two cases were peculiarly distressing. One was that of a
soldier named Heskett, who left a mother, wife, and four
little children, all very destitute. Two of his brothers had
died in the army, one never having been heard from;
another, William, was in the service, and Heskett was
dying. In his delirium he frequently turned to his nurse,
exclaiming, `There's my wife! She came up here to see
me! Why don't you let her come?' When I wished to
write to his mother, `O, no,' he said, `my mother can't
bear any more trouble. She has lost so much!' He was
one of the hundred days' men from Ohio, and his sorrowing
family was unable even to have his remains brought home.
The other was Hummiston, who also volunteered for a
hundred days. About an hour before his death, as he lay
on the earth, with a knapsack for a pillow, a letter, once
anxiously looked for, but now, alas! powerless to give
consolation, was brought in and laid by his side. It was a
cheerful, happy letter, from a loving, industrious wife,
telling of household straits and cares, with all the sunshine
of a glad spirit, enough to give the hardest heart a pang to
read it, and then look at that unconscious, dying man! In
it was the first child-letter of his little daughter, Flora, `to
dear pa.' In a subsequent letter, Mrs. Hummiston says,
`I have four children, the eldest about ten years old, and
the youngest seventeen months. I feel I have a great
responsibility resting upon me, not so much in supporting
them, as in training them up for usefulness and future happiness.
When I think of my lonely and helpless condition,
I can but remember the many widows, made such by this
dependent on their own exertions for support.'
"In visiting one of the many houses in Winchester, over
whose floors the wounded were strewn, the morning after
they arrived from the front, I found, in a little up-stairs
room, Sergeant Colby, of the thirty-fourth Massachusetts
regiment, wounded in the ankle. He looked dispirited,
and we brought him reading, paper, and pencils, leaving
him some delicacy daily. He whiled away some hours executing
two beautiful drawings, now in the keeping of his
bereaved mother, one a female figure of Hope, with uplifted
finger, and an anchor grasped in a firm hand; the other a
soldier, pacing his weary rounds as a sentinel in a heavy
snow-storm. When I found him after his removal to the
field hospital, I was startled by the frightful rapidity with
which death had done his work. `Write something cheering,'
he feebly murmured, as a few lines were pencilled to
his mother. It was no common offering that this Christian
mother laid upon the altar of her country. We can ill spare
such men as James Colby. I have never read more touching
letters than those written while he was in the army.
They breathe the fervent, earnest spirit of a devoted Christian,
and a warmly affectionate and patriotic heart. It
makes one shudder to think what our condition would have
been, had not the blood of tens of thousands of dearly
loved sons and fathers been thus poured out. His mother,
who has a crippled son at home, and has lately buried two
lovely daughters, says, `His plastic nature answered my
fondest hopes. Not only did he grow in all manly virtues,
but God set his seal. James gave his heart to the Saviour ere
battle, "I had no fear, for I knew that God was with me!"
There was no need that he should make his profession of
faith when he came upon his death-bed. His work was
done — he had nothing to do but to die! Years ago I
longed and prayed that I might be permitted to do something
for the poor slave. By terrible things in righteousness have
I been answered. Yet I often rejoice, even exult, that I am
permitted to suffer, to weep with those who have wept tears
more agonizing than mine!' Such is the spirit of one of
the many American women to whose sacrifices our country
owes its life. Their full reward cannot possibly be here.
"Riding out to regiments near Richmond, I met soldiers
with knapsacks, lately mustered out, and on their way to
Richmond to take the boat for home. One, to whom I
gave the `Christian Banner' for his child, said, with tears
in his eyes, `I'll not forget what a comfort your things have
been to me. Many a time I've written home on the paper
you gave me, when I hadn't a cent to buy any with.' My
eyes filled. Truly this pay was very sweet!
"The war, with its opportunities of usefulness, has indeed
passed away, but the work will never be done while a
maimed or crippled soldier remains in our land. And the
widow and orphan — are they not with us?"
Referring to this long series of exposures and exertions,
Miss Moore says, "We drew liberal supplies from both
Sanitary and Christian Commissions, as well as largely from
individuals, but have ourselves belonged to no association,
and received no compensation from any quarter. None of
our expenses were defrayed, except in the matter of
relatives to give to the cause, we have endeavored to be
behind none in our devotion."
In not a few instances Miss Moore was engaged in the
hazardous work of ministering to the wounded even before
they were removed from the battle-field. She has braved
danger of every kind short of actual presence in a battle, in
relieving the sufferings of our wounded braves.
General Emory says of her and her mother, "The names
of Miss and Mrs. Moore are on the lips of thousands to
whom they have ministered in camp and hospital." General
Grant also testifies to their remarkable usefulness. The
health of Miss Moore has been seriously impaired by the
hardships she has suffered, and by the agitations of those
four years of unremitting military service. But are not
such sacrifices of ease and health balanced, and more than
compensated, by the consciousness of having discharged,
to the utmost degree of her ability, the duty of a patriot,
and by the affection and gratitude of thousands ready to
perish to whom she brought such timely succor?
| MISS JANE BOSWELL MOORE. Women of the war : | |