Woman's Work in the Civil War Part 48

Of this hospital and home Dr. Marsh was surgeon, and Mrs. Marsh matron.

Dr. Hoadly who had been with Dr. Marsh at the South, still retained the position of a.s.sistant. The health of Dr. Marsh improved, but he has never entirely recovered.

They entered the Lincoln Home on the 1st of May, 1865, and the house was immediately filled with patients. They remained there until June of the following year, 1866. During their stay between three and four hundred patients were admitted, and of those who were regular patients none died. One soldier, a Swede, was found in the street in the last stages of exhaustion and suffering, and died before the morning following his admission. He bore about him evidences of education and gentle birth, but he could not speak English, and carried with him into another world the secret of his name and ident.i.ty. He had no disease, but the foundations of his life had been sapped by the irritation caused by filth and vermin.

As at the South, in the services of Mrs. Marsh here, there was a great disproportion between their showiness and their usefulness. She pursued her quiet round of labors, the results of which will be seen and felt for years, as much as in the present. Her kind voice, and pleasant smile will be an ever living and delightful memory in the hearts of all to whom she ministered during those long hours of the nation's peril, in which the best blood of her sons was poured out a red libation to Liberty.

After the close of the Lincoln Home, Mrs. Marsh continued to devote herself to suffering soldiers and their families, making herself notably useful in this important department of the nation's work.

SAINT LOUIS LADIES' UNION AID SOCIETY.

This Society, the princ.i.p.al Auxiliary of the Western Sanitary Commission, and holding the same relation to it that the Women's Central a.s.sociation of Relief in New York, did to the United States Sanitary Commission had its origin in the summer of 1861. On the 26th of July, of that year, a few ladies met at the house of Mrs. F. Holy, in St. Louis, to consider the propriety of combining the efforts of the loyal ladies of that city into a single organization in antic.i.p.ation of the conflict then impending within the State. At an adjourned meeting held a week later, twenty-five ladies registered themselves, as members of the "Ladies' Union Aid Society," and elected a full board of officers. Most of these resigned in the following autumn, and in November, 1861, the following list was chosen, most of whom served through the war.

President: Mrs. Alfred Clapp; Vice Presidents, Mrs. Samuel C. Davis, Mrs. T. M. Post, Mrs. Robert Anderson; Recording Secretary, Miss H. A.

Adams; Treasurer, Mrs. S. B. Kellogg; Corresponding Secretary, Miss Belle Holmes; afterwards, Miss Anna M. Debenham. An Executive Committee was also appointed, several of the members of which, and among the number, Mrs. C. R. Springer, Mrs. S. Palmer, Mrs. Joseph Crawshaw, Mrs.

Was.h.i.+ngton King, Mrs. Charles L. Ely, Mrs. F. F. Maltby, Mrs. C. N.

Barker, Miss Susan J. Bell, Miss Eliza S. Glover, and Miss Eliza Page, were indefatigable in their labors for the soldiers.

This Society was from the beginning, active and efficient. It conducted its business with great ability and system, and in every direction made itself felt as a power for good throughout the Mississippi Valley. Its officers visited for a considerable period, fourteen hospitals in the city and vicinity, and were known in the streets by the baskets they carried. Of one of these baskets the recording Secretary, Miss Adams, gives us an interesting inventory in one of her reports: "Within was a bottle of cream, a home-made loaf, fresh eggs, fruit and oysters; stowed away in a corner was a flannel s.h.i.+rt, a sling, a pair of spectacles, a flask of cologne; a convalescent had asked for a lively book, and the lively book was in the basket; there was a dressing-gown for one, and a white muslin handkerchief for another; and paper, envelopes and stamps for all."

The Christian Commission made the ladies of the Society their agents for the distribution of religious reading, and they scattered among the men one hundred and twenty-five thousand pages of tracts, and twenty thousand books and papers.

The Ladies' Union Aid Society, sent delegates to all the earlier battle-fields, as well as to the camps and trenches about Vicksburg, and these ladies returned upon the hospital steamers, pursuing their heroic work, toiling early and late, imperilling in many cases their health, and even their lives, in the midst of the trying and terrible scenes which surrounded them. During the fall and winter of 1862-3, the Society's rooms were open day and evening, for the purpose of bandage-rolling, so great was the demand for supplies of this kind.

Amid their other labors, they were not unmindful of the distress which the families of the soldiers were suffering. So great was the demand for hospital clothing, that they could not supply it alone, and they expended five thousand five hundred dollars received for the purpose from the Western Sanitary Commission, in paying for the labor on seventy-five thousand garments for the hospitals. The Medical Purveyor, learning of their success, offered the Aid Society a large contract for army work. They accepted it, and prepared the work at their rooms, and gave out one hundred and twenty-eight thousand articles to be made, paying out over six thousand dollars for labor. Several other contracts followed, particularly one for two hundred and sixty-one thousand yards of bandages, for the rolling of which six hundred and fifty-two dollars were paid. By these means and a judicious liberality, the Society prevented a great amount of suffering in the families of soldiers. The Benton Barracks Hospital, one of the largest in the West, to which reference has been frequently made in this volume, had for its surgeon-in-charge, that able surgeon and earnest philanthropist, Dr. Ira Russell. Ever anxious to do all in his power for his patients, and satisfied that more skilfully prepared special diet, and in greater variety than the government supplies permitted would be beneficial to them, he requested the ladies of the Union Aid Society, to occupy a reception-room, storeroom, and kitchen at the hospital, in supplying this necessity. Donations intended for the soldiers could be left at these rooms for distribution; fruit, vegetables, and other offerings could here be prepared and issued as required. Thus all outside bounty could be systematized, and the surgeon could regulate the diet of the entire hospital. Miss Bettie Broadhead, was the first superintendent of these rooms which were subsequently enlarged and multiplied. Bills of fare were distributed in each ward every morning; the soldiers wrote their names and numbers opposite the special dishes they desired; the surgeon examined the bills of fare, and if he approved, endorsed them.

At the appointed time the dishes distinctly labelled, arrived at their destination in charge of an orderly. Nearly forty-eight thousand dishes were issued in one year.

In the fall of 1863, the Society established a branch at Nashville, Tennessee, Mrs. Barker and Miss H. A. Adams, going thither with five hundred dollars and seventy-two boxes of stores. Miss Adams, though surrounded with difficulties, and finding the surgeons indifferent if not hostile, succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a special diet kitchen, like that at Benton Barracks' Hospital. This subsequently became a very important inst.i.tution, sixty-two thousand dishes being issued in the single month of August, 1864. The supplies for this kitchen, were mostly furnished by the Pittsburg Subsistence Committee, and Miss Ellen Murdoch, the daughter of the elocutionist to whom we have already referred, in the account of the Pittsburg Branch, prepared the supplies with her own hands, for three months. During this period, no reasonable wish of an invalid ever went ungratified.

This Society also did a considerable work for the freedmen--and the white refugees, in connection with the Western Sanitary Commission. On the formation of the Freedmen's Relief Society, this part of their work was transferred to them.

We have no means of giving definitely the aggregate receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts of this efficient a.s.sociation. They were so involved with those of the Western Sanitary Commission, that it would be a difficult task to separate them. The receipts of the Commission were seven hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars in money, and about three millions five hundred thousand dollars in supplies. Of this sum we believe we are not in the wrong in attributing nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash, and one million dollars in supplies to the Ladies' Union Aid Society, either directly or indirectly.

Believing that the exertions of the efficient officers of the Society deserve commemoration, we have obtained the following brief sketches of Mrs. Clapp, Miss Adams, (now Mrs. Collins), Mrs. Springer, and Mrs.

Palmer.

Among the earnest and n.o.ble women of St. Louis, who devoted themselves to the cause of their country and its heroic defenders at the beginning of the great Rebellion, and whose labors and sacrifices were maintained throughout the struggle for national unity and liberty, none are more worthy of honorable mention, in a work of this character, than MRS. ANNA L. CLAPP.

She was distinguished among those ladies whose labors for the Charities of the war, and whose presence in the Hospitals, cheered and comforted the soldiers of the Union, and either prepared them for a tranquil and happy deliverance from their sufferings, or sent them back to the field of battle to continue the heroic contest until success should crown the victorious arms of the nation, and give peace and liberty to their beloved country.

The maiden name of Mrs. Clapp was Wendell, and her paternal ancestors originally emigrated from Holland. She was born in Cambridge, Was.h.i.+ngton county, New York, and was educated at Albany.

For three years she was a teacher in the celebrated school of Rev.

Nathaniel Prime, at Newburgh, New York. In the year 1838, she was married to Alfred Clapp, Esq., an enterprising merchant, and lived for several years in New York City, and Brooklyn, where she became an active member of various benevolent a.s.sociations, and performed the duties of Treasurer of the Industrial School a.s.sociation.

Just previous to the Rebellion, she emigrated with her husband and family to St. Louis, and after the war had commenced, and the early battles in the West had begun to fill every vacant public building in that city with sick and wounded men, she, with many other n.o.ble women of like heroic temperament, found a new sphere for their activity and usefulness. In the month of August, 1861, the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis, was organized for the purpose of ministering to the wants of the sick and wounded soldiers, providing Hospital garments and Sanitary stores, in connection with similar labors by the Western Sanitary Commission, a.s.sisting soldiers' families, and visiting the Hospitals, to give religious counsel, and minister consolation to the sick and dying, in a city where only a few of the clergy of the various denominations who were distinguished for their patriotism and loyalty, attended to this duty; the majority, both Protestant and Catholic, being either indifferent to the consequences of the rebellion, or in sympathy with the treason which was at that time threatening the Union and liberties of the country with disruption and overthrow.

Of this a.s.sociation of n.o.ble and philanthropic women, which continued its useful labors during the war, Mrs. Clapp was made President in the fall of 1861, holding that office during the existence of the organization, giving nearly all her time and energies to this great work of helping and comforting her country's defenders.

After the great battles of s.h.i.+loh and Vicksburg, and Arkansas Post, she, with other ladies of the a.s.sociation, repaired on Hospital Steamers to the scene of conflict, taking boxes of Sanitary stores, Hospital garments and lint for the wounded, and ministered to them with her own hands on the return trips to the Hospitals of St. Louis.

As President of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, her labors were arduous and unremitting. The work of this a.s.sociation was always very great, consisting in part of the manufacture of hospital garments, by contract with the medical purveyor, which work was given out to the wives of soldiers, to enable them the better to support themselves and children, during the absence of their husbands in the army. The work of cutting out these garments, giving them out, keeping an account with each soldier's wife, paying the price of the labor, etc., was no small undertaking, requiring much labor from the members of the society. It was an interesting sight, on Thursday of each week, to see hundreds of poor women filling the large rooms of the a.s.sociation on Chestnut Street, from morning to night, receiving work and pay, and to witness the untiring industry of the President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Committees, waiting upon them.

The visitation of these families by committees, and their reports, to say nothing of the general sanitary and hospital work performed by the society, required a large amount of labor; and in addition to this the aid rendered to dest.i.tute families of Union refugees, and the part taken by Mrs. Clapp in organizing a Refugee Home, and House of Industry, would each of itself make quite a chapter of the history of the a.s.sociation.

In all these labors Mrs. Clapp showed great executive and administrative ability, and must be reckoned by all who know her, among the truly patriotic women of the land. And in all the relations of life her character stands equally high, adorning, as she does, her Christian profession by works of piety, and patriotism, and love, and commanding the highest confidence and admiration of the community in which she lives.

The devoted labors of MISS H. A. ADAMS, in the service of the soldiers of the Union and their families, from the beginning of the war, till near its close, ent.i.tle her to a place in the records of this volume.

She was born in Fitz William, New Hamps.h.i.+re, at the foot of Mount Monadnock, and grew to maturity amid the beautiful scenery, and the pure influences of her New England home. Her father, Mr. J. S. Adams, was a surveyor, a man of character and influence, and gave to his daughter an excellent education. At fifteen years of age she became a teacher, and in 1856 came West for the benefit of her health, having a predisposition to pulmonary consumption, and fearing the effect of the east winds and the trying climate of the Eastern States.

Having connections in St. Louis she came to that city, and, for a year and a half, was employed as a teacher in the public schools. In this, her chosen profession, she soon acquired an honorable position, which she retained till the commencement of the war. At this time, however, the management of the schools was directed by a Board of Education, the members of which were mostly secessionists, the school fund was diverted from its proper uses by the disloyal State government, under Claib.

Jackson, and all the teachers, who were from New England, were dismissed from their situations, at the close of the term in 1861. Miss Adams, of course, was included in this number, and the unjust proscription only excited more intensely the love of her country and its n.o.ble defenders, who were already rallying to the standard of the Union, and laying down their lives on the altars of justice and liberty.

In August, 1861, the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis, was organized. Miss Adams was present at its first meeting and a.s.sisted in its formation. She was chosen as its first secretary, which office she filled with untiring industry, and to the satisfaction of all its members, for more than three years.

In the autumn of 1863, her only brother died in the military service of the United States. With true womanly heroism, she went to the hospital at Mound City, Illinois, where he had been under surgical treatment, hoping to nurse and care for him, and see him restored to health, but before she reached the place he had died and was buried. From this time her interest in the welfare of our brave troops was increased and intensified, and there was no sacrifice she was not willing to undertake for their benefit. Moved by the grief of her own personal bereavement, her sympathy for the sick and wounded of the army of the Union, was manifested by renewed diligence in the work of sending them all possible aid and comfort from the ample stores of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, and the Western Sanitary Commission, and by labors for the hospitals far and near.

The duties of Miss Adams, as Secretary of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, were very arduous.

The Society comprised several hundred of the most n.o.ble, efficient and patriotic women of St. Louis. The rooms were open every day, from morning to night. Sanitary stores and Hospital garments were prepared and manufactured by the members, and received by donation from citizens and from abroad, and had to be stored and arranged, and given out again to the Hospitals, and to the sick in regimental camps, in and around St.

Louis, and also other points in Missouri, as they were needed. Letters of acknowledgement had to be written, applications answered, accounts kept, proceedings recorded, information and advice given, reports written and published, all of which devolved upon the faithful and devoted Secretary, who was ever at her post, and constant and unremitting in her labors. Soldiers' families had also to be a.s.sisted; widows and orphans to be visited and cared for; rents, fuel, clothing, and employment to be provided, and the dest.i.tute relieved, of whom there were thousands whose husbands, and sons, and brothers, were absent fighting the battles of the Union.

Missouri was, during the first year of the war, a battle-ground. St.

Louis and its environs were crowded with troops; the Hospitals were large and numerous; during the winter of 1861-2, there were twenty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in them; and the concurrent labors of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, and the Western Sanitary Commission, were in constant requisition. The visiting of the sick, ministering to them at their couches of pain, reading to them, cheerful conversation with them, were duties which engaged many of the ladies of the Society; and numerous interesting and affecting incidents were preserved by Miss Adams, and embodied in the Reports of the a.s.sociation. She also did her share in this work of visiting; and during the winter of 1863-4, she went to Nashville, Tennessee, and established there a special diet kitchen, upon which the surgeons in charge of the hospitals, could make requisitions for the nicer and more delicate preparations of food for the very sick. She remained all winter in Nashville, in charge of a branch of the St. Louis Aid Society, and, by her influence, secured the opening of the hospitals to female nurses, who had hitherto not been employed in Nashville. Knowing, as she did, the superior gentleness of women as nurses, their more abundant kindness and sympathy, and their greater skill in the preparation of food for the sick; knowing also the success that had attended the experiment of introducing women nurses in the Military Hospitals in other cities, she determined to overcome the prejudices of such of the army surgeons as stood in the way, and secure to her sick and wounded brothers in the hospitals at Nashville, the benefit of womanly kindness, and nursing, and care. In this endeavor she was entirely successful, and by her persuasive manners, her womanly grace and refinement, and her good sense, she recommended her views to the medical authorities, and accomplished her wishes.

Returning to St. Louis in the spring of 1864, she continued to perform the duties of Secretary of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, till the end of the year, when, in consequence of a contemplated change in her life, she resigned her position, and retired from it with the friends.h.i.+p and warm appreciation of her co-workers in the useful labors of the society.

In the month of June, 1865, she was married to Morris Collins, Esq., a citizen of St. Louis.

MRS. C. R. SPRINGER, who has labored so indefatigably at St. Louis, for the soldiers of the Union and their families during the war, was born in Parsonsfield, Maine. Her maiden name was Lord. Previous to her marriage to Mr. Springer, a respectable merchant of St. Louis, she was a teacher in New Hamps.h.i.+re. On the event of her marriage, she came to reside at St. Louis, about ten years ago, and on the breaking out of the war, espoused with patriotic ardor the cause of her country in its struggle with the great slaveholding rebellion. To do this in St. Louis, at that period, when wealth and fas.h.i.+on, and church influence were so largely on the side of the rebellion, and every social circle was more or less infected with treason, required a high degree of moral courage and heroism.

From the first opening of the hospitals in St. Louis, in the autumn of 1861, Mrs. Springer became a most untiring, devoted and judicious visiter, and by her kind and gracious manners, her words of sympathy and encouragement, and her religious consolation, she imparted hope and comfort to many a poor, sick, and wounded soldier, stretched upon the bed of languis.h.i.+ng.

Besides her useful labors in the hospitals, Mrs. Springer was an active member of the Ladies' Union Aid Society in St. Louis, from the date of its organization in August, 1861, to its final disbanding--October, 1865--in the deliberations of which her counsel always had great weight and influence. During the four years of its varied and useful labors for the soldiers and their families, she has been among its most diligent workers. In the winter of 1862, the Society took charge of the labor of making up hospital garments, given out by the Medical Purveyor of the department, and she superintended the whole of this important work during that winter, in which one hundred and twenty-seven thousand five hundred garments were made.

Mrs. Springer is a highly educated woman, of great moral worth, devoted to the welfare of the soldier, inspired by sincere love of country, and a high sense of Christian duty. No one will be more gratefully remembered by thousands of soldiers and their families, to whom she has manifested kindness, and a warm interest in their welfare. These services have been gratuitously rendered, and she has given up customary recreations, and sacrificed ease and social pleasure to attend to these duties of humanity. Her reward will be found in the consciousness of having done good to the defenders of her native land, and in the blessing of those who were ready to perish, to whom her kind services, and words of good cheer came as a healing balm in the hour of despondency, and strengthened them for a renewal of their efforts in the cause of country and liberty.

Among the devoted women who have made themselves martyrs to the work of helping our patriotic soldiers and their families in St. Louis, was the late MRS. MARY E. PALMER. She was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, June 28th, 1827, and her maiden name was Locker. She was married in February, 1847, to Mr. Samuel Palmer. In 1855 she removed to Kansas, and in 1857 returned as far eastward as St. Louis, where she resided until her death.

In the beginning of the war, when battles began to be fought, and the sick and wounded were brought to our hospitals to be treated and cared for, Mrs. Palmer with true patriotic devotion and womanly sympathy offered her services to this good cause, and after a variety of hospital work in the fall of 1863, she entered into the service of the Ladies'

Union Aid Society of St. Louis as a regular visiter among the soldiers'

families, many of whom needed aid and work, during the absence of their natural protectors in the army. It was a field of great labor and usefulness; for in so large a city there were thousands of poor women, whose husbands often went months without pay, or the means of sending it home to their families, who were obliged to appeal for a.s.sistance in taking care of themselves and children. To prevent imposition it was necessary that they should be visited, the requisite aid rendered, and sewing or other work provided by which they could earn a part of their own support, a proper discrimination being made between the worthy and unworthy, the really suffering, and those who would impose on the charity of the society under the plea of necessity.

In this work Mrs. Palmer was most faithful and constant, going from day to day through a period of nearly two years, in summer and winter, in suns.h.i.+ne and storm, to the abodes of these people, to find out their real necessities, to report to the society and to secure for them the needed relief.

Her labors also extended to many dest.i.tute families of refugees, who had found their way to St. Louis from the impoverished regions of Southern Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and who would have died of actual want, but for the charity of the Government and the ministering aid of the Western Sanitary Commission and the Ladies' Union Aid Society. In her visits and her dispensations of charity Mrs. Palmer was always wise, judicious, and humane, and enjoyed the fullest confidence of the society in whose service she was engaged. In the performance of her duties she was always thoroughly conscientious, and actuated by a high sense of religious duty. From an early period of her life she had been a consistent member of the Baptist Church, and her Christian character was adorned by a thorough consecration to works of kindness and humanity which were performed in the spirit of Him, who, during his earthly ministry, "went about doing good."