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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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had consecrated their lives could be carried out if they would enter
the religious state. They were admitted to one of the convents of the
Presentation Order, and after a novitiate lasting one year she and
her companions received the religious habit.

In October, 1831, she professed and was canonically appointed by

the Archbishop as Superior of the new order. The costume worn by
the members of the order was devised by Mother Catherine, as she
was thereafter called. The Order grew rapidly in numbers and in
prominence. The life of its first Mother and foundress was active and
edifying. Her labors were not confined to any particular work, but
embraced everything that was in the interest and for the benefit of
the poor and unfortunate. In 1832 she won enduring laurels by
assuming charge of the cholera hospital in Dublin.

She died on November 11, 1837, resigned and happy, and furnished
an example of pious fortitude to the Sisters that crowded about her
deathbed. The Order that she founded, as it exists to-day, is her
best monument. Beginning in Ireland in 1827 it was afterwards
successfully introduced into England, Newfoundland, Australia, New
Zealand, South America and the United States of America.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

XIII.
CLERICAL VETERANS.

Notre Dame, Indiana, enjoys the distinction of a Grand Army Post

composed of Catholic clergymen, most of whom are members of the
faculty of Notre Dame University. The organization was officially
entered on October 6, 1897, as Post No. 569, Department of
Indiana. Very Rev. William E. Corby, C. S. C., the commander of the
new post, was chaplain of the Irish Brigade, and is now the
provincial, or head officer, of the order of the Holy Cross in the
United States. Dr. Corby is also the chaplain of the Indiana
Commandery of the Loyal Legion. To this position he was nominated
by General Lew Wallace.

The membership of the new post will be very small, but large
enough to have a few famous fighters and great men of the war.
With the exception of Colonel William E. Haynes, the only lay
member, the post is composed altogether of members of the
congregation of the Holy Cross. The following complete the roster:

Very Rev. William Corby, C. S. C., chaplain Eighty-eighth New York

Volunteers, Irish Brigade.

Rev. Peter P. Cooney, C. S. C., chaplain Thirty-fifth Medina.

James McLain (Brother Leander), C. S. C., B Company, Twenty-fourth

United States Infantry.

William A. Olmsted, C. S. C., captain and lieutenant colonel Second

Infantry, New York Volunteers, colonel Fifty-ninth New York Veteran
Volunteers; brigadier general by brevet, commandery First Brigade,
Second Division, Second Army Corps, Army of the Potomac.

Mark A. Willis (Brother John Chrysostom, C. S. C.), I Company, Fifty-

fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Nicholas A. Bath (Brother Cosmos, C. S. C.), D Company, Second

United States Artillery.

James Mantle (Brother Benedict, C. S. C.), A Company, First

Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery and Sixth United States Cavalry.

John McInerny (Brother Eustathius, C. S. C.), H Company, Eighty-

third Ohio Volunteers.
Joseph Staley (Brother Agathus, C. S. C.), C Company, Eighth
Indiana Regulars.

Ignatz Mayer (Brother Ignatius, C. S. C.), C Company, Seventy-fifth

Pennsylvania Volunteers and One Hundred and Fifty-seventh
Pennsylvania Volunteers.

James C. Malloy (Brother Raphael, C. S. C.), B Company, One

Hundred and Thirty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Colonel William E. Haynes.

General Olmsted, who is studying for the priesthood, is much

interested in the little gathering. He is justly proud of the work of his
men in the celebrated Hancock’s Division. He refers to the
Government reports in every case as proof of the bravery of his
soldiers. The General said not long ago in an interview: “Very much
that is said of me is not true, but to show you that my men were
brave, I give you the reports from the department at Washington.”
The General read: “The losses of the First Brigade, Second Division,
Second Corps—my brigade—were greater in the battle of Gettysburg
than those that occurred to any one brigade in the army. There was,
beside, a total casualty of 763 killed and wounded out of 1246 men
at Antietam, a percentage of 61.”

Father Corby has the honor of being the only chaplain to give
absolution under fire. The event of his giving absolution at
Gettysburg to the Irish Brigade is the best known of his
achievements in chaplain life. It is said that every man, Catholic and
Protestant, knelt before the rock upon which he stood, and the
colors were lowered. Then they went out and fought, and how many
fell upon that bloody field is too well known to be repeated. Father
Corby, although an old man, is hale and hearty, and does all his
work as provincial of the order without the aid of a secretary.

Rev. Peter Cooney also has a brilliant war record, but he and Father
Corby are by no means the only two who went to war from Notre
Dame. In all there were eight priests who went forth to service as
chaplains in the war. Beside these Mother Mary Angela, a cousin of
James G. Blaine, went forth with a large number of Sisters to nurse
the wounded and care for the dying. To these also great praise is
due.

There was much enthusiasm in Notre Dame over the organization

exercises, and among those present or who sent their
congratulations were General Lew Wallace, General Mulholland, of
Philadelphia; Colonel J. A. Smith, of Indianapolis; General J. A.
Golden, of New York; General William J. Sewall, Colonel R. S.
Robertson, of Fort Wayne; General J. A. Starburg, of Boston; Captain
Florence McCarthy, of New York; Captain Emil A. Dapper, of Grand
Rapids; Captain J. J. Abercrombie, of Chicago; Department
Commander James S. Dodge, with his full staff. The G. A. R. post
from Elkhart and two posts from South Bend helped to muster in the
clerical veterans. Commendatory messages were also received from
a large number of posts and leaders in the G. A. R.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

XIV.
CATHOLICS IN THE WAR.

St. Teresa’s Church, at the northeast corner of Broad and Catherine

streets, was temporarily used as a hospital for wounded soldiers
during the war. On July 4, 1897, Rev. Joseph V. O’Connor, one of the
eloquent priests of the diocese of Philadelphia, delivered an address
in this church, relative to Catholics in the war. A score of Grand Army
posts attended the exercises, which were also honored by the
presence of the venerable Hugh Lane, who has been pastor of the
church during and since the war. Father O’Connor’s address deserves
a place in this volume. He said:

“The sacred edifice in which you assemble is an appropriate spot for

religion and patriotism to meet, for St. Teresa’s Church was for a
time in the Civil War a military hospital. The old railway station at
Broad and Prime streets was the rendezvous of the Union troops
from the North and East going to and from the seat of war. The
gleaming cross upon the church seemed lifted in benediction over
army after army marching past. The poet Byron represents the
forest of Ardennes as weeping over the ‘unreturning brave’ of
Waterloo, but the sign of man’s redemption may have lifted up many
a Catholic soldier’s heart destined to be stilled in the next battle.
These walls, now bright with light and color, have re-echoed the
moans of the dying. The venerable priest whose gracious presence
lends dignity and historic interest to this celebration prepared here
many a soldier for the last dread fight with death, the universal
conqueror. I seem to behold, mingling with your solid phalanx, the
shadowy forms of the brave men who were delivered from the storm
and earthquake of battle to breathe out their spirits here in the
peace of the sanctuary.

“Far be it from me to limit to the Catholic breast that noble fire of

the love of country, which with purifying flame burned in the great
heart of the nation when war sounded the trumpet call to the
children of the republic. It is occasion that shows the man. Our Civil
War was an occasion that showed our Church. The legislative code
of England was disgraced, even in Victoria’s reign by the calumny
and the imbecility of penal laws against Catholics. To be a Catholic
was to be a traitor. In vain did we appeal to history, which crowns
with laurels the brows of unnumbered Catholic patriots and heroes
in every land of the universal Church. The Thundering Legion fought
for the Roman Emperor, who decreed its martyrdom. The fleet of
Protestant England was led against the Armada of Catholic Spain by
a Catholic in the service of a Queen who sent his fellow-religionists
to the stake on account of their faith. The patriotism of the Catholic
is motived by his religion. It rises superior to the form in which civil
government may be embodied. Were the Pope, as temporal prince,
to invade our country we should be bound in conscience to repel
him, nor would our patriotism conflict one iota with our religious
faith.

“Our people, driven by misgovernment from their native soil, found

the portals of the great Republic flung open to them in friendly
welcome. They came to the North and to the West. Thus the great
centres of industry in the Northern States were crowded with
Catholics. Most of us had learned the bitter lessons which tyranny,
bad government and religious rancor have to impart under the
scourge of England’s misrule of Ireland. As Bourke Cockran says,
England’s treatment of the Irish people has made the world distrust
her. Ireland’s love for America dates from before the Revolution. The
Irish Parliament passed resolutions of sympathy with the American
colonists. The great tides of immigration from Ireland set in early
and continued until, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the North was
one-fourth Celtic in blood.

“The Catholic Church studiously refrained from any official

pronouncement upon the causes of the conflict which she deplored.
The first regiment to respond to President Lincoln’s initial call for
troops was the Sixty-ninth New York. It was mainly Irish and
Catholic. Within forty-eight hours it was on its way to the front. New
York, pre-eminently a Catholic State, furnished one-seventh of the
military forces in the war for the Union.

“Obviously the Government had no reason for recording the religious

faith of its soldiers. Patriotism is at once a natural and a civic virtue.
That it may be supernaturalized is evident from the words of St.
Paul, bidding us obey the higher powers for conscience sake. The
country had to face a condition, not a theory, and whatever abstract
reasoning has to say about State rights, the will of the majority of
the people, which is the supreme law in a republic, decided for the
maintenance of the Federal Union. The best traditions of the country,
North and South, identified liberty with union. God appears to have
made the country one in geographical formation, in sameness of
language, in homogeneity of character.

“Two illustrious Catholic prelates, recognized as leaders in Israel—

the Moses and the Joshua of the Church—Archbishop Kendrick, of
Baltimore, and Archbishop Hughes, of New York, declared in favor of
the Union. The sainted sage of the primatial city flung the starry
banner from the pinnacle of his Cathedral. The Archbishop of New
York was so thoroughly identified with the cause of the Union that
he was invested by the President and his Secretary of State with the
authority of envoy extraordinary to the courts of Europe.

“Unroll the military records of our country and you will read column
after column of names that are historically Catholic. Read the names
on the tombstones of soldiers in the great national cemeteries and
you will find in the Christian name alone confirmatory evidence of
the faith of the hero that sleeps beneath. The Catholic knows that
the Church imposes in baptism the name of a saint. We may safely
judge that he is a Catholic who bears the name of Patrick and
Michael, of Bernard and Dominic. Not even the conservative spirit of
the Church of England could retain the old saintly nomenclature, and
Puritanism chose the names of Old Testament worthies or names
taken from natural history and even heathen mythology.

“If we reckon our soldiers by their religion, the majority would be

Catholic and we should find that we had given our children in far
greater number than any one denomination. On the second day of
Gettysburg a Catholic priest, ascending an eminence, lifted his hand
to give absolution, and far as the eye could reach rank upon rank of
soldiers bent their heads like cornfields swept by the summer
breeze. Hancock, the “superb,” impressed by the solemnity of the
scene, bared his brow. If the poet thought that a tear should fall for
Stonewall Jackson because he spared Barbara Frietchie’s Union flag,
will not a Catholic murmur a prayer for the great general who gave
heed to the priest calling upon his people to be contrite for their sins
in the hour which for many would be the last?

“The seven successive stormings of the heights of Fredericksburg by

the Irish Brigade has long passed into history as surpassing Alma
and the Sedan. Keenan’s cavalry charge at Chancellorsville saved the
Union army at the cost of 300 lives. The charge of the Light Brigade
at Balaklava was described by a French officer as magnificent, but
unmilitary—‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.’ But
Keenan’s charge was both glorious and strategic. His troop rushed
like a whirlwind upon 20,000 Confederates. His men were shot down
or sabered in the saddle. The steeds, maddened by wounds and
uncontrolled by their dead riders, plunged into the thick of the
Confederate ranks, and so disconcerted and appalled them that the
main army of the Union had time to save itself from otherwise
inevitable destruction. Perhaps the most critical point of the war was
the success or the failure of Sheridan’s devastation of the
Shenandoah Valley, which was the great base of supplies for the
South. Sheridan’s historic ride, which saved the day at Winchester,
was the exploit of a Catholic. The Republic subsequently conferred
upon this son of the Church one of the highest and most responsible
positions in her keeping, the generalship of her armies.

“One of the first, if not the first band of trained nurses that offered
their services to the Government was the religious society of the
Sisters of Charity. Their title is their history. Their services in
hospitals and on the field did more than tomes of controversy to
make the Catholic Church better known, and consequently loved, by
the American people. The convalescing soldier by word and by letter
spread the information throughout the land that the ministrations of
the Catholic Sisterhood reminded him of a mother’s love and a
sister’s tenderness.

“The heroic devotion to duty of the Catholic chaplains, who made no

distinction of religion when a soldier was to be helped, endeared the
Catholic religion to many who met a Catholic priest for the first time
in camp or hospital. Our own noble-hearted Archbishop rendered
such service to the wounded soldiers in St. Louis that the
Government offered him a chaplaincy. Care of the body was often
supplemented with the higher care of the soul. In that parting hour,
when mortality leans upon the breast of religion, the example of
devoted priest and religious gently led many a soul into the hope
and the consolation of divine faith.

“God grant that our country shall never again reel under the shock
of war! Yet out of the nettle of danger has come the flower of safety.
Calumny, suspicion, distrust of our patriotism were struck dumb.
Never again shall we be taunted with secret antipathy to free
institutions. The banner of the stars was rebaptized in our blood. To
the soldier of the war the Church owes a debt of gratitude. He
proved often by his death that the religion which he professed, far
from condemning his patriotism, commended it as a virtue, and the
faith that sustained him in battle supported him when his heart
poured out the blood of supreme sacrifice upon the altar of his
country. And though no memorial marks his resting place the Church
in every mass pleads for the repose of his soul.

“The soldier stands as the highest value which we place upon our
country and her institutions. He says to all: ‘My country is worth
dying for.’ In our thoughtless way we take liberty, security of life and
property, the blessings of religion and safeguards of law and all the
beauty and amenity of our civilization as a matter of course. Without
the soldier all these goods would perish. It is war that preserves and
protects peace. The soldier is the guardian of our homes. Honor
him; make peaceful and happy his declining years. Thank God with
David for preparing our hands for the sword, before whose blinding
ray, in the hand of the hero, domestic treason and foreign conspiracy
slink into their dens. Bless God for making us a nation of soldiers, as
well as of citizens. The war proved that the American soldier, North
and South, is without a peer in bravery, in discipline, in self-control.
Whilst our Republic gives birth to such heroic sons we may laugh
armed Europe to scorn.
“Soldiers, there is another battle, another field, a greater Captain
than even the archangel who led the embattled seraphim to war. You
divine my meaning. Be soldiers of the cross! Fight the good fight of
faith. Be sober, pure, charitable. The laurel that binds the warrior’s
brow on earth soon fades. The flowers of Decoration Day droop with
the setting sun. But the Divine Captain of our salvation will place
upon your brow, if you are faithful to the end, a crown that fadeth
not away, a wreath which you will receive amid the shout of the
heavenly armies.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

XV.
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.

The purpose of the writer of this history, as already stated, has been
to furnish for the first time a full and detailed story of the labors of
the Catholic Sisterhoods in the Civil War, but in doing that he has not
had the slightest intention of detracting from the splendid service
rendered by other bodies and other persons. One of the most
notable organizations that contributed its part in the humane work
incident to the war was the Sanitary Commission. It had its rise in a
spontaneous movement of the women in New England. It is said
that 7000 branch Aid Societies were connected with the Commission
at one time. Charles J. Stille, of Philadelphia, has written a history of
the Commission, from which most of the facts embodied in this
sketch have been obtained. Committees were sent to Washington,
the part of the Government, the Secretary of War, on the 9th of
June, 1861, issued an order appointing Henry and after much
negotiation, involving tedious delay on W. Bellows, D. D., Professor
A. D. Boche, LL. D., Professor Jeffries Wyman, M. D., W. H. Van
Buren, M. D., Wolcott Gibbs, M. D., R. C. Wood, surgeon U. S. A.; G.
W. Cullom, U. S. A.; Alexander E. Shiras, U. S. A., in connection with
such others as they might chose to associate with them, “a
commission of inquiry and advice in respect of the sanitary interests
of the United States forces.” They were to serve without
remuneration from the Government and were to be provided with a
room for their use in the city of Washington.

They were to direct their inquiries to the principles and practices

connected with the inspection of recruits and enlisted men, the
sanitary condition of volunteers, to the means of preserving and
restoring the health and of securing the general comfort and
efficiency of the troops, to the proper provision of cooks, nurses and
hospitals, and to other subjects of a like nature. The mode by which
they proposed to conduct these inquiries was detailed in the letter of
the New York delegation to the Secretary of War on the 22d of May.
The order appointing them directed that they should correspond
freely with the department and with the Medical Bureau concerning
these subjects, and on this footing and within these limits their
relations with the official authorities were established. To enable
them to carry out fully the purposes of their appointment the
Surgeon General issued a circular letter announcing the creation of
the Commission, and directing all the officers in his department to
grant its agents every facility in the prosecution of their duties.

On the 12th of June the gentlemen named as Commissioners in the

order of the Secretary of War (with the exception of Professor
Wyman, who had declined his appointment) assembled at
Washington. They proceeded to organize the Board by the selection
of the Rev. Dr. Bellows as president. Their first care was to secure
the services of certain gentlemen as colleagues, who were supposed
to possess special qualifications, but whose names had not been
included in the original warrant. Accordingly Dr. Elisha Harris and Dr.
Cornelius R. Agnew were unanimously chosen Commissioners at the
first meeting, and George T. Strong and Dr. J. S. Newberry in like
manner at the one next succeeding. At different periods during the
war Rt. Rev. Bishop Clark, Hon. R. W. Burnet, Hon. Mark Skinner,
Hon. Joseph Holt, Horace Binney, Jr., Rev. J. H. Heywood, Prof.
Fairman Rogers, J. Huntingdon Wolcott, Charles J. Stille, E. B.
McCagg and F. Law Olmstead were elected by the Board members of
the Commission.

At the first meeting a “Plan of Organization,” prepared by the

president, was presented, discussed and finally adopted. On the
13th the Commission, in a body, waited on the President and
Secretary of War, who gave their formal sanction to this plan of
organization by affixing to it their signatures. The experiences of the
war suggested but little alteration, even in the outline of this report,
while to a strict adherence to the general principles it embodied the
Sanitary Commission owed much of its wonderful success.

The plan reduced to a practical system and method the principles

laid down in the letters of the New York gentlemen to the
Government authorities and endeavored to apply them to the actual
existing condition of the army. Confining its proposed operations
within the limited sphere of “inquiry” and “advice,” which had been
assigned to it by the Government, it declared what it proposed to do
and by what methods in each of these departments of duty.

In order that its work might be carried on systematically and

thoroughly two general committees were created, one respecting
“inquiry,” the other “advice.” The object of the first was to determine
by all the light which could be derived from experience what must
necessarily be the wants and conditions of troops brought together
as ours had been, to ascertain exactly how far evils which had
proved the scourge of other armies had already invaded our own,
and to decide concerning the best measures to be adopted to
remove all causes of removable and preventable disease.

Each branch of “inquiry” under this head was referred to a distinct

sub-committee. From the first was expected such suggestions of
preventable measures as experience in former wars had proved to
be absolutely essential; to the second was entrusted the actual
inspection, by its own members or their agents, of the camps and
hospitals, so that the real condition of the army, in a sanitary point
of view, concerning which there were many conflicting rumors, could
be definitely known. To the third was referred all questions
concerning the improvement of the health and efficiency of the army
in respect to diet, clothing, quarters and matters of a similar nature.

In regard to the other branch of duty assigned to the Commission

under its appointment, that of “advice,” the Board took the same
wide and comprehensive views as had guided them in regard to the
needful subjects of inquiry. Their purpose was to “get the opinions
and conclusions of the Commission approved by the Medical Bureau,
ordered by the War Department and carried out by the officers and
men.”

The interest excited in thousands of homes throughout the land,

whose inmates were members of aid societies in favor of the
Sanitary Commission, and who looked upon it only as the almoner of
their vast offerings for the relief of the army, led to the popular error
that it was only a relief association upon a grand scale and quite
overshadowed in popular estimation its original purpose, if not the
peculiar and exclusive work before it. The Commission itself,
however, never departed from the true scientific idea and conception
of a preventive system, and always regarded the relief system, vast
as was the place occupied by it in the war, as inferior in the
importance of its results to those due to well considered and
thoroughly executed preventive measures.

The Commission at the close of the war established a pension

bureau and war claim agency for the benefit of disabled soldiers and
their orphans and widows. The entire money receipts of the
Commission from 1861 to 1866 were $4,924,480.99, and the value
of supplies furnished is estimated at $15,000,000.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
 XVI.

“THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.”

“By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep on the ranks of the dead—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,

Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory
In the dusk of eternity meet—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friend and the foe—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor

The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
 On the blossoms blooming for all—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So when the summer calleth,

On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,

The generous deed was done:
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,

Or the winding rivers be red:
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
 XVII.

A MIRACLE OF THE WAR.

The following interesting little incident is taken from Very Rev. W. C.

Corby’s book, entitled “Memoirs of Chaplain Life:”

“On the 29th of November, 1863,” says Rev. Constantine L. Egan, O.

P., chaplain of the Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, “we advanced to
Mine Run and formed a line of battle and bivouacked for the night.
The enemy were posted on the east ridge, about one mile from the
stream called Mile Run, on a centre ridge nearly 100 feet above the
surface of the stream. Their works could easily be seen by us posted
on the west ridge of the run. They were strongly fortified, their
works bristling with abatis, infantry parapets and epaulements for
batteries. About 3 o’clock on the evening of the 30th the order was
given to charge the enemy’s line. Seeing the danger of death before
us I asked the colonel to form his regiment into a solid square so
that I could address the men. He did so. I then spoke to them of
their danger, and entreated them to prepare for it by going on their
knees and making a sincere act of contrition for their sins, with the
intention of going to confession if their lives were spared.

“As the regiment fell on their knees, other Catholic soldiers broke
from their ranks and joined us, so that in less than two minutes I
had the largest congregation I ever witnessed before, or even since.
Having pronounced the words of general absolution to be given in
such emergencies and danger, I spoke a few words of
encouragement to them.

* * * “After talking to the soldiers and finishing my remarks, they

arose from their knees, grasping their muskets with a firm clinch,
and went back to their respective commands, awaiting the hour to
expire to make the assault.”
Smith Johnson, taking this as his theme, has written the following
poem, entitled “A Miracle of War,” and dedicated it to Father Corby:

Two armies stood in stern array

On Gettysburg’s historic field—
This side the blue, on that the gray—
Each side resolved to win the day,
Or life to home and country yield.

“Take arms!” “Fall in!” rang o’er the line

Of Hancock’s ever-valiant corps—
For to the left the cannons chime
With music terribly sublime,
With death’s unceasing, solemn roar.

With spirits ardent, undismayed,

With flags uplifted toward the sky,
There stands brave Meagher’s old brigade
Those noble laurels ne’er will fade
Upon the page of history.

“All forward, men!” No, pause a while—

Dead silence follows like parade
At “order arms,” for ‘long the file
There moves a priest with holy smile—
The priest of Meagher’s old brigade.

All eyes were toward him reverent turned,

For he was known and loved by all,
And every face with fervor burned,
And with a glance his mission learned—
A mission of high Heaven’s call.

Then spake the priest: “My comrades, friends,

Ere long the battle fierce will surge,
Ere long the curse of war descends—
At such a moment God commends
You from the soul all sin to purge.
“Kneel, soldiers; lift your hearts to God,
In sweet contrition crush the pride
Of human minds; kneel on the sod
That soon will welter in your blood—
Look up to Christ, who for you died.”

And every man, whate’er his creed,

Kneels down, and whispers pass along
The ranks, and murmuring voices plead
To be from sin’s contagion freed
And turned from path of mortal wrong.

Across the vale the gray lines view

The priest and those who, kneeling now,
For absolution humbly sue,
And joining hearts, the gray and blue,
Together make the holy vow.

* * * * *

The smoke of battle lifts apace,

And o’er the field lie forms of men,
With glazen eyes and pallid face—
Dead—yet alive, for God’s sweet grace
Has saved them from the death of sin.

SMITH JOHNSON.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
 XVIII.

LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG.

It has been aptly said that the battlefield of Gettysburg has become
the “Mecca of American Reconciliation.” By act of Congress a
National Park has been established there, observatories erected and
everything possible done to make the battlefield convenient and
attractive to tourists.

The National Cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated November 19,

1863. The oration was by Edward Everett. On this occasion President
Lincoln made the famous address that will never die. It was as
follows:

“Four-score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now, we are engaged in
a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that
the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we
cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long
remember what we say here, but it never can forget what they did
here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by
the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

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XIX.
THE FAITH AND THE FLAG.

While the work of the zealous Catholic Sisterhoods on the battlefield

and in the camp and hospital was for humanity in its broadest sense
the effect of their example and the beauty of their daily lives also
had the effect of clearing away the mists of prejudice that
sometimes distorted and clouded the views of honorable, well-
meaning and worthy non-Catholics. The writer has endeavored to
present the history of the labors of the Sisters in a straightforward
and dispassionate manner.

He has dealt exclusively in facts and has, as far as possible, avoided

comment. It has especially been his aim to keep entirely clear of
sectional disputes or religious controversies. Hence it will be found
that the story of the work of the Sisters has reference, in the main,
to their devotion to suffering humanity. It was inevitable, however,
that men living in the atmosphere of sanctity created by these good
women should feel the consoling benefit of their silent influence. The
result was that non-Catholics began to take a broader and more
kindly view of their Catholic comrades and fellow-citizens, and long
before the war closed they realized that the faith and the flag were
entirely compatible.

A few years ago William J. Onahan, of Chicago, in an address,

incidentally touched upon this very point. Speaking of those who
were distrustful of the Church and its teachings he said: “If they
could realize the harmony and benevolent influence of her teaching,
the number of souls redeemed through her efforts and graces from
despair and sin, the wounded hearts solaced by her balm—the
extent of human misery she has removed or mitigated? Let them but
think how that Church has consecrated the marriage tie, sanctified
the home, shielded the unfortunate, lifted up the lowly and sorrow-
stricken, staying the arm of the oppressor, pleading for the rights of
the poor against the power of the tyrant and the greed of capital.
Witness the asylums and the refuges the Catholic Church has
established all over the world for every condition of infirmity and
suffering—for the orphans, the foundlings, the sick, the aged, the
wayward and the fallen.

“See the admirable sisterhoods—to which no parallel can be found

on earth—the Sisters of Charity and Mercy, the Poor Handmaids of
Jesus Christ, the Sisters of St. Joseph, the nuns of the Good
Shepherd, the Little Sisters of the Poor and countless others, varying
in the admirable diversity of their charitable labors. Watch these
sisters at their appointed duties in the hospitals and asylums, in the
hovels of the poor, by the bedside of the dying—aye, in pesthouses
and smallpox hospitals, as well as on the battlefield, ministering to
the dying soldier—all bent on doing God’s work for God’s sake.
Assuredly these facts—these daily examples here before our eyes,
within reach of our feet in daily walk—assuredly these ought to serve
toward dispelling the false glare of prejudice.

“As a preliminary let me say I adopt without reserve or qualification

the language of the Baltimore Catholic Congress: ‘We rejoice at the
marvellous development of our country, and regard with just pride
the part taken by Catholics in such development.’ In the words of the
pastoral issued by the Archbishops of the United States, assembled
in the third Plenary Council of Baltimore, ‘we claim to be acquainted
both with the laws, institutions and spirit of our country, and we
emphatically declare that there is no antagonism between them.
“We repudiate with equal earnestness the assertion that we need to
lay aside any of our devotedness to our Church to be true
Americans, and the insinuations that we need abate any of our love
for our country’s principles to be faithful Catholics. We believe that
our country’s heroes were the instruments of the God of Nations in
establishing this home of freedom; to both the Almighty and to His
instruments in the work we look with grateful reverence, and to
maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left us, should
it ever—which God forbid—be imperiled, our Catholic citizens will be
bound to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge anew their
lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.’

“Before turning to the question of the ‘rights and duties’ let me first
define what I understand by the term ‘Catholic Citizen.’ An American
citizen, whether by birth or adoption, who, having had the grace of
Christian baptism, believes and practices the teachings of the
Catholic Church—in other words a practical Catholic. Now we come
to the question of ‘rights and duties.’ What are our rights as citizens?
No more, no less, precisely, than those possessed by any other
American citizen. What are the rights we in common have with
others? In general terms we have the ‘right’ of enjoying and
defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting
property and reputation and of pursuing our own happiness.

“We hold, in the language of the Constitution of Illinois, that all men
have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God
according to the dictates of their own consciences, that no man can
of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of
worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent, that no
human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with
the rights of conscience. We have a right to be protected in our
persons and property; we cannot be deprived of either without due
process of law; the right of free elections, to trial by jury, to equality
before the law—but I need not enter into detail of the ‘Bill of Rights’
which specifies the catalogue of a freeman’s inheritance. The highest
and most precious right, however, is that of religious freedom, liberty
to worship God without let or hindrance and free from religious
disabilities of any kind, and next to their own rights as free men, to
exercise it as shall best promote the welfare of the city, State and
nation.

“Catholics, then, are entitled to absolute equality before the law, and
this is according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution of the
United States, as well as of the several States now, I believe,
without exception. There is nevertheless an unwritten law, which
operates as a practical discrimination against Catholics in public life
as effectually as though it were so expressed in the Constitution. It
is the law of public opinion deriving its force and effect from popular
prejudice. It is a well-known fact that neither of the great political
parties would dare to nominate a Catholic for the Presidency, and
the same is true as to the office of Governor in the different States.
Surely it would not be claimed that no American Catholic could be
found qualified by position and ability for any of these high offices.

“Eternal vigilance, it has been said, is the price of liberty. Probably if

Catholics were alert in asserting their rights—in a just and lawful, as
well as in a reasonable manner—there would be less disposition
shown to infringe upon those rights, and to ignore their claim to
representation. Again, the government, whether National or State,
has no just claim or authority to deny the rights of conscience to
Catholics, whether they be employed in the service of the nation, in
the army or naval forces, in penal or reformatory institutions, in
asylums, or elsewhere. The State may lawfully and justly deprive a
man of his liberty and place him behind prison bars; but it has no
right to compel him while there to attend a form of religious worship
in which he does not believe; it should not deny or hamper the
attendance and ministrations of priest or elder whose services are
sought by the prisoner or State’s own ward. Justice and sound policy
alike demonstrate the wisdom of invoking the services of the
Catholic Missionary for Catholics, whether in jail or asylum, or on the
frontier.
“General Grant testified that Father De Smet’s presence among the
Indians was of greater value to the Government than a regiment of
cavalry, and recent events on our Northern borders intensify the
force of this conclusion. The Catholic missionary is always a
peacemaker. Catholics ask nothing in the way of ‘privileges.’ We have
no claim to privileges. We only ask what we are willing to concede to
others—equality and fair play. If others are content to minimize
religious principles or to abdicate them entirely we must be excused
if we insist on holding fast to ours. We are on firm ground in that
respect; we do not care to follow others into the “slough of
despond.” We are persuaded that every vexed question occupying
and disturbing the public attention, dividing and distracting the
people can be amicably adjusted, provided the wise men of the
nation and the States will take these questions out of the hands of
fanatics and bigots, who are only too eager and anxious to
inaugurate a reign of discord and religious strife.

“Catholics, be assured, will have no part in this warfare, beyond

protecting and defending their rights—God-given and Constitutional
rights. They would be unworthy of American citizenship were they to
be content with less.

“We now come to the question of the ‘Duties of Catholics as

Citizens.’ Let it be understood that in undertaking to answer this, as
well as the previous question under consideration, I speak for myself
only as a Catholic layman. I express my own thoughts and
convictions unreservedly. What are the ‘duties’ referred to? First, and
primarily, I should say to be American, in all that the term broadly
implies. How do I define the term American? It stands in my mind
for liberty, order, education and opportunities. It is the duty of the
Catholic citizen to love liberty for its own sake, order for the general
good and to illustrate the highest type and model of civic virtue. It is
a duty to foster and nourish the purity of home life and the domestic
virtues, eagerly to promote education and to make every necessary
sacrifice for it, and to see to it that Catholic children shall have the
benefit of a sound Christian education. Catholics should avail
themselves of the material opportunities and advantages offered in
this wonderful age and country, and strive to be in the front ranks in
the march of progress.

“The field is wide and inviting, the race is open to all. The privilege
of American citizenship should be regarded as precious and
priceless. Because so easily acquired, perhaps, it is not sufficiently
estimated at its true value and worth. Think what American
citizenship confers; see what it assures! Equal part and membership
in this mighty empire—the equal advantage in its unsurpassed
opportunities—the unqualified privileges of its unequaled freedom.
No standing armies here to be moved at a monarch’s caprice,
weighing down and oppressing the nation’s energies, draining it of
its life blood, sapping its vitality, and, worst evil of all, menacing the
peace of the world. No armed ‘constabulary’ to terrorize over a
peasant population and enforce the heartless edict of brutal
landlords. No hereditary or favored classes. No obstacle to the
unfettered enjoyment of those rights which we possess from God in
the natural law, and that are guaranteed to us in the Constitution
and laws of the land—the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.

“What a future opens before us, what possibilities for ourselves and
for our children! Justly are the American people jealous of this
inheritance. It must be guarded with vigilant care, lest unworthy
hands and evil guidance should put it in peril. American liberty and
the opportunities of American life are too precious to the human
family to permit the one and the other to be wrecked or
endangered. I rejoice in every indication of patriotic public spirit,
whether shown in devotion and respect for the country’s flag or in
reverence and admiration for the nation’s heroes. We need all these
demonstrations to keep alive in this material age the ardor and
purity of true patriotism.

“True American patriotism is the inheritance and monopoly of no one

class or condition. Its title is not derived from accident of birth or
color, is not to be determined by locality. Montgomery, Pulaski,
Steuben, De Kalb, Rochambeau, the Moylans and Sullivans, fought
for American liberty in the Revolutionary days with an ardor and a
fidelity at least equal to that displayed by those “native and to the
manner born.” Jackson was none the less a typical American
because of the accident of his father’s foreign birth, or, as is
sometimes intimated, of his own. And who shall question the
patriotic devotion of General Shields, honorably identified with the
early history of your own State; of Meagher, of Mulligan, of Sheridan,
of Meade and countless others I might name.

“Apprehension is sometimes expressed at the growth of foreign

influence and the display of foreign customs, but this fear is after all
puerile. Under our system of government the foreigner who comes
to stay is soon assimilated, and while there may be here and there
instances and examples, the outgrowth of foreign habits and
customs, not welcome to American notions, yet these can be only
passing and temporary accidents. The foreigner, I insist, is all right,
provided he is loyal to American laws and government. We have no
use for any other.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

XX.
A ROMANCE OF THE WAR.

This record of their life and conduct could not be brought to a more
appropriate close than by the recital of a touching romance of the
war, growing directly out of the work of the Sisters during that
crucial period. The episode upon which the story hinges gains added
interest from the fact that it constituted one of the actual
occurrences of the closing day of the war.
A few years before the first shot was fired upon Sumter a household
that was a perfect picture of domestic felicity existed in one of the
large cities of Kentucky. It consisted of four persons—father, mother,
son and daughter. The parents were in comfortable circumstances,
and in their life and conduct were all that the heads of a Christian
family should be. The son and daughter vied with one another in
performing those little acts of devotion and duty that go so far
toward making up the sum total of harmony and happiness that
should ever reign about the family hearthstone.

At the time our narrative begins the son was approaching his
twentieth year. He was a tall, handsome manly fellow, and by a
course of preparatory work was now about to begin the final years
of study at the West Point Military Academy. The daughter, a girl of
unusual intelligence and beauty, was two years the junior of her
brother. Hers was a devout nature, and choice and study led her to
adopt the habit of a Sister of Charity as the means for carrying out a
desire to be both useful and good during her transitory stay upon
this earth.

Just at this period death, by one of these inexplicable strokes which

can never be made quite clear to the human intellect, carried off
both parents. The devoted children of such a loving father and
mother were naturally prostrated at such an affliction. But they
rallied nobly, and grief only served to bring out the better qualities of
their nature. After all that was mortal of their dearest ones had been
consigned to the earth they calmly sat down and rationally discussed
their future plans.

The result was just what might have been expected. Both resolved
to carry out their original design. The parting was a sad one—the
man going to complete his knowledge of a soldier’s life—the woman
to her convent home to receive the final vows and to learn the last
lessons concerning the philosophy of charity in its sweetest and
grandest sense.
Many years passed and the brother and sister, in their widely
separated and totally different spheres of life, were as dead to one
another as if they had never lived under the same roof. The Civil War
with all of its horrors began. What had been the theoretical
discussions of cabinets and the political orations of legislators now
developed into the fierce and awful reality of war. It was no longer a
question of what might or could have been, the actual grim-visaged
monster with all of the hideous ills that follow was engaged in the
work of death and destruction.

Men volunteered their services. After them came the nurses. One of
these was Sister S——, from one of the Northern houses of the
Sisters of Charity. In order to expedite her mission of mercy it was
necessary that she should enter the service of the Federal
Government. The record of her daily life from that time forth was the
record of every member of the Catholic Sisterhood that served
during the war. Days of uninterrupted work; nights of ceaseless
watching.

Soon after the siege of Vicksburg word was telegraphed to Baltimore

that a corps of Sisters of Charity was needed at once to care for the
scores of sick and wounded then suffering in Louisiana. Only five
Sisters were available. They were sent at once, with Sister S—— in
command. They found travel seriously impeded from the start. This
fact caused the good Samaritans much anguish of mind, for the
summons they received said that many of the men would die unless
they had the immediate attendance of experienced nurses. When
the Sisters reached Chattanooga they found that a special train had
been provided for the purpose of rushing them with all possible
speed to the City of New Orleans. On this train there were also a
number of Union officers carrying important sealed orders from the
authorities at Washington to the men in charge of the Union forces
in what was known as the “Department of the Gulf.” Sisters and
officers were filled with conflicting emotions, but all had one object
in common—the desire to reach New Orleans at the earliest possible
moment. With the Sisters it was a race for life—for lives that might
be saved by their exertions. With the men it was a race for honor—
for promotion, perhaps for official commendation from the General
of the Army or the President of the United States.

Finally the train steamed into the Crescent City, and the officers
went to seek their commanders and the sisters their patients, who
were in a small town on the Mississippi River. Sister S—— divided
her small force of nurses with such rare good judgment and
executive ability that in twenty-four hours all of the sick and
wounded men were resting comfortably. Suddenly came the order to
depart and the Union troops all left the town, taking with them such
of the convalescent patients as were able to bear the strain of travel.
Twelve hours later a portion of the Confederate army entered the
town, bringing several hundred of their sick and wounded. Sister S
——, thinking that the call to duty in this instance was no less
imperative than it had been in the case of the Union men the day
before, started for the hospital, where the wounded Confederates
had been carried.

One of the Union surgeons who had remained behind with his
wounded men, placed a detaining hand upon her arm.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“To look after these men,” she replied.

“That is impossible,” he said. “You are in the service of the United

States Government, and you are are not permitted to serve under
the enemy. We have no objection to your nursing the wounded
Confederates, but it must be under the auspices of our generals. The
Union forces will probably regain possession of this town before
nightfall, and then you can wait upon both sides alike.”

“But I insist,” and the eyes of the usually mild-mannered Sister

sparkled as she stamped her foot in an emphatic manner. “I know
nothing of technical military rules, but I insist upon my right to nurse
these poor men.”
“I regret very much being placed in such a position,” said the
surgeon gently, “but I am here representing the Government.”

“And I,” responded the Sister, “am here representing something

greater than the Government.”

“What is that?” he asked in an incredulous tone.

“Humanity!” was the quiet reply.

The officer—a brave man obeying orders—did not utter another

word, but bowing his head opened the door and admitted the Sister
and her companions into the presence of the sick.

Scarcely a minute had elapsed when the surgeon heard the

heartrending shriek of a woman come from the interior of the
building. Rushing in he beheld the Sister kneeling beside a cot at the
far end of the room. The tears were pouring down her cheeks, but it
was evident that they were tears of joy. The bearded man upon the
cot was seriously wounded, but there was a placid expression upon
his countenance as he kissed the hands of the Sister.

Need this dramatic scene be explained to the reader. It was the son
and daughter mentioned in the beginning of this sketch—reunited
after years of separation. The one enlisted in the Confederate army,
the other a nurse serving under the Union Government. The sight
drew tears from rough soldiers who seldom betrayed emotion of any
character.

The Sister lavished every attention upon her wounded brother. What
would have been a solemn duty under any conditions now became a
work of love and affection. But it was all in vain. He had been
marked as a a victim by the grim destroyer. In a few days he
breathed his last, edified and consoled by the presence of his Sister
and all of the offices of religion.
Funerals from the hospital always occurred at night, and this was no
exception. But the obsequies of the young Confederate officer were
out of the ordinary. Every one about the hospital, and, indeed, in the
town, evinced a desire to do something as a mark of respect to
Sister S——. The moon was shining brightly on the night of the
interment, and it looked down upon a ghostly procession that
followed the body to its last resting place. Six convalescent soldiers
—three Union men and three Confederates, acted as pall-bearers.
The services of the church were conducted by the chaplain. Sister S
—— was the chief mourner. The other sisters followed with lighted
tapers. No one took more interest in the proceedings or did more for
the convenience of those concerned than the surgeon with whom
the Sister had the altercation a few days before. After the war the
Sister devoted herself to those works of charity and mercy, which to
a person with the desire and will are within reach in times of peace
as well as in times of war.
 PUBLISHER’S NOTICE.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

No book on the war, that has been published in recent years, has
met with a more generous reception than has been accorded by the
reading public to the “Angels of the Battlefield.” Congratulations and
expressions of good-will have come from all classes of persons.
Following will be found brief comments from letters and from notices
of the secular and religious press. These references are in most
cases mere excerpts from lengthy reviews of the book. Of course it
has been impracticable to publish quotations from all of the
newspapers, but those that are given are of a representative
character.

Archbishop Ryan’s Eloquent and Earnest Letter of Recommendation.

I beg to thank you for the copy of your book, “Angels of the
Battlefield,” which you were kind enough to send to me. I have read
it with great satisfaction and beg to congratulate you on your
success in presenting the touching and edifying scenes in which
Charity sent her Angels into both camps alike, to heal the sick and
console the dying, to chasten triumph and comfort defeat.

The mission of these “Angels of the Battlefield” was to remove the

strong prejudices that impeded the progress of the Church. It was
like the mission of Saints Peter and John to the poor lame man at
the porch that was called beautiful of Solomon’s temple. The nation,
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