Satterlee Hospital's Sisters, From Gettysburg To Philadelphia

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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Harpers certainly noted our women at work during the war. This double page spread featured the Sisters of Charity, by name. How lovely.

" Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the crowded wards of the hospitals, those of some Catholic Sisters were among the most efficient, more lovely than anything I had ever seen in art ... are the pictures that remain of these modest Sisters going on their errands of mercy among the suffering and the dying.”

A. Lincoln

Emmittsburg, Maryland, late June 1863. What looked like the entire Union Army camped on the grounds of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Sisters of Charity convent and earthly home. Father Francis Burlando, Seton priest, had little to do but work shoulder to shoulder with the Sisters, feeding 8,000 troops- climbing into a wagon scant days later , following them to Gettysburg where the Sisters continued their legendary work.

" Impossible to describe the condition of those poor wounded men. Generally the case where there is so much powder used, that they were covered with vermin … we could hardly bear this part of the filth.

Sister Camilla O’Keefe


It was their calling and fame, although ' fame ' followed them in the form of grace, wounded and healers alike carrying the word. The Sister of Charity brought grace to a mankind stripped down, to core ugliness and more vulnerable than at birth- meeting death.

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This habit is not Setons although may be that of a novice?


Then came Satterlee Hospital, Philadelphia. Bumped into Satterlee by accident years and years ago, a family connection is here. Already pulling out all the stops, a war time respite for exhausted and wounded men, Seton's Sisters and Satterlee Hospital together conspired to pull men back from death. Now the " Daughters of Charity ", 22 arrived at newly named Satterlee, a refurbished city hospital. Famed doctor Richard Satterlee had a huge hand in the conception of a

" a self-contained city when a tent city was built on the grounds in 1863. The hospital increased its capacity to accommodate 4,500 wounded soldiers. A 14-foot high fence surrounded the property, which now sprawled south to Baltimore Avenue and west to 46th Street. On the grounds there was a post office, clothing store, laundry facility, carpenter shop, printing shop, dispensary, library, and three kitchens referred to as restaurants. "
satt1.jpg

This is the Sisters while at Satterlee Hospital, Philadelphia

"After Gettysburg, they arrived by the thousands, swelling the hospital population to more than 6,000. During Gettysburg greatest number of wounded were admitted to the hospital in a month. August saw the greatest number of deaths , one per day. In one year, patients consumed 800,000 pounds of bread, 16,000 of butter and 334,000 quarts of milk."
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You never hear of him,; Father McCrane was the priest who had the honor od keeping up with the Sisters while in Philadelphia. These men also put themselves in harm's way- in a big way. Immigrants composed huge percentage of Sisters and Priests. Reading post-Gettysburg accounts of the hospital where priest, Sisters of Charity and Union and Confederate surgeons all worked together, St. Francis Xavier, no one cared who was what denomination.

"During the war, more than 100 Daughters of Charity passed through the doors of Satterlee, ministering to the wounded soldiers’ spiritual and medical needs. The tiny chapel was expanded to seat 400 . Many soldiers arrived hours before mass to obtain a seat. Several wounded soldiers contributed to outfit the chapel , purchasing a set of stations of the cross, taking g pains to decorate the chapel for feasts and special occasions. "

http://www.pahrc.net/tag/sisters-of-charity/
satterlee.jpg

I'll bet there are photos of Satterlee, misidentified as another hospital. It was huge, in the middle of a major city and cared for countless wounded. Somewhere exists a photograph.


Will refrain from my bad habit of being too wordy. . Besides, it is impossible to convey the importance and effectiveness of our Sisters. To this day the Catholic Church says little, typically, of their gifts to wounded men 150 years ago. There are some excellent articles, old and new, and links. Newspaper articles of the era are terrific not to mention journals from Gettysburg citizens and those who were cared for at Satterlee.

Links, info not included here.

http://www.friendsofclarkpark.org/about-clark-park/satterlee-hospital/
http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2016/11/west-philadelphias-satterlee-hospital-part-i/
http://catholicphilly.com/2014/10/n...-daughters-of-charity-mark-200-years-in-city/



 
View attachment 124620
View attachment 124621
Harpers certainly noted our women at work during the war. This double page spread featured the Sisters of Charity, by name. How lovely.

" Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the crowded wards of the hospitals, those of some Catholic Sisters were among the most efficient, more lovely than anything I had ever seen in art ... are the pictures that remain of these modest Sisters going on their errands of mercy among the suffering and the dying.”

A. Lincoln

Emmittsburg, Maryland, late June 1863. What looked like the entire Union Army camped on the grounds of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Sisters of Charity convent and earthly home. Father Francis Burlando, Seton priest, had little to do but work shoulder to shoulder with the Sisters, feeding 8,000 troops- climbing into a wagon scant days later , following them to Gettysburg where the Sisters continued their legendary work.

" Impossible to describe the condition of those poor wounded men. Generally the case where there is so much powder used, that they were covered with vermin … we could hardly bear this part of the filth.

Sister Camilla O’Keefe


It was their calling and fame, although ' fame ' followed them in the form of grace, wounded and healers alike carrying the word. The Sister of Charity brought grace to a mankind stripped down, to core ugliness and more vulnerable than at birth- meeting death.

View attachment 124619
This habit is not Setons although may be that of a novice?


Then came Satterlee Hospital, Philadelphia. Bumped into Satterlee by accident years and years ago, a family connection is here. Already pulling out all the stops, a war time respite for exhausted and wounded men, Seton's Sisters and Satterlee Hospital together conspired to pull men back from death. Now the " Daughters of Charity ", 22 arrived at newly named Satterlee, a refurbished city hospital. Famed doctor Richard Satterlee had a huge hand in the conception of a

" a self-contained city when a tent city was built on the grounds in 1863. The hospital increased its capacity to accommodate 4,500 wounded soldiers. A 14-foot high fence surrounded the property, which now sprawled south to Baltimore Avenue and west to 46th Street. On the grounds there was a post office, clothing store, laundry facility, carpenter shop, printing shop, dispensary, library, and three kitchens referred to as restaurants. "
View attachment 124617
This is the Sisters while at Satterlee Hospital, Philadelphia

"After Gettysburg, they arrived by the thousands, swelling the hospital population to more than 6,000. During Gettysburg greatest number of wounded were admitted to the hospital in a month. August saw the greatest number of deaths , one per day. In one year, patients consumed 800,000 pounds of bread, 16,000 of butter and 334,000 quarts of milk."
View attachment 124616
You never hear of him,; Father McCrane was the priest who had the honor od keeping up with the Sisters while in Philadelphia. These men also put themselves in harm's way- in a big way. Immigrants composed huge percentage of Sisters and Priests. Reading post-Gettysburg accounts of the hospital where priest, Sisters of Charity and Union and Confederate surgeons all worked together, St. Francis Xavier, no one cared who was what denomination.

"During the war, more than 100 Daughters of Charity passed through the doors of Satterlee, ministering to the wounded soldiers’ spiritual and medical needs. The tiny chapel was expanded to seat 400 . Many soldiers arrived hours before mass to obtain a seat. Several wounded soldiers contributed to outfit the chapel , purchasing a set of stations of the cross, taking g pains to decorate the chapel for feasts and special occasions. "
http://www.pahrc.net/tag/sisters-of-charity/
View attachment 124622
I'll bet there are photos of Satterlee, misidentified as another hospital. It was huge, in the middle of a major city and cared for countless wounded. Somewhere exists a photograph.

Will refrain from my bad habit of being too wordy. . Besides, it is impossible to convey the importance and effectiveness of our Sisters. To this day the Catholic Church says little, typically, of their gifts to wounded men 150 years ago. There are some excellent articles, old and new, and links. Newspaper articles of the era are terrific not to mention journals from Gettysburg citizens and those who were cared for at Satterlee.


Links, info not included here.

http://www.friendsofclarkpark.org/about-clark-park/satterlee-hospital/
http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2016/11/west-philadelphias-satterlee-hospital-part-i/
http://catholicphilly.com/2014/10/n...-daughters-of-charity-mark-200-years-in-city/


Thanks for posting this. The sisters pioneered notions of medical neutrality. Whether they were attached to Union or Confederate forces, they insisted on treating wounded men of both sides.
 
For those outside of the Philadelphia area, while nothing but a memorial stone is left of Satterlee Clark Park is actually a *nice* place to visit these days. The neighborhood volunteers have made an outstanding effort since the 1990s to clean up the place (see the root url of JPK's first link).
 
Thanks for posting this. The sisters pioneered notions of medical neutrality. Whether they were attached to Union or Confederate forces, they insisted on treating wounded men of both sides.


Yes, the description of their work when opening the doors of Francis Xavier, Gettysburg, is exactly this. Union and Confederate surgeons shared he same building- not happily. It was an uneasy peace, to be sure. The Sister had no sides- something attested to in Francis Xavier's famous stained glass window.
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Father Bandalero went back to Emmitsburg, to bring yet another wagon full of Sisters to St. Francis Xavier Church.

" There were gruesome sights all around. The sacred edifice was filled with suffering humanity. Groans and shrieks and cries of agony rent the air. In the little yard of the church stood the amputating tables and the surgeons at them, bedabbled with blood, were ceaseless in their work, whilst legs and arms deftly cut off, were being thrown upon an increasing pile."
J, Howard Wert, describing what the Sister of Charity saw and challenged
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Sister Camilla O'Keefe was there , "
The Catholic Church in Gettysburg was filled with sick and wounded... The soldiers lay on the pew seats, under them and in every aisle. They were also in the sanctuary and the gallery, so close together that there was scarcely room to move about. Many of them lay in their own blood... but no word of complaint escaped from their lips."

"The weather was extremely warm, and the vast number of the wounded made careful attention to their wounds impossible; and upon their arrival at the hospital many wounds were full of vermin, and in many cases gangrene had set in, and the odor was almost unbearable. The demand on our time and labor was so increased that the number of nurses seemed utterly inadequate and the hospital presented a pure picture of the horrors of war."
Sister Margaret Hamilton

" Doctors generally preferred to work with the nuns because many religious orders had been founded to care for the sick, and the Sisters had accumulated centuries of experience. By 1860, they ran 28 American hospitals, and were the only trained nurses in the nation. "

http://www.stfxcc.org/hospital.html

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Mother Ann Simeon Norris

One young nun, Sister Mary Serena Klimbiewicz, was washing the blood from the face of a seriously wounded soldier and was shocked to find it was her own brother, Thaddeus, whom she had not seen in years.



 
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