Persistent Angels, Our Catholic Sisters, Memorialized

[JPK Huson 1863]

" "The Sisters," to quote an army chaplain, "do not have reunions or camp-fires to keep alive the memories of the most bloody lustrum in our history, but their war stories are as heroic, and far more edifying, than many the veterans tell. "

So I wasn't going to do this thread. The book entitled " Angels of the Battlefield " is an astonishing tribute to our Catholic Sisters during the war. It's also almost too matter of factly written, sans the usual, Victorian emphasis to do the topic justice- we do like our history graphic. It's a must-read anyway. I'm not sure it's understood what a heroic group of healers were they.

Heroic? Flouting regulations by insisting wounded wore neither blue or gray, taking on 500 wounded with only two Sisters, working until dying of exhaustion, dragging men back to life from that puddle of blood, on a pew inside Xavier's, at Gettysburg and finding it luxurious if a scattering of straw would be found to sleep on. Comforting men whose life was fading and burying them.

Bringing grace to the shambles we call war, they were called on by desperate governments unprepared for staggering violence and what it did to men.

" That genuine humility so characteristic of the Sisters has made the collection of the necessary data for this work very difficult. Most of the stories embodied in the pages that follow have been gathered by personal interviews, through examinations of various archives and records, and by an extensive correspondence with Government officials, veterans of the war and the superiors of convents and communities. It is impossible to enumerate all those who have iv aided in the work, but the writer desires to thank especially the Sisters to whom he is indebted for the chapters relating to the Sisters of Mercy who were with the Irish Brigade in the West, and to the Sisters of St. Joseph who were at Camp Curtin, in Harrisburg, Pa "
From author George Barton's foreword


First I heard the Sisters of St. Joseph were at Camp Curtain. We do this ' thing ' where we pick a couple of heroines and they stand in for hundreds of nameless. One convent of order alone buried a hundred Sisters. Compiling a list of women who died during the war is incredibly difficult, the Sisters swelling those numbers will be eye opening by any standards.

Hate to open an entire thread without much solid information. It's in this book, saved for us by Project Gutenberg. Please add it to your list, somewhere at the top, please.

One of my favorite era images, I do not know which order she was in, or typically, her name. Faces like this were the last thing hundreds of dying saw, or the first hope.

ANGELS OF THE BATTLEFIELD, A History of the Labors of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the Late Civil War. By George Barton.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57933/57933-h/57933-h.htm

 

[John Hartwell]

On Christmas Day, 1897, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat printed this admiring review of George Barton's book, Angels of the Battlefield, and tribute to the four orders of Catholic Sisters from over a dozen separate Communities known to have served in Civil War hospitals:

 

[donna]

They were true angels. There were many from Ky. and Cincinnati who served as nurses.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

They were true angels. There were many from Ky. and Cincinnati who served as nurses.

What's remarkable about our Sisters is that they simply ignored ' sides '. Men in need were men in need, no uniforms stood in the way of where they went between 1861 and 1865. Have yet to read a single problem arose- here and there some resistance by an officious officer. The Sisters ignored that, too.

This only made me smile because it didn't last long. NO idea what the story was, still looking! Very early, 1861

But- same newspaper, same day, this- they nursed anyway.

 

[connecticut yankee]

View attachment 205614 View attachment 205615

" "The Sisters," to quote an army chaplain, "do not have reunions or camp-fires to keep alive the memories of the most bloody lustrum in our history, but their war stories are as heroic, and far more edifying, than many the veterans tell. "

So I wasn't going to do this thread. The book entitled " Angels of the Battlefield " is an astonishing tribute to our Catholic Sisters during the war. It's also almost too matter of factly written, sans the usual, Victorian emphasis to do the topic justice- we do like our history graphic. It's a must-read anyway. I'm not sure it's understood what a heroic group of healers were they.

Heroic? Flouting regulations by insisting wounded wore neither blue or gray, taking on 500 wounded with only two Sisters, working until dying of exhaustion, dragging men back to life from that puddle of blood, on a pew inside Xavier's, at Gettysburg and finding it luxurious if a scattering of straw would be found to sleep on. Comforting men whose life was fading and burying them.

Bringing grace to the shambles we call war, they were called on by desperate governments unprepared for staggering violence and what it did to men.

" That genuine humility so characteristic of the Sisters has made the collection of the necessary data for this work very difficult. Most of the stories embodied in the pages that follow have been gathered by personal interviews, through examinations of various archives and records, and by an extensive correspondence with Government officials, veterans of the war and the superiors of convents and communities. It is impossible to enumerate all those who have iv aided in the work, but the writer desires to thank especially the Sisters to whom he is indebted for the chapters relating to the Sisters of Mercy who were with the Irish Brigade in the West, and to the Sisters of St. Joseph who were at Camp Curtin, in Harrisburg, Pa "
From author George Barton's foreword


First I heard the Sisters of St. Joseph were at Camp Curtain. We do this ' thing ' where we pick a couple of heroines and they stand in for hundreds of nameless. One convent of order alone buried a hundred Sisters. Compiling a list of women who died during the war is incredibly difficult, the Sisters swelling those numbers will be eye opening by any standards.

Hate to open an entire thread without much solid information. It's in this book, saved for us by Project Gutenberg. Please add it to your list, somewhere at the top, please.

View attachment 205621
One of my favorite era images, I do not know which order she was in, or typically, her name. Faces like this were the last thing hundreds of dying saw, or the first hope.

ANGELS OF THE BATTLEFIELD, A History of the Labors of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the Late Civil War. By George Barton.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57933/57933-h/57933-h.htm

The Sister in the photo is in the Sisters of Mercy order. The Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity were by far the largest two of the four Catholic orders of nuns to administer to soldiers in the ACW.