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CHAPTER XXV....continued
Such was the effect produced by the Sisters on the minds of the patients in their charge, that when wounded or sick a second time, they would make every possible effort to go back to the same hospital in which they had been previously cared for. or, if that were not possible, to one under the management of these good women. Instances have been told of wounded men who travelled several hundred miles to come again under the charge of the Sisters; and one, in particular, of two men from Kentucky, who had contrived to make their way to the large hospital at White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, a distance of 200 miles from where they had been wounded. They had been under the care of the Sisters on a former occasion, and had then agreed that should they ever be wounded or fall sick again, they would return to the same hospital, and if they were to die, that they should die in the faith of the Sisters who had been so good to them. Both these men were American Protestants, and had never seen a Catholic priest before they beheld the clergyman who received them into the Church in the Virginian hospital. One of the two men was past cure, and was conscious of his approaching death. 'Ben,' said the dying man to his comrade, 'all is right with me--I am happy; but before I die, let me have the satisfaction of seeing you become a Catholic.' Ben willingly consented to what he had before resolved on doing, and he was received into the Church in the presence of his dying friend, over whose features there stole a sweet smile, that did not depart even in death.
'Oh, my God! what's that? what's that?' shrieked a poor Southern boy, when he first saw a Sister, as she leaned over his hospital pallet. His terror was equalled only by his genuine horror when he discovered she was a Catholic. Soon, however, his eyes would wander round the ward in search of the nurse with the sweet smile, the gentle voice, and the gentler word. Like many of his class, he was utterly ignorant of religion of any description; he disliked 'Papists,' and he thought that sufficed for every spiritual purpose. At length he wished to be baptized in the Sister's faith, and his instruction was commenced. He was told he should forgive his enemies. 'Am I to forgive the Yankees?' he asked, with indignant eagerness. 'Certainly,' replied the Sister, 'you must forgive everybody,' 'Ma'am, no--not the Yankees!--no, ma'am--not the Yankees!--I can't.' 'But you must forgive your enemies, or you can't be a Christian. God forgave those who put Him to death,' persisted the Sister. 'Well, Sister, as you ask me to do it, I will forgive the Yankees; but 'tis hard to do it though, I tell you.'
'Before we left Vicksburg to attend the hospitals,' says a Sister, 'many of the Irish soldiers returned dreadfully wounded from the battle of Shiloh, where our pastor, who had gone to assist their dying moments, said they had fought, "not like men, but like indomitable lions." We had many brave Irish patients, but our principal experience in hospital lay amongst Creoles, or soldiers from the country parts of the South, whose horror of Sisters at first (grounded on their ignorance), formed a strange contrast to their subsequent grateful affection.'
'They shrank from us with looks of horror and loathing, as if we were something full of evil,' remarked a Sister, whose name was famous for skill, and an energy that excited the amazement of those who beheld her in the management of a great hospital. Many a letter, replete with gratitude and veneration, came to that Sister from all parts of the States, North and South, and not a few from those who at first regarded her 'with looks of horror and loathing, as if she were full of evil.'
The doctors were not one whit behind the humblest soldiers in ignorant dislike of the Sisters.
A Federal doctor was at first inclined to be rude and uncivil to the Sisters in a crowded Southern hospital, then in possession of the forces of the Union, and occasioned them no little anxiety by his manner, it was so full of evident dislike and suspicion. They wisely took no notice of it, but devoted themselves the more sedulously to their arduous duties. At the end of a few weeks, by which time his manner had become kind and respectful, the doctor candidly confessed to one of the Sisters what his feelings had been, and how completely they were changed. 'I had such an aversion to Catholics,' said he, 'that I would not tolerate one of them in an hospital with me. I had heard of the Sisters, but I was resolved not to have anything to do with them in any place in which I had control. I confess to you my mind is entirely changed; and so far from not wishing to have Sisters in an hospital where I am, I never want to be in an hospital where they are not.'
The officials were, if possible, still more suspicious, still more prejudiced.
'I used to be up at night watching you, when I should have been in my bed. I wanted to see what mischief you were after, for I thought you had some bad motive or object, and I was determined to know what it was. I could find nothing wrong, but it was a long time before I could believe in you, my prejudice against you was so strong. Now I can laugh at my absurd suspicions, and I don't care telling you of my nonsense.' This speech was made by the steward of an hospital to Sisters to whom he had given much trouble by his manner, which seemed to imply--'You are humbugs, and I'll find you out, my ladies! clever as you think you are.' He was a good but prejudiced man; and once that he was convinced how groundless were his suspicions, he not only treated the Sisters with marked respect, but became one of their most strenuous and valuable supporters.
A doctor of the Federal service, who was captured at the battle of Shiloh, said to a Catholic Bishop,---'Bishop, I was a great bigot, and I hated the Catholics; but my opinions are changed since this war. I have seen no animosity, but fraternal love, in the conduct of the priests of both sides. I have seen the same kind offices rendered without distinction to Catholic soldiers of the North and South. The very opposite with Protestant chaplains and soldiers.'
'What conclusion did you draw from this?--these Catholics are not Freemasons,' said the Bishop.
'Well,' replied the doctor, 'I drew this from it--that there must be some wonderful unity in Catholicity which nothing can destroy, not even the passions of war.'
'A very right inference,' was the Bishop's rejoinder.
An officer who was brought in wounded to an hospital at Obanninville, near Pensecola, which was under the care of Sisters, asked a friend in the same hospital what he would call 'those women'--how address them? 'Call them "Sisters,"' replied his friend. 'Sisters! They are no sisters of mine; I should be sorry if they were.' 'I tell you, you will find them as good as sisters in the hour of need.' 'I don't believe it,' muttered the surly patient. Owing, in a great measure, to the care of his good nurses, the officer was soon able to leave the hospital strong in body as well as improved in mind. Before he was well enough to leave, he said to his friend,--'Look here! I was always an enemy to the Catholic Church. I was led to believe by the preachers that these Sisters--both nuns and priests--were all bad. But when I get out of this, I be God darned if I don't knock the first man head over heels who dares say a word against the Sisters in my presence!' He was rough, but thoroughly honest.
During the war, a number of the Sisters were on their way to an hospital, to the care of which they had been urgently called, and, as the train remained stationary at one of the stopping-places on the route, their dress excited the wonder and ridicule of some thoughtless idlers, who entered the car and seated themselves opposite to, but near, the objects of their curiosity, at whom they looked and spoke in a manner far from complimentary. The Sisters bore the annoyance unflinchingly. But there was assistance nearer than they or their cowardly tormentors supposed. A stout man, bronzed and bearded, who had been sitting at one end of the car, quietly advanced, and placing himself in front of the ill-mannered offenders, said, 'Look here, my lads! You don't know who these ladies are; I do. And if you had been, like me, lying sick and wounded on an hospital bed, and been tended night and day by those ladies, as I was, you'd then know them and respect them as well as I do. They are holy women. And now, if you don't, every one of you, at once quit this car, I'll call the conductor, and have you turned out; and if you say one word more, I'll whip you all when I have you outside.' The young fellows shrank away abashed, as much perhaps at the justice of the rebuke as at the evident power by which, if necessary, it would have been rendered still more impressive.
It was a touching sight to witness the manner in which soldiers who had experienced the devotedness of the Sisters to the sad duties of the hospital, exhibited their veneration for these 'holy women.' Did the Sisters happen to be in the same car with the gallant fellows, there was not one of them who did not proffer his place to the Sister, and who did not feel honoured by her acceptance of it. Maimed, lopped of limb, scarcely convalescent, still there was not a crippled brave of them who would not eagerly solicit the Sister to occupy the place he so much required for himself. 'Sister, do take my seat; it is the most comfortable.' 'Oh, Sister, take mine; do oblige me.' 'No, Sister! mine.' Sweet was the Sister's reward as, in their feeble but earnest tones of entreaty, and the smiles lighting up pale wan faces, she read the deep gratitude of the men who had bled for what each deemed to be the sacred cause of country. Wherever the Sister went, she brought with her an atmosphere of holiness. At the first sight of the little glazed cap, or the flapping cornet, or the dark robe, or at the whisper that the Sister was coming or present, even the profane and the ribald were hushed into decent silence.
As a company of Confederate prisoners were marched through Washington, a Sister of Mercy who was passing was arrested by the exclamation, 'There she is! That's she! I owe my life to her. She attended me in the hospital. Oh, Sister!' The Sister approached, and as the prisoners were passing, the one who used these words rapidly dropped something into her hand. It was less than the widow's mite--it was a regimental button! But it was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered, as a memorial; and as such, I know, it is cherished.
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