CHAPTER VII.

SKETCH OF MRS. BICKERDYKE.

Mrs. Bickerdyke's amazing energy and futile expedients.-Laundries and bakeries.-Major-Gen. Buford.-Her refusal to nurse a MajorGeneral's son. Her call to the hospitals from Galesburg.—Mrs. B. and unfaithful ward-master in Brick Hospital, Cairo.-Her trips on hospital transports after battle at Pittsburg Landing.-Feat on the Fanny Bullet.-Sketch of the armada leaving Fort Henry.— « Mrs. B.'s hospital work at Savannah.-At Corinth.-Removal of hospital in the midst of the battle of Corinth.-Her work in smallpox hospital at Memphis. Her laundries at Memphis.—Her raid on Northern cows and hens for benefit of Memphis Hospital.-Her personal gifts to soldiers.-Her work at Huntsville.-Her work at Beaufort, Morehead City, Wilmington, and finally in Sherman's victorious army.

MOTHER, was the sobriquet of this extraordinary woman throughout the entire Western army. In General Sherman's old corps (the 15th) she seemed to be the individual mother of every man in the ranks. She was sui generis, and as such, can neither be described nor judged according to ordinary rules. In the rapid organization of a huge army there was necessarily much ignorance among its officials, of wise and necessary army routine. This want of knowledge and experience, bewildered and hampered even conscientious men, desirous to do their duty. In the rapid and numerous appointments, some unfaithful surgeons found place, who

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were arrogant and overbearing in proportion to their ignorance and lack of principle. The victims of incompetency and faithlessness were the "rank and file" of the army, who had no redress, but were reduced from individual, intelligent existence, to machines for military purposes.

These evils were the inevitable results of war suddenly precipitated on a peaceful people. In such exigencies God raises up individuals, in civil and military life, fit for pioneer work, with ability and zeal that raises them above their fellows, with gifts suited to the occasion. The subsoil of the prairie cannot be upturned by an ordinary machine, nor brooding pestilence scattered by the soft winds of heaven, "blow they never so sweetly." The successful prairie farmer must fall back on the prairie-plough, drawn by half a score of oxen, and the thunderbolt must scatter the pestilence that "walketh in darkness, and wasteth at noonday."

So in the army. When hospitals were rank with disease and death, foul with festering and unwashed wounds, and unclean garments, inexperienced surgeons stood aghast, and felt almost powerless to cleanse and purify; while arrogant, negligent, and merciless men fell back on army routine and technicalities, and said that soldiers, when they entered the army, must expect to die, and recovery from amputations must be the rare exception. The prairie-plough and the thunderstorm were needed, and they came, in the person of Mrs. Bickerdyke. A pythoness, if her precious boys, as she called them, were assaulted, she was gentle and tender as a loving mother, to every sick and wounded soldier. Woe be to the man, no matter what his rank, who trampled on the rights of the "Boys in Blue."

Faithful surgeons praised her, and relied upon her skill, strength, and tenderness. Those who were the reverse, cursed her, and clamored for her removal. No doubt, in doing her rapid and mighty work, she overturned some fair flowers of fragrant growth, and levelled well-built fences, perchance some beauteous spire; but after the ground was made fallow and the air purified, the wrecks were overlooked in view of the mighty resultant blessings. Her efforts not only saved unnumbered lives and mitigated untold suffering in her own hospitals, but, by the example they afforded to others, became schools of instruction.

Her huge, organized laundries saved hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Government and to the Sanitary Commission, by washing what would otherwise have been destroyed, to say nothing of the health and comfort they bestowed upon the sick. She was herculean in strength and indomitable in will, and possessed the most extraordinary endurance. She saw no lions in the way, admitted the existence of no obstacles-naming what others would regard as such, "cobwebs," and these, she demolished with nonchalant and invincible energy. The surgeons admitted that she had no rival in extemporizing, organizing, and running hospitals. By the fertility of her expedients she managed to supply even field-hospitals with soft bread, sometimes pies and cookies. The great military men-Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Thomas, Logan-were her firm friends, and supplied her with facilities to carry on her work-teams, detailed soldiers, and railroad transportation.

They became converts to her boldly-avowed and common-sense assertion that she "could no more take care of the

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sick without transportation for her stores and her appliances, than they could pound the enemy without rations and ammunition." Her great army-work was for the common soldier; but occasionally she condescended to an officer, and once in a long while to a major-general. Col., from Ohio, boasted that Mother Bickerdyke had saved his life, after a severe amputation, and treated him as well as a pri- · vate, even after she was told he was an officer.

Maj.-Gen. B told me, with glistening eyes, she had saved his life at Corinth. He had a terrific congestive chill; was laboring for breath, unrelieved by medicine, when he sent for Mrs. B—- as a last resort, knowing her unwillingness to leave the men who so much needed her services. "General," said she, "you must have a bath." "A bath!" he gasped; "that's impossible; there's no water within four miles." "Never you mind that," said she; "I'll get it" That was enough for the General, and he waited. In fifteen. minutes she appeared, with two soldiers, carrying a huge tub of steaming water. "Now, boys," she said, "strip the General, put him in the tub, cover him close with a blanket, and I will give him a drink." Her orders were promptly obeyed. She gave him a glass of hot toddy; then had him rubbed with dry, warm cloths, till circulation was restored, placed him in bed, surrounded with hot bricks, and Richard was himself again. I recently asked her the particulars of the case. They corresponded precisely with the General's statement, and she added with glee, "and he didn't know that I afterwards bathed sixteen tired, dirty, half-sick boys in the same water, adding a little hot each time, as all the water for the hospitals was hauled four miles."

The wife of one of our most distinguished military leaders at one time, sent for her to come and nurse her sick child. She replied, "I am sorry; but I can't do it. I came into the army to nurse the boys, not major-generals' children. The child has no business here, anyhow; he ought to be at home." After the close of the war, Mrs. B. was taking tea at the house of this officer, and he pointed to a little boy, saying, "Mrs. B., that is the child you refused to nurse, and said ought to be at home." She replied, "General, did I say right?" "You did," was the answer.

At the commencement of the war, Mrs. Bickerdyke was a widow, with two young sons, residing in Galesburg, Illinois. Dr. Woodruff, surgeon of 22d Regiment Illinois Volunteers, was from the same place, and wrote from below to his friends of the suffering of the army. The letter was read in church; she heard it. Being a famous nurse and housekeeper, with a tender, patriotic heart, Mrs. B. felt called upon to go. Her friends and neighbors agreed with her, and Mrs. Colton, of Galesburg, placed at her disposal five hundred dollars' worth of sanitary stores to take to the hospitals.

Her first army work was at Bird's Point, where, for a time, there was a regimental hospital. From that place she went to Fort Holt, thence to the Brick Hospital of Cairo, keeping in the track of the most important and needy hospitals, and constantly receiving more or less assistance from the NorthWestern Sanitary Commission, and friends in Illinois; also from Mr. and Miss Safford, of Cairo.

She soon discovered a disposition to misappropriate sanitary stores, and raised her first tempest in the Brick Hospital at Cairo. A fine box of supplies had been consigned to