George Laurence Gomme

He would have been a man of uncommon sagacity and penetration, who in the beginning of 1861, should have chosen Mrs. Harris as capable of the great services and the extraordinary power of endurance with which her name has since been identified. A pale, quiet, delicate woman, often an invalid for months, and almost always a sufferer; the wife of a somewhat eminent physician, in Philadelphia, and in circumstances which did not require constant activity for her livelihood, refined, educated, and shrinking from all rough or brutal sights or sounds, she seemed one of those who were least fitted to endure the hardships, and encounter the roughnesses of a life in the camp or field hospitals.

But beneath that quiet and frail exterior, there dwelt a firm and dauntless spirit. She had been known by her neighbors, and especially in the church of which she was an honored member, as a woman of remarkable piety and devotion, and as an excellent and skilful attendant upon the sick. When the war commenced, she was one of the ladies who assembled to form the Ladies' Aid Society of Philadelphia, and was chosen, we believe unanimously, Corresponding Secretary. She seems to have entered upon the work from the feeling that it was a part of her duty, a sacrifice she was called to make, a burden which she ought to bear. And through the war, mainly from her temperament, which inclined her to look on the dark side, she never seemed stimulated or strengthened in her work by that abiding conviction of the final success of our arms, which was to so many of the patient workers, the day-star of hope. Like Bunyan's Master Fearing, she was always apprehensive of defeat and disaster, of the triumph of the adversary; and when victories came, her eyes were so dim with tears for the bereaved and sorrow-stricken, and her heart so heavy with their griefs that she could not join in the songs of triumph, or smile in unison with the nation's rejoicings. We speak of this not to depreciate her work or zeal, but rather to do the more honor to both. The despondent temperament and the intense sympathy with sorrow were constitutional, or the result of years of ill-health, and that under their depressing influence, with no step of her way lighted with the sunshine of joy, she should have not only continued faithful to her work, but have undergone more hardships and accomplished more, for the soldiers than most others, reflects the highest credit upon her patience, perseverance and devotion to the cause.

We have elsewhere in this volume given an account of the origin and progress of the Ladies' Aid Society, of Philadelphia. Mrs. Harris, though continued as its Corresponding Secretary through the war, was, during the greater part of the time, its correspondent in the field, and left to the other officers, the work of raising and forwarding the money and supplies, while she attended in person to their distribution. This division of labor seems to have satisfied her associates, who forwarded to her order their hospital stores and money with the most perfect confidence in her judicious disposition of both. Other Societies, such as the Penn Relief, the Patriotic Daughters of Lancaster, and Aid Societies from the interior of Pennsylvania, as well as the Christian and Sanitary Commissions, made her their almoners, and she distributed a larger amount of stores, perhaps, than any other lady in the field.

The history of her work during the war, is given very fully, in her correspondence with the Ladies' Aid Society, published in their semi-annual reports. From these we gather that she had visited in 1861, and the winter of 1862, before the movement of the army to the peninsula, more than one hundred hospitals of the army of the Potomac, in and around Washington, and had not only ministered to the physical wants of the sick and wounded men, but had imparted religious instruction and consolation to many of them. Everywhere her coming had been welcomed; in many instances, eyes dimmed by the shadow of the wings of the death-angel, saw in her the wife or mother, for whose coming they had longed and died, with the hallowed word "mother" on their lips.

When in the spring of 1862, the army of the Potomac moved to the Peninsula, Mrs. Harris went thither, first distributing as far as practicable, her stores among the men. Soon after her arrival on the Peninsula, she found ample employment for her time. The Chesapeake and Hygeia hospitals at Fortress Monroe, filled at first mostly with the sick, and the few wounded in the siege of Yorktown, were, after the battles of Williamsburg and West Point crowded with such of the wounded, both Union and Confederate soldiers as could be brought so far from the battle-fields. She spent two or three weeks here, aiding the noble women who were acting as Matrons of these hospitals. From thence she went on board the Vanderbilt, then just taken as a Government Transport for the wounded from the bloody field of Fair Oaks.

She thus describes the scene and her work:

"There were eight hundred on board. Passage-ways, state-rooms, floors from the dark and foetid hold to the hurricane deck, were all more than filled; some on mattresses, some on blankets, others on straw; some in the death-struggle, others nearing it, some already beyond human sympathy and help; some in their blood as they had been brought from the battle-field of the Sabbath previous, and all hungry and thirsty, not having had anything to eat or drink, except hard crackers, for twenty-four hours.

"The gentlemen who came on with us hurried on to the White House, and would have had us go with them, but something held us back; thank God it was so. Meeting Dr. Cuyler, Medical Director, he exclaimed, 'Here is work for you!' He, poor man, was completely overwhelmed with the general care of all the hospitals at Old Point, and added to these, these mammoth floating hospitals, which are coming in from day to day with their precious cargoes. Without any previous notice, they anchor, and send to him for supplies, which it would be extremely difficult to improvise, even in our large cities, and quite impossible at Old Point. 'No bakeries, no stores, except small sutlers.' The bread had all to be baked; the boat rationed for two days; eight hundred on board.

"When we went aboard, the first cry we met was for tea and bread. 'For God's sake, give us bread,' came from many of our wounded soldiers. Others shot in the face or neck, begged for liquid food. With feelings of a mixed character, shame, indignation, and sorrow blending, we turned away to see what resources we could muster to meet the demand. A box of tea, a barrel of cornmeal, sundry parcels of dried fruit, a few crackers, ginger cakes, dried rusk, sundry jars of jelly and of pickles, were seized upon, soldiers and contrabands impressed into service, all the cooking arrangements of three families appropriated, by permission, and soon three pounds of tea were boiling, and many gallons of gruel blubbering. In the meantime, all the bread we could buy, twenty-five loaves, were cut into slices and jellied, pickles were got in readiness, and in an incredibly short time, we were back to our poor sufferers.

"When we carried in bread, hands from every quarter were outstretched, and the cry, 'Give me a piece, O please! I have had nothing since Monday;' another, 'Nothing but hard crackers since the fight,' etc. When we had dealt out nearly all the bread, a surgeon came in, and cried, 'Do please keep some for the poor fellows in the hold; they are so badly off for everything.' So with the remnant we threaded our way through the suffering crowd, amid such exclamations as 'Oh! please don't touch my foot,' or, 'For mercy's sake, don't touch my arm;' another, 'Please don't move the blanket; I am so terribly cut up,' down to the hold, in which were not less than one hundred and fifty, nearly all sick, some very sick. It was like plunging into a vapor bath, so hot, close, and full of moisture, and then in this dismal place, we distributed our bread, oranges, and pickles, which were seized upon with avidity. And here let me say, at least twenty of them told us next day that the pickles had done them more good than all the medicine they had taken. The tea was carried all around in buckets, sweetened, but no milk in it. How much we wished for some concentrated milk. The gruel, into which we had put a goodly quantity of wine, was relished, you cannot know how much. One poor wounded boy, exhausted with the loss of blood and long fasting, looked up after taking the first nourishment he could swallow since the battle of Saturday, then four days, and exclaimed, with face radiant with gratitude and pleasure, 'Oh! that is life to me; I feel as if twenty years were given me to live.' He was shockingly wounded about the neck and face, and could only take liquid food from a feeding-cup, of which they had none on board. We left them four, together with a number of tin dishes, spoons, etc. After hours spent in this way, we returned to the Hygeia Hospital, stopping on our way to stew a quantity of dried fruit, which served for supper, reaching the Hygeia wet through and through, every garment saturated. Disrobed, and bathing with bay rum, was glad to lie down, every bone aching, and head and heart throbbing, unwilling to cease work where so much was to be done, and yet wholly unable to do more. There I lay, with the sick, wounded, and dying all around, and slept from sheer exhaustion, the last sounds falling upon my ear being groans from the operating room."

Her ministrations to the wounded on the Vanderbilt were unexpectedly prolonged by the inability of the officers to get the necessary supplies on board, but two days after she was on the Knickerbocker, a Sanitary Commission Transport, and on her way to White House Landing where in company with Miss Charlotte Bradford, she spent the whole night on the Transport Louisiana, dressing and caring for the wounded. When she left the boat at eleven o'clock the next night she was obliged to wash all her skirts which were saturated with the mingled blood of the Union and Confederate soldiers which covered the floor, as she kneeled between them to wash their faces. She had torn up all her spare clothing which could be of use to them for bandages and compresses. From White House she proceeded to the battle-ground of Fair Oaks, and presently pitched her tent on the Dudley Farm, near Savage Station, to be near the group of field hospitals, to which the wounded in the almost daily skirmishes and the sick smitten with that terrible Chickahominy fever were sent.

The provision made by the Medical Bureau of the Government at this time for the care and comfort of the wounded and fever-stricken was small and often inappropriate. Where tents were provided, they were either of the wedge pattern or the bivouacking tent of black cloth, and in the hot sun of a Virginia summer absorbed the sun's rays till they were like ovens; many of the sick were put into the cabins and miserable shanties of the vicinity, and not unfrequently in the attics of these, where amid the intense heat they were left without food or drink except when the Sanitary Commission's agents or some of the ladies connected with other organizations, like Mrs. Harris, ministered to their necessities. One case of this kind, not by any means the worst, but told with a simple pathos deserves to be quoted:

Of the scenes of the retreat from the Chickahominy to Harrison's Landing, Mrs. Harris was an active and deeply interested witness; she remained at Savage Station caring for the wounded, for some time, and then proceeded to Seven Pines, where a day was passed in preparing the wounded for the operations deemed necessary, obtaining, at great personal peril, candles to light the darkness of the field hospital, and was sitting down, completely exhausted with her trying and wearisome labors, when an army chaplain, an exception it is to be hoped to most of his profession, in his unwillingness to serve the wounded, came to her and said, "They have just brought in a soldier with a leg blown off; he is in a horrible condition; could you wash him?" Wearied as she was, she performed the duty tenderly, but it was scarcely finished when death claimed him. Her escape to White House, and thence to Harrison's Landing, was made not a minute too soon; she was obliged to abandon her stores, and to come off on the steamer in a borrowed bonnet.

At this trying time, her constitutional tendency to despondency took full possession of her. "The heavens are filled with blackness," she writes; "I find myself on board the Nelly Baker, on my way to City Point, with supplies for our poor army, if we still have one; I am not always hopeful, you see. *** Alarming accounts come to us. Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. We do not doubt we are in a very critical condition, out of which only the Most High can bring us." This is not the language of fear or cowardice. There was no disposition on her part to seek her own personal safety, but while she despaired of success, she was ready to brave any danger for the sake of the wounded soldiers. This courage in the midst of despair, is really greater than that of the battle-field.

The months of July and August, 1862, except a brief visit home, were spent at Harrison's Landing, amid the scenes of distress, disease, wounds and suffering, which abounded there. The malaria of the Chickahominy swamps had done much to demoralize the finest army ever put into the field; tens of thousands were ill with it, and these, with the hosts of wounded accumulated more rapidly than the transports, numerous as they were, could carry them away. Their condition at Harrison's Landing was pitiable; the medical bureau seemed to have shared in the general demoralization. The proper diet, the necessary hospital arrangements, everything required for the soldiers' restoration to health, was wanting; the pasty, adhesive mud was everywhere, and the hospital tents, old, mildewed, and leaky, were pitched in it, and no floors provided; hard tack, salt junk, fat salt pork, and cold, greasy bean soup, was the diet provided for men suffering from typhoid fever, and from wounds which rendered liquid food indispensable. Soft bread was promised, but was not obtained till just before the breaking up of the encampment. Nor was the destitution of hospital clothing less complete. In that disastrous retreat across the peninsula, many of the men had lost their knapsacks; the government did not provide shirts, drawers, undershirts, as well as mattresses, sheets, blankets, etc., in anything like the quantity needed, and men had often lain for weeks without a change of clothing, in the mud and filth. So far as a few zealous workers could do it, Mrs. Harris, and her willing and active coadjutors sought to remedy these evils; the clothing, and the more palatable and appropriate food they could and did provide for most of those who remained. Having accomplished all for these which she could, and the army having left the James River, after spending a few days at the hospitals near Fortress Monroe, Mrs. Harris came up the Potomac in one of the Government transports, reaching Alexandria on the 31st of August. Here she found ample employment in bestowing her tender care upon the thousands of wounded from Pope's campaigns.

On the 8th of September, she followed, with her supplies, the army on its march toward South Mountain and Antietam. She reached Antietam the day after the battle, and from that time till the 3rd of November, aided by a corps of most devoted and earnest laborers in the work of mercy, among whom were Mrs. M. M. Husband, Miss M. M. C. Hall, Mrs. Mary W. Lee, Miss Tyson, and others. Mrs. Harris gave herself to the work of caring for the wounded. Sad were the sights she was often called to witness. She bore ample testimony to the patience and the uncomplaining spirit of our soldiers; to their filial devotion, to the deep love of home, and the dear ones left behind, which would be manifested in the dying hour, by brave, noble-hearted men, and to the patriotism which even in the death agony, made them rejoice to lay down their lives for their country.

Early in November, 1862, Mrs. Harris left Smoketown General Hospital, near Antietam, and came to Washington. In the hospitals in and around that city thirty thousand sick and wounded men were lying, some of them well and tenderly cared for, some like those in the Parole and Convalescent Camps near Alexandria, (the "Camp Misery" of those days), suffering from all possible privations. She did all that she could to supply the more pressing needs of these poor men. After a few weeks spent in the vicinity of the Capitol, news of the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg came to Washington. Though deeply depressed by the intelligence, she hastened to the front to do what she could for the thousands of sufferers. From this time till about the middle of June, 1863, Mrs. Harris had her quarters in the Lacy House, Falmouth, and aided by Mrs. Beck and Mrs. Lee, worked faithfully for the soldiers, taking measures to relieve and cure the ailing, and to prevent illness from the long and severe exposures to which the troops were subject on picket duty, or special marches, through that stormy and inclement winter. This work was in addition to that in the camp and field hospitals of the Sixth Corps. Another part of her work and one of special interest and usefulness, was the daily and Sabbath worship at her rooms, in which such of the soldiers as were disposed, participated. The contrabands were also the objects of her sympathy and care, and she assembled them for religious worship and instruction on the Sabbath.

But the invasion of Pennsylvania was approaching, and she went forward to Harrisburg, which was at first thought to be threatened, on the 25th of June. After two or three days, finding that there was no probability of an immediate battle there, she returned to Philadelphia, and thence to Washington, which she reached on the 30th of June. The next three days were spent in the effort to forward hospital stores, and obtain transportation to Gettysburg. The War Department then, as in most of the great battles previously, refused to grant this privilege, and though she sought with tears and her utmost powers of persuasion, the permission to forward a single car-load of stores, she was denied, even on the 3rd of July. She could not be restrained, however, from going where she felt that her services would be imperatively needed, and at five P. M., of the 3rd of July, she left Washington carrying only some chloroform and a few stimulants, reached Westminster at four A. M., of the 4th, and was carried to the battle-field of Gettysburg, in the ambulance which had brought the wounded General Hancock to Westminster. The next week was spent day and night amid the horrors of that field of blood, horrors which no pen can describe. That she and her indefatigable aid, (this time a young lady from Philadelphia), were able to alleviate a vast amount of suffering, to give nourishment to many who were famishing; to dress hundreds of wounds, and to point the dying sinner to the Saviour, or whisper words of consolation to the agonized heart, was certain. On the night of the 10th of July, Mrs. Harris and her friend Miss B. left for Frederick, Maryland, where a battle was expected; but as only skirmishing took place, they kept on to Warrenton and Warrenton Junction, where their labors were incessant in caring for the great numbers of wounded and sick in the hospitals. Constant labor had so far impaired her health, that on the 18th of August she attempted to get away from her work for a few days rest; but falling in with the sick men of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, she went to work with her usual zeal to prepare food and comforts for them, and when they were supplied returned to her work; going to Culpepper Court House, where there were four hospitals, and remaining there till the last of September.

The severe battle of Chickamauga, occurring on the 19th and 20th of September, roused her to the consciousness of the great field for labor, offered by the Western armies, and about the 1st of October, she went to Nashville, Tennessee, taking her friends Miss Tyson and Mrs. Beck with her. It was her intention to go on to Chattanooga, but she found it impossible at that time to procure transportation, and she and her friends at once commenced work among the refugees, the "poor white trash," who were then crowding into Nashville. For a month and more they labored zealously, and with good results, among these poor, ignorant, but loyal people, and then Mrs. Harris, after a visit to Louisville to provide for the inmates of the numerous hospitals in Nashville, a Thanksgiving dinner, pushed forward to the front, reaching Bridgeport, on the 28th of November, and Chattanooga the next day. Here she found abundant work, but her protracted labors had overtasked her strength, and she was for several weeks so ill that her life was despaired of. She was unable to resume her labors until the latter part of January, 1864, and then she worked with a will for the half starved soldiers in the hospitals, among whom scurvy and hospital gangrene were prevailing. After two months of faithful labor among these poor fellows, she went back to Nashville, and spent four or five months more among the refugees. She returned home early in May, 1864, hoping to take a brief period of rest, of which she was in great need; but two weeks later, she was in Fredericksburg, attending to the vast numbers of wounded brought from the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, and followed on with that sad procession of the wounded, the dead, and the dying, to Port Royal, White House, and City Point. Never had been there so much need for her labors, and she toiled on, though suffering from constant prostration of strength, until the close of June, when she was obliged to relinquish labor for a time, and restore the almost exhausted vital forces. In September, she was again in the field, this time with the Army of the Shenandoah, at Winchester, where she ministered to the wounded for some weeks. She was called home to attend her mother in her last illness, and for three or four months devoted herself to this sacred duty. Early in the spring of 1865, she visited North Carolina, and all the sympathy of her nature was called out in behalf of the poor released prisoners from Andersonville and Salisbury, to whom she ministered with her usual faithfulness. At the close of the war, she returned to her home, more an invalid than ever from the effects of a sun-stroke received while in attendance on a field hospital in Virginia.