# Representative women of New England/Helen L. Gilson

​HELEN LOUISE GILSON, one of the noble band of army nurses who ministered to the soldiers of the Civil War in the hospitals and on the battlefields of the South, was born in Beston, November 22, 1835, and was educated in the public schools. Her parents were Asa, Jr., and Lydia (Cutter) Gilsori; her paternal grandparents, Asa, Sr., and Susan (Gragg) Gilson. Her grandfather Gilson was a native of Groton and a lineal descendant of Joseph^ Gilson, who was one of the original proprietors of that town.
Miss Gilson's mother died, a widow, in 1851, aged fifty-three. She was a daughter of Jonathan$^5$ and Lydia (Trask) Cutter, of West Cambridge (now Arlington), who were married m Lexington, September 15, 1788. Jonathan^ Cutter was a descendant of Richard$^1$ Cutter, of Cambridge (through William,$^2$ William,$^3$ and Jonathan$^4$). He died in 1813. He was probably the Jonathan Cutter of Charlestown who was registered as a private in Captain Harris's company at different dates in 1775. He died in 1813, and his widow in 1818 became the wife of one of his kinsmen, William Cutter, a Revolutionary soldier and pensioner.
Helen Louise Gilson was graduated from the Wells School on Blossom Street in 1852. In September of that year she entered the Girls' High and Normal School, one of the first pupils. She there continued her studies till her appointment as head assistant to Master James Hovey of the Phillips School. After teaching five years she resigned her position on account of ill health. Subsequently she was engaged as a private teacher for the children of the Hon. Frank B. Fay, then Mayor of Chelsea. She was of a deeply religious nature, imbued with the cheerful faith of Universalism, and was a member of the church in Chelsea, then under the pastoral charge of the Rev. Charles H. Leonard, now Dean of Tufts Divinity School.
The breaking out of the Civil War enkindled her patriotism, and it was through conversation with Dr. Leonard that she was led to form the purpose of becoming an army nurse. Her application to be allowed to serve in this capacity did not at once meet a favorable response, Miss Dorothea L. Dix, superintendent of army nurses, considering her too young to go to the front. She waited for a time, and directly after the evacuation of Yorktown Mr. Fay was prominently connected with the Sanitary Commission; and, realizing that she would be a valuable assistant in that service, he secured her a position on one of the hospital boats. She went from his house in Chelsea to the war, and was with Mr. Fay at all the principal battles. For several months her duties were confined to these boats, stationed at different points.
On September 18, 1862, a few hours after the battle of Antietam, she reached the field, remaining on duty there and at Pleasant Valley until the wounded had been taken to the general hospitals. November and December of the same year found her at work in the camps and hospitals near Fredericksburg, Va., during the campaign of General Burnside. In the spring of 1863 she was there again, being also at the battle of Chancellorsville and in the Potomac Creek hospital.
As stated in "Our Army Nurses," a volume compiled by Mary A. Holland, "when the army moved, she joined it at Manassas; but, ​HELEN L. GILSON ​ finding that her special diet supplies had been lost on the passage, she returned to Washing- ton, and went to Gettysburg, arriving a few hours after the last day^s fight. She worked here until the wounded had all been sent to Base Hospital. In October, November, and December, 1863, she worked in the hospitals on Folly and Morris Islands, South Carolina, when General Gilmore was besieging Fort Sumter. Early in 1864 she joined the army at Brandy Station, and in May went with the Auxiliary Corps of the Sanitary Commission to Fredericksburg, when the battle of the Wilderness was being fought."
She served in the tent, on the field, or in the hospitals at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chan- cellorsville, and Gettysburg. In the terrible campaigns of the Wilderness and in all the other engagements of the Army of the Potomac in 1864 and 1865 she labored unceasingly. She was often under fire and suffered many hardships, but with unselfish devotion, her only thought being that of duty.
William Howell Reed, in his book upon "Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomac," has much to say of Miss Gilson and her work, his first reminiscence being connected with Fredericksburg: "One afternoon just before the evacuation, when the atmosphere of our rooms was close and foul, and all were longing for a breath of cooler Northern air, while the men were moaning with pain or restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with pity for the sufferers, I heard a light step upon the stairs; and, looking up, I saw a young lady enter who brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and cheerful courage, so much fresh- ness, such an expression of gentle, womanly sympathy, that her mere presence seemed to revive the drooping spirits of the men and to give them new power of endurance through their long hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of another, a friendly word here, a gentle word and smile there, a tender sympathy with each prostrate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in his eyes his longing for home love and for the presence of some absent one, in those few moments hers was in- deed an angel ministry. Before she left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody, then some sweet or plaintive hymn to strengthen the fainting heart; and I remember how her notes penetrated to every part of the building. Soldiers with less painful wounds, from the rooms above, began to crowd out into the entries, and men from below crept up on their hands and knees, to catch every note and to receive of the benediction of her presence, for such it was to them. Then she went away. I did not know who she was, but I was as much moved and melted as any soldier of them all."
When the steamer containing the wounded and the membrrs of the Auxiliary Corps left Fredericksburg (it being necessary to evacuate the town) and reached Port Royal, they were besieged by negroes. They came in such numbers and were so earnest in their appeals for rescue that a government barge was appropri- ated for their use. Mr. Reed says: "A thousand were stowed upon her decks. They had an evening service of prayer and song, and the members of the corps went on board to witness it. When their song had ceased. Miss Gilson addressed them. She pictured the reality of freedom, told them what it meant and what they would have to do. No longer would there be a master to deal out the peck of corn, no longer a mistress to care for the old f)eople or the children. They were to work for them- selves, provide for their own sick, and support their own infirm; but all this was to be done under new conditions. . . . Then in the simplest language she explained the difference between their former relations with their master and their new relations with the Northern p)eople, showing that labor here was voluntary, and that they could only expect to secure kind employers by faithfully doing all they had to do. She counselled them to be truthful, economical, unselfish, and to guide their lives by kindly deeds."
Cold Harbor and City Point were scenes of Miss Gilson's labors, and then in company with Mrs. Barlow, wife of General Francis C. Barlow, she went to the front of Petersburg. They ministered there to the wounded of the Second and Eighteenth Army Corps. Afterward for several months Miss Gilson was at the Base Hospital at City Point. ​ "Up to this time," says Mr. Reed, "the colored troops had taken but a passive part in the campaign. They were now first brought into action in front of Petersburg, when the fighting was so desperately contested that many thousands were left upon the field. The wounded were brought down rapidly to City Point, where a temporary hospital had been provided. It was, however, in no other sense a hospital than that it was a depot for wounded men. There were defective management and chaotic confusion. The men were neglected, the hospital organization was imperfect, and the mortality was, in consequence, frightfully large. Their condition was horrible. The severity of the campaign in a malarious country had prostrated many with fevers; and typhoid, in its most malignant forms, was raging with increasing fatality.
"These stories of suffering reached Miss Gilson at a moment when the previous labors of the campaign had nearly exhausted her strength; but her duty seemed plain. There were no volunteers for the emergency, and she prepared to go. Her friends declared that she could not survive it; but, replying that she could not die in a cause more sacred, she started out alone. A hospital had to be created, and this required all the tact, finesse, and diplomacy of which a woman is capable. Official prejudice and professional pride had to be met and overcome. A new policy had to be introduced, and it had to be done without seeming to interfere. Her doctrine and practice always were instant, cheerful, and silent obedience to medical and disciplinary orders, without any qualification whatever; and by this she overcame the natural sensitiveness of the medical authorities.
"A hospital kitchen had to be organized upon the method of special diet; nurses had to learn her way, and be educated to their duties; while cleanliness, order, system, had to be enforced in the daily routine. Moving quietly on with her work of renovation, she took the responsibility of all changes that became necessary; and such harmony prevailed in the camp that her policy was vindicated as time rolled on. The rate of mortality was lessened, and the hospital was now considered the best in the department. This was accomplished by a tact and energy which sought no praise, but modestly veiled themselves behind the orders of officials. The management of her kitchen was like the ticking of a clock—regular discipline, gentle firmness, and sweet temper always. The diet for the men was changed three times a day, and it was her aim, so far as possible, to cater to the appetites of individual men.
"Her daily rounds in the wards brought her into personal intercourse with every patient, and she knew his special needs. At one time nine hundred men were supplied from her kitchen. The nurses looked for Miss Gilson's word of praise, and labored for it; and she had only to suggest a variety in the decoration of the tents to stimulate a most honorable rivalry among them, which soon opened a wide field for displaying ingenuity and taste, so that not only was its standard the highest, but it was the most cheerfully picturesque hospital at City Point."
It was more than an ordinary task to take charge of the colored hospital service, and the burden was greater than many men could endure. But Miss Gilson was equal to the emergency, and gained the love and respect of all who associated with her. Mr. Reed, who was a witness of her work, said: "As she passed through the wards, the men would follow her with their eyes, attracted by the grave sweetness of her manner, and when she stopped by some bedside, and laid her hand upon the forehead and smoothed the hair of some soldier, speaking some cheering, pleasant word, I have seen the tears gather in his eyes, and his lips quiver, as he tried to speak or touch the folds of her dress, as if appealing to her to listen while he opened his heart about his mother, wife, or sister, far away.
"And in sadder trials, when the life of a soldier whom she had watched and ministered to was trembling in the balance between earth and heaven, she has .seemed, by some special grace of the Spirit, to reach the living Christ and draw a blessing down as the shining way was opened to the tomb. I have seen such looks of gratitude from weary eyes, now brightened by visions of heavenly glory, the last of many recognitions of her ministry. Absorbed in her ​work, unconscious of the spiritual beauty which invested her daily life—whether in her kitchen, in the heat and overcrowding incident to the issues of a large special diet list, or sitting at the cot of some poor lonely soldier, whispering of the higher realities of another world—she was always the same presence of grace and love, of peace and benediction.
"I have been with her in the wards where the men have craved some simple religious service—the reading of Scripture, the repetition of a psalm, the singing of a hymn, or the offering of a prayer—and invariably the men were melted to tears by the touching simplicity of her eloquence."
In June, 1865, she was performing service in a hospital at Richmond, Va., and subsequently she worked with the same earnestness in schools for white and colored people in that city.
Returning to Massachusetts broken in health, she spent some time in a sanitarium. She was married October 11, 1866, to Hamilton Osgood. She died in Newton, Mass., April 20, 1868. The commemorative services, held in the Universalist Church in Chelsea on Sunday, April 26, were interesting and impressive, and attended by many friends, including soldiers and other army associates. Dr. Leonard, in his sermon from the text, "She hath done what she could," spoke of her beautiful life as complete in three stages—preparation, work, rest. Two hymns—"Nearer, my God, to Thee," and "Rest for the Weary"—were hymns that had been favorites with Miss Gilson: she had often sung them in the hospitals.
Among the appreciative words called forth by her passing were these, dated May 13, 1868, written by the Rev. Clay MacCauley, who had been an army chaplain. They are here copied from the Christian Register: "How well I remember her! We first met in Pleasant Valley, Md., October, 1862, soon after the battle of Antietam. She was then giving the wealth of her mind and heart to the sick and wounded soldiers in an old, cheerless log barn we tried to call a hospital. What a beautiful minister of goodness she was! There on that hard threshing-floor she could be seen constantly, often sitting beside the sick, speaking those words of comfort, smiling those sisterly smiles, reading those 'words of life,' singing those songs of home, country, and heaven, which gave to her the name, 'Sweet Miss Gilson.' We all loved her. I am sure she made home dearer, life purer, and heaven nearer to every one of us. When, as it happened so often, some spirit was about to be released from its bonds, she always took a place beside the dying one and received the farewell messages. Then, with her pale, uplifted face, always beautiful, but never so beautiful as when it lay back looking into the world to which she has herself now gone, she bore the departing soul by the power of faith to its rest. They were no false tears she shed. They were no false words she spoke. Never seemed touch more gentle than hers. Never seemed step so light. It was brightness at her coming and sadness at her going.
"She was brave as she was loving. I have seen her sit unmoved and silent in the midst of a severe cannonade while soldiers were fleeing for refuge. I have seen her almost alone in a contraband camp and hospital. In the midst of ignorance ill-suited to her, vice that must have been repugnant, and squalor in all its repulsiveness, she moved, an angel of mercy, loving and loved. She gave, in all her ministrations, health to the diseased, comfort, inspiration to the dying, strength to the timid, knowledge to the ignorant, and to the depraved the beauty of purity. . . . Her earthly life seemed but a type of the heavenly."
The author of the following heartfelt tribute, dated April 22, 1868, here quoted but in part, wrote from the privileged standpoint of long and intimate acquaintance.
H. L. G.
"To the memory of one whose years, measured by the sands of time, were few, not so when reckoned by the value of the loyal and royal service she performed.
"The writer knew her well, in the home, in society, and in the more trying experiences of the army hospital and the field; and in each position and in each relation he felt her goodness of heart and her greatness of soul. He loved her for what she has been to those near and dear to him, for what she has done for ​others, and for what she has tried to be to all. With his family there was no kinship of blood, but there grew up in those years of association with them in that home a higher relationship of reciprocal affection, appreciation, and trust.
"Her thoughtfulness, her gentleness, her dignity, and her playfulness showed the strong contrasts in her nature, which so singularly combined the child and the woman. She was charitable in judgment, ready to forgive those whose lips had questioned her fidelity or the purity of her motives, and equally ready to confess her faults. She often said, true affection does not make us blind; but, although keenly alive to the errors of those we love, we can the more readily pardon. With confidence in her ability to work in responsible positions, she was humble, and did not desire notoriety, declining always to furnish for publication any history of her army life.
"Her faculty in arranging a hospital, her tact in managing the patients and the soldier nurses, her ability to pray and sing with dying men, to conduct religious and funeral ceremonies, her adaptation to circumstances, her courage in hours of danger — all fitted her for the service she performed. ... In her presence the profane lip was silent, and she won the respect and love alike of friend and stranger, of the aged, of whom she was so thoughtful, and of the young, whom she so readily instructed and amused.
"Loving her Saviour, she loved the divinity in our humanity, and believed that all good thoughts, words, deeds, are divine; that we are but the channel through which they flow, and that the divine current is sure to deposit in our hearts the seeds of constant joy. This was the only reward she sought." ...—f. b. f.
The monument erected over her grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, Chelsea, bears this inscription:—
HELEN L. GILSON
A TRIBUTE FROM SOLDIERS
OF THE WAR OF 1861 TO 1865
FOR SELF-SACRIFICING LABORS
IN THE ARMY HOSPITALS
On each Memorial Day the monument is decked with flowers, and an appropriate service is conducted by the Woman's Relief Corps of East Boston. Truly a martyr to the Union cause, it is meet that she should be held in grateful, loving remembrance.