The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-04-21

storm more than twenty-four hours
without relief, she went up to the fort
on the hospital boat to take charge of
them in transitu. She accompanied
and attended five boatloads of these
freshly-wounded men to Paducah,
Cairo, Mound City, Evansville and
Louisville. What superhuman strength
and endurance, executive ability and
fertile genius such work at such a
time required cannot be comprehended
by any who have not witnessed such
scenes and worked upon hospital trans
ports.
after depositing her precious but
heartrending freights, she accompanied
the Twenty-lirst Regiment of Indiana
Volunteers to Pittsburg Landing, to
take charge of their hospital. With
wonderful forethought and resolution,
appreciated only by those who have
seen the filthy and offensive cast-off
clothing of wounded men, she had all
of this material in use, after the battle
of Donelson, boxed up and placed on
the boat. After the Twenty-first In
diana disembarked she succeeded in
having an order issued for the boat to
back down to Savannah with these hide
Gus boxes. She there assorted them
herself, and had many thousands of
pieces washed by contrabands hired for
the purpose. This clothing was thor
oughly dried and repacked, in readi-
ness for the bloody battle of Shiloh,
where it proved to be of untold value"
At Memphis, the following year,
"the smallpox hospital had become a
charnel-house, and there seemed none
to regenerate it. Nine men lay in the
dead house, and numbers were on the
road to Join them. The medical drec-
tor consulted with Mrs. Bickerdyke.
She at once proposed to enter and pu-
rify it. He objected on the score of
her overwhelming duties; for, in addl-
ton to her hospital labors, she was
running laundry that washed all the
clothes of the hospitals at Memphis.
She said, in reply, that the hospitals
were running so finely that she could
be spared few weeks; and as to the
infection, she pledged herself that it
should not spread The doctor had
learned to trust her, and gladly con-
scented. She at once took charge of
the revolving place, ran the prairie
pillow through the filthy grounds and
out-houses, overturning cots and dis
embowelng foul beds, let in the air
and light of heaven, whitewashed the
walls, cleansed the men, supplied them
with fresh clothing and wholesome
sick-food, scattered disinfectants broad
cast, and in a few weeks had pure,
clean hospital, where few men died,
and all were made as comfortable as
the loathsome disease would permit.
"She remained with Sherman's
army during the entire series of its
brilliant victories and bloody fights, re-
ceiving and caring for its wounded,
running and consolidating hospitals
and experimenting laundries.
She superintended the cooking of hun
dreds of tons of sanitary stores and
vegetables. Sometimes, when trans
portation was impossible and forages
unsuccessful, she sold the clothes that
had been sent by the sanitary commits
sion to make her comfortable for but
ter, eggs and milk for the hospitals.
If, in her journeys, she found men suf-
fering from wounds fostering for lack
of clean bandages, her own clothing
was torn into strips, and her own night
dresses taken for clean covering for
the poor emaciated soldiers. No ext
gencies baflled her skill and self-denial."
Such work, read of to-day as having
been done by woman, seems almost
incredible. Mrs. Bickerdyke is still
living, and since the war has supported
herself by the work of her own hands.
AS she is now over seventy years OF
age, it is thought by her friends that
she should be pensioned by the govern
ment and thus relieved from further la
Dor. Among the western soldiers she
is tenderly known and revered az
Mother" Bickerdyke. To uni
the Grand Army posts of that section
desire that she should be pensioned
Generals Grant and Sherman have
both testified to her invaluable serv
ices. Christian Register.