The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-21

The monument to Mother" Bicker- dyke, the great civil war nurse, Is to be erected st Galesburg by order of Illinois veterans who were Mother Bickerdyke's boys" forty years ago. Mrs. Theo Ruggles Kitson of Boston Is the sculptor.
 Small enough recognition is this postmortem monument to the woman who after the battle of Chickamauga wandered all night long in the rain with lantern among the dead and dy- ing on the bloody field to give relief where she could. She personally ex- amined every soldier she found who had been left for dead, If haply there might not be life in this or that one. as there really was in few cases. It is recorded, too, that in her own strong. tender arms she carried several sol- diers from field to hospital.
 And at Chickamauga or elsewhere the great, sweet mother heart of Mary A. Bickerdyke made no distinction be- tween blue and gray uniform:
 Love and tears for the blue.
 Tears and love for the gray
 It may give American women today something to think of to recall to them a little concerning one of the noblest of their sex and country. Priceless ss were her services during four of the most critical years of this republics history, Mother Bickerdyke's biogra- phy is not found in any of the ency- clopedias.
 She was born near Mount Vernon, O., in 1877. Very young she married and went to Illinois. Her husband died and left her with little children to rear. She was living in Galesburg at the out break of the wal in 1861. She at once began to aid in the collection Cf deli- cacies and articles useful fer sick and wounded soldiers. She went to Cairo with a train load of these supplies She was drawn steadily forward by her ex- ecutive ability no less than by her sympathy till she found herself assign ed as a war nurse. With the army at the battle of Fort Donelson she saw how far short of the need army hospi- tai accommodations were. She hurried north. awakened the sympathiss of the people for the soldiers and collected and poured southward supplies that could not be had among army stores.
 There was lack of fresh eggs and milk for the sick soldiers. Mother Bick- erdyke filled the need by gathering over 100 cows and more than 1000 hens and conveying them very much alive and ready for daily duty to the army hospitals where her suffering boys were. This unique enterprise was call- ed the "cow and hen mission.
 Next the hero woman established at Memphis a hospital accommodating B. 900 men. After that she was matron of the Gayoso Military hospital and next had sole charge of a Memphis smallpox hospital She went with Sherman down to the sea.
 Peace came at last to the troubled land in the spring of 1865. May 8 and 24 occurred in Washington the splendid historic review of 130,000 northern sol- diers about to return to their homes, long lines of blue, far as the eye could see, marching, marching. With those 130, 900 men was one woman. She wore calico dress and sunbonnet and rode on horseback beside the Illinois troops. The soldiers saw her; the vast throng of spectators saw her. She was rec ognized all along the lines of blue. Cheer upon cheer surged through the air; from thousands on thousands of throats went up the shout, "Mother"' And no wonder. for in those lines marched thousands who but for that great hearted mother would not have been there or indeed anywhere on this earth.
 And after that Mother Bickerdyke went back home and lived to the end of her days in a most humble. lowly way. And by not a dollar of reward by no token, not by even one word of thanks, < did the great and generous United Estates government ever give recogni- ztion of the priceless services sine had Hrendered the republic.
 Mrs. Kitson has represented the "mother'' as bending over a wounded Isoldier, giving him drink of water. SThe design is simple and noble. like it's Ssubject. Mrs. Kitson knows how to